Comments on: Your Big Hairy Goal for 400 Meters? https://www.totalimmersion.net/blog/your-big-hairy-goal-for-400-meters/ Total Immersion Fri, 20 Feb 2026 11:58:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1 By: terry https://www.totalimmersion.net/blog/your-big-hairy-goal-for-400-meters/#comment-37 Mon, 02 Aug 2010 09:25:04 +0000 http://totalimmersion.net/blog/?p=730#comment-37 Gary, thanks for bringing up the topic of BHAGs. It reminds me of two things: (1) the environment that promoted such fast swimming by the age groupers I coached some 30 years ago; and (2) the importance of MEDGs – Modest Every Day Goals – to helping us reach BHAGs.
In 1980 two 12 y.o. boys I was coaching – Jeff Utsch and Patrick Brundage – swam 400m times nearly identical to Nico. Jeff went 4:36 and Patrick 4:38. Two years later, at 14, Jeff broke the USAS 13-14 record for 800m, swimming it in 8:24. His 400m time of 4:07 was one second short of the national age group record for that event but fastest in the counry that year. Patrick was again slightly slower, but had turned 15 by that time – with times still very quick for a 15 y.o. far short of physical maturity.(And by the way, both Jeff and Patrick, now 42 years old and living in Tucson and Phoenix respectively, still swim Masters and are nearly as fast now as they were at 14.)

While nearly everyone associated with the team was impressed and pleased by those times back then, no one was particularly surprised. That’s because, as Gary writes, there was an expectation that they would swim that fast because it proceed naturally from the swimming they did every day in practice. And their fast practice swims were aided by the environment at practice. They were fortunate to train with a fair number of swimmers who were a bit faster, so they simply followed those faster swimmers up and down the pool each day, gaining speed as they did. If there had been no one to lead the way, they would have had a much more difficult time getting there.

Knowing that times as fast as Nico’s are possible should inspire a greater sense of possibility in anyone, even someone who may have just recently celebrated their first sub-10min 400m. It should make a sub-9 and sub-8-approaching-7 400m seem more doable. But the really transforming goals are the MEDGs – E.G. Today I will do a quiet Mail Slot entry more consistently than ever before.

]]> By: KatieK https://www.totalimmersion.net/blog/your-big-hairy-goal-for-400-meters/#comment-36 Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:27:40 +0000 http://totalimmersion.net/blog/?p=730#comment-36 Interesting post. I’m always fascinated with young, fast swimmers. Do you use TI with your young swimmers? When I watch the kids’ swim team practice, I’m pretty surprised at how fast some of them go, even with what looks to me like pretty rough form. Lots of windmilling, heads halfway out of the water.

Do you use TI methodology with them? How many hard workouts do they do per week? Are the “easy” workouts more focused on technique?

My 400 time is a little over 7 minutes. My turns are really slow–even as my pace and SPL improve, my times don’t decrease by much because of that. That’s my next project.

I began working on speed in March; before that I was only focusing on technique and endurance. Slow, steady progress really adds up. Times that used to seem humanly impossible seem within reach. I do 1-2 hard practices per week, maybe one really slow, technique-focused practice, and the rest at a cruise pace with more focus on distance. My big hairy goal is to do a marathon swim.

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