Swim nerds everywhere got into a frenzy last week upon reading a tweet from Olympian Ryan Lochte‘s training group, @SwimMACElite. In fact, the post highlighted SwimSwam’s ‘Top Ten Tweets of the Week’ at the number four spot, due to its secretive puzzle.
The tweet, alluding to an incredible feat accomplished in an everyday practice for the world-class athletes based in Charlotte, North Carolina, read as follows:
Saw today that sub 5-min 500yd back was possible
— Team Elite (@SwimMacElite) October 6, 2015
For the past week, SwimSwammers fired off their guesses as to who the owned sub-5:00 500 yard backstroke in-practice performance. ‘MARKSTER’ simply responded to the post with “My guess is Clary”, while other readers got more specific. ‘@HollywoodinDC’ submitted a blanket time of 4:53.57, while yours truly (@RettaRace) threw out a guess of 4:57.60, each not associating the time with a particular swimmer. ‘SWIMDOC’ came out with yet another plot twist-guess of, “Who says it was a guy? What about Coventry?”
Heading straight to the source, SwimMAC Elite Assistant Coach Christie Shefchunas was able to give SwimSwam and our readers the answer. And the answer is…..both Ryan Lochte and Tyler Clary clocked sub-5:00 500 backstrokes in practice last week.
We’re told the two performed the achievement as part of a 3-round monster set, with 1300 yards a round, each with a 500 backstroke as the ending swim. The first round had the 500 as ‘strong build’, second round had it as ‘stronger build’, while the third round was to be at ‘race’.
Both Lochte and Clary threw down their incredible times of 4:44 and 4:56, respectively on the third round of the set. That’s averaging 56.8 per 100 for Lochte and 59.2 per 100 for Clary.
Now, the next mystery to be solved is how we mere mortals can replicate their performances.
I believe Peirsol broke 16:30 in a 1,650 free at a meet in Commerce, CA in 2002-2003. Don’t remember the exact time.
Our Masters coach Olympic Gold/ Silver medalist Whitney Hedgepeth recently gave us a set of 12 x 200IM’s followed by 12 x 100IM’s…and I was complaining….she told us about one of her toughest sets.
Whitney said one of her toughest sets back in the 90’s that she did was:
5 x 200 back on 2:15, 5 x 200 back on 2:10 and 5 x 200 Back on 2:05….no stopping … 3000 back on the interval! She was a beast in practice and at meets back in her era!
Was surprised to see Coventry in the headlines. She’s still a long way off, she is a legend in the sport but its doubtful she’ll even make any finals in Rio. She couldn’t. make it past prelims in the 200IM and barely scraped into the semis 100/200back. At 32years she’s quite old and should be considering retirement. Good luck to her but she’ll be battling in Rio!!…
Was surprised to see Coventry in the headlines. She’s still a long way off, she is a legend in the sport but its doubtful she’ll even make any finals in Rio. She couldn’t. make it past prelims in the 200IM and barely scraped into the semis 100/200back. At 32years she’s quite old and should be considering retirement. Good luck to her but she’ll be battling in Rio
BG
Like throwing down a 3:56 at the end of a 1500M freestyle when the WR was 3:53? That was wild!
Carey was pissed he didn’t go faster. Lol! 4:44 is an impressive effort for backstroke on the end of the set. Sounds like Lochte was making a statement with an exclamation point on it. Been there, done that.
Anyone surprised they’re swimming SCY in practice in an Olympic year? Is it to break the monotony, pool issues, to work on underwaters? Somehow I don’t see Phelps training in a SCY pool right now.
I’m surprise he is still there ….
Should be doing 8×400 m be on 5 right now,just like he did back in a day …
Monster set from swimmac use to be warm up set
Pretty sure their pool is getting a new roof. Not sure if its done yet, or how they organize their elite teams practice around the rest of their age group and senior programs. So, even in an Olympic year, I’ve heard a lot of coaches will still train a lot of yards to help maintain technique. It also could be one yards practice in a week of long course practices.
Conger and Murphy could do that.