Race Strategies for the MEN'S 200 AND 400 IM

Swimming World Magazine, Jul 2005 by Morales, Tito

Margalis was able to make up a little time on the backstroke, but Mellouli successfully fended him off in the breaststroke. Shanteau, on the other hand, lost more ground to Mellouli in the backstroke, and while he gained on the Trojan in the breaststroke, it wasn't nearly enough to draw even.

"Ideally, what you want to do in the 400 IM is to build up the second 50 of each stroke," Mellouli says. "You build the second 50 of the fly, and have a good turn. Then you build the second 50 of the back, and have a good turn...."

Mellouli admits that he took a few peeks toward the middle of the pool during the breaststroke to see where the competition was, but he was still primarily concerned with his own race.

When Mellouli turned at the wall at the end of 300 yards, he still held roughly the same advantage over his two closest competitors as he'd established during the fly leg.

"When I came (to USC), I had pretty good technique," says Mellouli. "So all I've had to do was work on training harder. You work on tolerating the pain. The tougher you work, the stronger you'll get and the faster you'll go."

For Mellouli, the last leg of the 400 IM is always about courage.

"You finish it up with whatever you have left," he says. "You just leave it in the pool. Usually, your 100 free should be as fast as your 100 fly"

Mellouli's gutsy wire-to-wire race, in which he earned his first NCAA title in 3:39.19, was capped off by an inspired 50.73 freestyle split.

"It was good," he says. "It felt good, and I'm happy that I won it."

Next in his sights: University of Michigan legend Tom Dolan's decade-old record of 3:38.18. "Tom Dolan is one of the greatest IMers ever," says Mellouli. "It would be awesome to break his record, and its definitely one of my goals for next year."

Tito Morales, a novelist and free-lance writer, is a Masters swimmer who competed collegiately for the University of California at Berkeley.