long distance stroke length (no speed)?

Hello,

I love to do easy (slow) flying in pools or lakes.

We have a 33.33m (yes...) pool here and I (50y, 1.75m) need 11-14 strokes per lane when flying about 50 minutes. The absolute minimum has been 9 strokes (gliding after wall < 7m).

What stroke length / body-length(~wing-span) ratio can be reached for old swimmers?

I do not care about speed, 22-24 min per 1000m is my comfy-zone, but I really do not want to become slower than (most) breaststrokers. What do you think, is it possible to reach a stroke-length / winspan ratio of >2.0 without losing too much speed?

sorry, I meant a SL/WS ratio of ~2 that would be a distance of 3-3.5m.
Now, my comfort stroke length is about 2.3m (ratio = 1.3).

[Danny]

Bernd,

I'm an old guy (68 yr) and I take about 9-11 SPL in a 25 yd pool, so you are way ahead of me. I think that there's a lot of room for improvement in my stroke though, work in progress. No way I can keep up fly for longer periods of time without rest pauses in between. I have trouble just with 50 yd, but I am hoping to get better at this. I need to get myself more relaxed after my arms go in up front but before I start my next arm stroke and that will help. I'm also trying to gauge the kick I use during my arm stroke to be just enough to maintain a horizontal body position during the stroke. If I can get that down better, things should get easier.

Did you swim fly as a young person competitively?