The Individual Medley (IM)

One of swimming's greatest rivalries is Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. One of the most talked about Lochte-Phelps races was the 400 IM during the London Olympics - Michael Phelps came in more than 4 seconds behind Lochte AND didn't even win any medal at that event (finished 4th!). Michael not medaling at an Olympic event has never happened since he was a 15-year-old competing in just one event at the Sydney Olympics!!! A few days later, at the same Olympics, Michael and Ryan's last race was the 200 IM, and Michael Phelps won Gold, and became the first ever Olympian to win Gold at the same event three-times. 

To non-swimmers this may not make any sense? But ask any swimmer, they will tell you, that you can't swim the IM without training for it and training for 100 IM, 200 IM or event the 400 IM has significant differences, and you have to train specifically for each event. 

Phelps  - All Strokes 

Fly, Back, Breast and Free

What exactly is the IM?  IM is short for Individual Medley - it is a combination of swimming all four strokes in the same race, in a specific order - butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. It is the most challenging of all events to swim simply because it requires mastery of each stroke, and the turns and transitions between each stroke can be tricky. Former swimmer and now writer for USA Swimming, Mike Gustafson tweeted to describe swimming the IM "@mikelgustafson: Every IM is the same: Fly (just survive), Back (catch breath after fly), Breast (lung-bursting pullouts), Free (spin arms until blacked out). "

What happened in London? Simply put Michael Phelps did not train for the 400 IM, and Ryan Lochte did. In fact, Michael admitted to not being prepared to swim the 400 IM, and he barely qualified to swim in the Olympic finals of the 400 IM and even admitted that was a terrible swim.  For the 200 IM,  he did train for that event and results clearly showed in winning the gold. 

Why the obsession with the IM? Not everyone can swim the IM and I happen to love swimming it, because I enjoy swimming all four strokes! I started training to swim the 100 IM in time for the V-Day Meet, back in February...  Training for the meet truly gave me motivation to work on mastering technique in all strokes and the momentum to truly work on conditioning for the IM. Having been swimming with AGUA Masters for three months, I have experienced significant improvement and comfort in the water - definitely having improved my stamina, endurance, strength, stroke technique and speed in the water. Swimming IM, particularly butterfly, used to feel like a taxing pursuit on my body, but training for the 100 IM has got me conditioned to swim IM repeatedly, and surprisingly I'm not in as much pain, as described by Mike Gustafson, compared to when I started.

In fact, before AGUA masters my 100 IM times were  hovering around 2:40. Tweaking my butterfly, backstroke and freestyle, plus a complete overhaul of my breaststroke meant significant improvement and a time hovering a little under 2:00 closer to the meet. Working on turns and transitions continues to be my work, plus continued improvement of my breaststroke. During 100 sprints last Tuesday night, I decided to try my IM and I clocked in at 1:52, mind you this was my 3rd race of the evening, and I was exhausted! That's a whole 48 second drop from my original IM time - prior to joining AGUA! The US Masters Records show 100 IM at 55.24, and 57.01 in my age group, maybe I can get that 1:52 to drop even further with continued training. After all, I've only been swimming masters in 3 months!

As I continue to progress in my swimming journey, I continue to push myself, create new goals and one of them is continued progression in swimming the IM. Aside from the 100, now I'm looking to train for the 200 IM, and maybe the 400 IM. As my swimming idol, Michael Phelps, would say "Because nothing is impossible, you have to dream big dreams; the bigger, the better.."