What’s Within the Splits? A Breakdown of 500 Frees from Carson, Rex, Leon, and Extra

There is just one coach in swimming historical past who has coached a person beneath 4:06 within the 500 free, and he occurs to have performed it with three totally different swimmers.

A pair of Texas Longhorns broke the American Document within the occasion on Wednesday night on the Texas Corridor of Fame Invite. First, in a time trial, post-grad Carson Foster  swam 4:05.81. A few hours later, present Texas sophomore Rex Maurer cleared that mark to go 4:04.45.

These swimmers are each of their first season coaching with Bob Bowman and now are the #2 and #3 performers in historical past. The highest performer in historical past is Frenchman Leon Marchand, who’s presently coaching in France till an American return in January, and who has spent the previous few years coaching beneath Bowman. That features within the run-up to the 2024 NCAA Championships the place he swam 4:02.31 to shatter his personal all-time document by virtually 4 seconds.

So how are they doing it? I laid out a complete bunch of splits subsequent to one another to see what stood out.

Right here’s the very first thing that jumped out at me:

Rex vs. Carson

Wednesday night time’s pair Rex Maurer and Carson Foster had been practically an identical on their splits for the primary 400 yards earlier than Maurer powered away on the finish.

There was a lot speak and baited anticipation over the pending coaching battles between Foster and Marchand, however even with out swimming the race collectively, Foster and Maurer had been capable of hit their splits virtually completely earlier than Maurer pulled away on the final 100 (and what an excellent final 100 it was). With Foster nonetheless three weeks away from his large winter  meet at Brief Course Worlds, that final 100 may very well be defined by merely being at a distinct spot of their coaching cycles and Rex possibly having a little bit extra relaxation this week than Foster does.

Both means, it was spectacular to see, and would have been a very enjoyable race to look at head-to-head (although that’s not allowed anymore by new NCAA guidelines which precludes execs from racing in the identical meets because the collegians, in order that they need to swim in “separate meets”).

Including Kieran Smith

Kieran Smith was the record-holder earlier than Leon got here round, and whereas he by no means went sub-4:06, he was shut.

Curiously, he was proper there with Carson and Rex via the primary 200 yards and held on fairly effectively even via the 300. By the 350, although, he began to fall of the tempo only a bit. That little regression from the 200 yard mark via the 350 yard mark allowed him to shut effectively (not in addition to Rex), however there doesn’t appear to be a lot room for ‘backing off’ within the center part of the race to get beneath 4:06.

Getting beneath 4:06 appears to be extra about controlling the primary 200 (although these are very quick first 200s) after which descending slightly than sustaining. Each Carson and Rex had their slowest splits from the 100 yard – 150 yard mark.

Rex vs. Rex/Carson vs. Carson

Observe: Carson was 4:07.67 in one other time trial final 12 months, however we couldn’t discover any splits. This comparability makes use of his prior greatest time from 2022. In the event you’ve bought final 12 months’s splits, please ship them to share@swimswam.com!

Each swimmers’ private bests got here after they had been coaching with different coaches. Foster’s was on the 2022 Minnesota Invite whereas coaching with Eddie Reese, as an undergrad at Texas, whereas Maurer’s got here on the 2024 Pac-12 Championships whereas coaching at Stanford.

Carson’s shift wasn’t actually in how briskly her went out as a lot because it was in how effectively he pushed via the latter half of the race. Bowman, often called a better quantity coach usually, appears to be actually good at doing quantity higher for 200-500 yard or meter occasions particularly.

On Maurer’s deltas, it’s clear that his swim is simply higher, usually, however the gaps grew because the race bought longer. Regardless of the change is from Stanford to Texas, he’s thriving in it (we’ll try to get some podcasts with coaches and athletes within the subsequent few weeks to speak about it).

Curiously, there wasn’t actually a lot of a comparability to make between what Carson and Rex are doing and what Leon did in his 4:02, even when we scale for Marchand being means quicker. Marchand, in relative phrases, was out blisteringly quick, and was white-knuckles holding on on the finish. He didn’t present the identical descend sample as Foster and Maurer did, however the opening 1:33 is among the craziest splitting patterns we’ve ever seen in swimming.

Carson vs. Rex vs. Leon

Right here’s the complete desk of instances I checked out (sorry for people on cellular, it’s fairly extensive).