Apmoss: great post! Thank you!

As an update: Got a little advice from a pro and changed up my form during this evening's swim. I'm now doing 50 meters in 47-48 seconds without going too hard. On a 100 meter swim I'm breathing every other stroke for almost 75 meters, then once every stroke. On my first 100 I gave too much effort and was able to complete it in 1 minute, 20 seconds...too fast. But what I noticed is what another poster identified: my fitness isn't where it should be. I need to work hard on that. Next tri is 6/15. Thanks for all the sage advice!

I average (in a pool) about 9 minutes over 400 meters in a full suit.

Something doesn't add up, unless you had really serious stroke flaws that instantaneously got fixed.


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Right, I was approaching my freestyle stroke incorrectly. I was moving very inefficiently. I have a bad habit of trying to kick too forcefully, among other things. I was taught a different method of kicking, a different way to enter my arms into the water, to focus on raising my upper back out of the water with each stroke (instructed to "dig into the water".) Also a different way to breath. It all added up very quickly and reduced my 50 meter time to around 48 seconds. Now, I'll say that because I'm not as fit with the swim, I don't think I can keep that pace up for a consistent 400 meters. I'll likely see my time worsen with each 100 meters. I also think I was incorrect about my 9 minutes over 400 meters. I was more towards 10 minutes.

For comparison: in a 50m pool, a 400m swim as a warmup will take me around 7:00. As part of a set, I'll do a 400m in 6:30 or under. At the end of a ~1500m workout, I'll do an "all-out" 100m in...1:20.
No wetsuit involved.

Argoman

Your numbers do not make sense so its a bit hard to give some pointers on wher you can fix things up

You can do 47-48 for a 50m and a 1:20 for a 100m. A 1:20 is actually faster than 47-48 for a 50. Is this all in the same pool, a meters pool or a yards pool?

And then you can only do 9 or 10 minutes in a full wetsuit for a 400m?

Are the times above with or without a wersuit?

Assuming these are not just your numbers you get when you are doing a full out sprint, and you are seriously dropping off from 1:20 per 100m to 2:30 per 100 when you go out to 400m, you just need to slow things down. Slow things down a lot.... Your pacing doesn't make any sense if those numbers are true.

Just as a rough comparison, you would probably expect someone to swim a hard 400m about 10 to 15 seconds per 100 slower than a hard 100m. So say your 50m is 45 seconds, your 100m is 1:35, you'd expect that the 400 would be around 7 minutes or so . Not as much of a drop off as what you've got.

Argoman

Your numbers do not make sense so its a bit hard to give some pointers on wher you can fix things up

You can do 47-48 for a 50m and a 1:20 for a 100m. A 1:20 is actually faster than 47-48 for a 50. Is this all in the same pool, a meters pool or a yards pool?

And then you can only do 9 or 10 minutes in a full wetsuit for a 400m?

Right, so I was doing 9-10 minutes in a wet suit for 400 meters, but I was going along at a slower pace. I've taken some coaching and have greatly improved my time using about the same pace (maybe a bit more effort, actually.) When I was timed doing a few 50's, I was averaging the 47-48 seconds. When I started doing timed 100s my time came down, but it was because I was over exerting myself. I felt it to. And it turns out that I've been using a pool measured in yards, not meters. I just assumed it was meters.

I think it comes down to lots of practicing with a proper swim strokes and breathing, and lots more work on the fitness.

I don't have anything constructive to add to what has already been said, but anecdotally whenever I try to convince my friends to race, since they can run and bike, and "swim", I never tell them what the race swim is like because I would have to generally sum it up as "chaos". No matter how I'm feeling on the day or how I did, I got scratched, kicked, or punched.