i think it is a little bit of a lot of things (could you call it marginal gains?)
- i've tweaked my hand/finger shape in the pool (closed them up a bit). i may be getting more power that way.
- consistency. last year i had none. the year before i had a lot but was focussed on distance / IM. since december i've swum quite regularly - i've missed one session this year where last year i was missing 1 in 3 coached sets i think. it shows.
- all that time i've spent in the gym using the lat press
- psychology - yesterday i felt more up for attacking a time than i've done for a while. during the 400 i was keeping an eye on the clock and was able to keep the pressure on.
most encouragingly i am consistently hitting sub 1:30 for 100m. if i can get my 200m times regularly under 3:00 then the 400m will follow.