The 200 individual medley is the event I gave my career to. I swam it at two Olympic Games, and I won the Pan American title in it in Toronto in 2015 in 1:57.06. Four strokes, four lengths, almost no room to hide.
Most adult swimmers race it as four short sprints stapled together, then find out in the third length that the race was decided before they got there. Pacing a medley is not about swimming evenly, because the four strokes are not equally fast. It is about deciding in advance what you spend early so the back half still belongs to you.
How should I pace a 200 IM?
Start from what the splits of real medley fields look like, not from an even 50 pace. A study of pacing in world-class age group swimmers in the 200 and 400 m individual medley analysed "3,242 unique finishers (1,475 women and 1,767 men) competing in four Master World Championships" and found a consistent order: "Freestyle (4th split) was the fastest stroke, followed by butterfly (1st split), backstroke (2nd split), and breaststroke (3rd split)."
The fastest 50 in a masters medley is the last one, swum on tired legs, and the slowest is the third. Part of that is which stroke is quickest, part is what the swimmer had left. The authors' advice is unambiguous: "coaches should advise their master athletes to focus on the final spurt in both 200 and 400 m individual medley for a fast final race time."
The same paper contrasts that with the top of the sport: "In elite individual medley swimmers, it was shown that the men applied a positive pacing strategy in the 200 and 400 m, whereas the women applied a less positive pacing strategy." Going out hard and hanging on rests on a training base most of us do not have. For a masters meet or a club time trial, finishing fast is the model with evidence behind it.
Why does my breaststroke leg fall apart?
Because breaststroke is the slowest of the four strokes and it arrives when you are least able to defend it. In the masters data above it was the slowest split for both sexes, and it sits third, after the two strokes that cost the most.
There is a mechanical reason on top of the fatigue. Breaststroke is where you come closest to stopping inside every cycle, then have to accelerate your whole body again, and doing that in oxygen debt is expensive. The fix is rarely more effort. It is a tighter recovery and a real pullout off the wall, which my guide to swimming breaststroke works through.
Which legs of the medley decide the race?
Breaststroke and backstroke, which is to say the two slowest ones. A regression analysis of the contribution of each of the four strokes to elite 200 and 400 m individual medley performance, built on "Data from 1,095 swimmers (501 women and 594 men) who competed in 200 and 400-m IM", reports that "breaststroke (β = -0.191; p < 0.000) and backstroke (β = -0.185; p < 0.000) had a bigger effect on IM performance, with butterfly (β = -0.101; p < 0.000) having a lesser impact."
The masters paper reaches the same training priority from the other direction, recommending swimmers improve "by focusing on the slowest splits of 400 m individual medley (breaststroke and backstroke)."
Two datasets, one message: the legs you are worst at hold the most time. Most people train the medley by swimming more of what they enjoy. If your backstroke is the leg you dread, that is where your race is hiding, and the backstroke post is where I would start.
Should I hold back on the butterfly?
Swim it under control, which is not the same as holding back. The butterfly leg has a lower statistical effect on the final time, but it still has a floor you have to clear: the same elite analysis concludes that "Achieving a medallist position in 200 and 400 m IM requires obtaining specified lap times in butterfly, breaststroke and backstroke for males and females in long-course competitions, and breaststroke and backstroke for short-course competitions."
So butterfly is not a leg to give away. It is a leg to swim at a tempo you can leave behind cleanly. This part is my judgement from the deck, not something I can point at in a paper: the medley swimmers I see blow up almost always treated the first 50 as a 50 fly. Long, rhythmic, two kicks per arm cycle, no sprinting off the blocks. If that is where you lose shape, the butterfly guide covers the timing that makes it sustainable.
How much of a 200 IM is actually the turns?
Around half of it, in a short-course race. An analysis of start, turn and swim sections in individual medley video-tracked "320 IM races of all male (FINA points = 806 ± 75) and female (FINA points = 772 ± 75) competitors at the 2019 European Short-Course Swimming Championships" and found that "percent contribution was highest (significant main effect for race section, P < 0.001) for turn (45.1-55.0%) followed by lower contribution for swim (42.5-44.1%) and start sections (2.5-11.2%)."
One caveat. In this study "total turn time was determined from 5 m before wall contact (5 m in) until 10 m after wall contact (10 m out)", so a turn means 15 m of pool, not the flip alone. Even so, the ranking is blunt: "Turn time had the largest effect on race time, followed by swim velocity over all race distances for male and female swimmers."
Every change of stroke is time you take or donate, and the underwater dolphin kick is the cheapest of it.
How do I find my own 200 IM splits?
Measure the race twice, in two shapes, and compare. Swim 4 x 50 in medley order from the blocks with 30 seconds rest at race effort and write every split down. A week later, swim a full 200 IM time trial and record those four splits too.
The broken swim shows what each leg is worth fresh. The time trial shows what you did with it. The gap between them, leg by leg, is your pacing problem in numbers. A big gap on the breaststroke means you spent too much earlier. A big gap on the butterfly means you went out at a pace you have never held. Use the swim pace calculator for per-50 targets, and my post on swimming without getting tired for the aerobic base underneath it.
A medley pacing set worth repeating:
- 4 x 50 medley order from a push, descending effort 1 to 4, so the freestyle is always the fastest thing you do
- 8 x 25 transitions: last 12m of one stroke, the turn, first 12m of the next, for each of the three changes
- 4 x 100 IM at 200 pace with 60 seconds rest, holding identical splits across all four
- 6 x 50 breaststroke at race tempo on short rest, because the leg that decides the race deserves more than a quarter of your medley work
- One full 200 IM time trial a month, all four splits recorded
The problem with medley pacing is that you cannot see yourself doing it. You feel the fly, you do not see that your hips dropped in the last 15m, and by the breaststroke you are guessing at the cause. A coach on the deck reads that in one length, and most adult swimmers do not have one.
Outside the current supported analysis: individual-medley race analysis. SwimRead is a swimming video review app, currently in beta. It supports short, side-view freestyle recordings, shows which automatic measurements are available, and keeps a history and chosen training focus for each swimmer. It does not grade technique or establish that a specific error was detected. Video stays on the phone; technical measurements and body-landmark coordinates are sent as described in the Privacy Policy. Join the beta waitlist for an invitation as places open.