Going from SCY to LCM is hard

During the summer, our Masters team swims SCY Mon-Wed-Fri and LCM Tu-Th-Sa, so we're switching back and forth everyday.

Our coach writes our workout accordingly, with more stroke & drill work on the SCY days, and more long sets on the LCM days.

It does take some adjustment and I know a lot of folks get intimidated by LCM at first.  But for triathletes, it's probably the best way to replicate the feel for  OWS in a pool.

One of the things I like about swimming LCM is it gives you more time to get into a rhythm and ingrain your stroke technique.

Personally, I enjoy both.  

Mark 

SCY=Short Coarse Yards

LCM=Long Course Meters

I actually suspect that if you do flip turns, the difference is less. I'm no flip turn pro,but once I'm getting tired, my flip turns are significantly faster than my open turns and with flip turns you can't slack off for that extra breath on the wall. Even an extra 1sec per open turn wall touch (which feels negligibly slower if you're doing open turns) yields nearly 4sec/100 of rest time, which is nearly a whole level of performance difference. 

I know there are a lot of open turn insisters, but I really felt my swimming improved once I flip turned regularly mainly because of the decreased wall rest time. My relaxed flip turn is faster than my fastest open turns where I feel like I'm making every effort to go as fast as possible in the open turn. 

Again, for the average triathlete swimmer, that single breath you take on your open turn adds 1sec/length of rest time to your pool workouts compared to a flip turn or no flip turn. Doesn't sound like a lot, but compared to a straight 100 with no open turns, that's 4sec/100, which is enough of a pace difference between completing a hard set of intervals without undue difficulty, vs dying out after only finishing half of them. 

So yes, it feels harder at LCM because you're missing 2 rest stops, even if they're short. 2sec/100 won't be enough to make you outright miss equivalent intervals when going from 25SCY to 50LCM, but you will definitely notice the added effort to hit the same time equivalents at 50LCM because of the lack of those 2 rest stops.