Garrett Clasen, on the 200 IMs
Reflecting on his signature event and how the meaning of that race changed from season to season.
200 IM at Division III Nationals
2022: Existential dread in the ready room
My sophomore year I'd say it was more about proving to myself and the team that I could do it — that I could complete a year of college swimming successfully. Not only just go around my best times but really destroy them and show that I've improved, that I'm back and better than before. I had a lot of motivation, mainly to prove to myself that I could do it.
It was an interesting season because I didn't even swim the 200 IM until winter. I'd actually torn my labrum in my shoulder a couple of weeks into my sophomore year at Chicago and had to kick for about three weeks going into our midseason meet. So, I didn’t get the chance to do the 200 IM there and mainly focused on breaststroke. The shoulder's good now, so it was more of a minor thing, but yeah, the season wasn’t perfect. By the time NCAAs came around, I only had one good 200 IM under my belt going into the meet. There was some uncertainty because I hadn't fully tapered for the 200 IM in four years at that point. But I had a good prelims swim, and I think I clipped my best from high school by about 0.02 or 0.03 seconds. That’s when I knew I was going to feel much better and that the pressure wasn't going to be an issue. I knew I was in a good spot physically and mentally, and thankfully, I was able to win that night.
d3so: Up until then, you were concerned about the pressure?
Yeah. I was so nervous before that race, feeling that kind of existential dread in the ready room, wanting nothing more than to be on the last 25 of freestyle. But through that, I still knew I didn't feel pressure to win. It was more that I knew I was capable of it and just had to do it.
d3so: You've described not liking the 200 IM, and you're not comfortable before swimming it. You've said it’s always felt that way.
Yeah, it's been inflated a lot in college, especially with the element of swimming for the team. There’s a little pressure there because it’s on the first day, and I really wanted to get the first title for the team on day one to set us up for success over the next three days. There was some pressure, but it manifested as motivation rather than fear, and it didn’t derail my race. In the ready room before the 200 IM final, it’s definitely a more intense setting. I won’t talk much there. I’ll talk before any other race, but not that one.
d3so: Is having the 200 IM on the first night an advantage, or is it extra pressure because you want to make sure the team gets off on the right foot?
I think it's totally an advantage. I love having it on day one because of the benefit to the team and personally, just getting that event out of the way early. I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders, and I can swim more freely the rest of the meet. But sometimes, having my best event first can be nerve-wracking, like, "What kind of shape am I really in right now?" Overall, though, it’s definitely a positive to have it on day one.
d3so: Prelims are tough, though. I've seen swimmers miss the championship finals by a couple hundredths of a second. How do you handle prelims? Are you going 95%, or are you going as fast as you can?
In the 200 IM, I approach prelims a little more controlled than in finals. I’m not focused on time, just on winning my heat and securing a spot in the final. Especially at UAAs, I’ve had some close calls — like, I was eighth in prelims my sophomore year and seventh this past year. You don’t want to play that game at NCAAs. My focus is just on winning my heat and making it to the final. Thankfully, I’ve been the top seed going into finals for the 200 IM all three years, so I think I’ve executed that well.
d3so: In prelims in 2022, you were half a second faster than the next guy, and then you went more than a second faster in finals.
I think adrenaline is a big part of it. I’ve always been a night swimmer, so my prelim swims often feel like they hurt more than the night swims, even though the night swims are faster. In 2022, I was 1:47.4 in prelims, which was a best time at the time, but I knew I could go faster. So I wasn’t fazed by it at all — I knew I’d have that extra gear at night. It’s about reassuring myself that, even if prelims felt like 100%, there’s always that extra gear at night. That helps me mentally between prelims and finals.
2023: The pressure of defending the title
GC: Like, I remember I really had tunnel vision on that. I did feel a lot of pressure trying to defend the title. In the fall, I got a nasty virus, and then I got the flu over Thanksgiving. So it was rough. I missed around two weeks of training because I was so sick, with a high fever. Then I developed an upper respiratory infection after that, which really plagued me until about two weeks before NCAAs, when I finally found an antibiotic that was effective.
So I had a pretty terrible performance leading into NCAAs. I think I was seeded like seventh or eighth in the 200 IM, barely under 55 in the 100 breast, just way off where I thought I could be. I remember feeling so much uncertainty and frustration around my preparation for that meet, on top of the pressure of defending the title. It was definitely different approaching that meet compared to 2022. In 2022, I was very locked in, ready to prove to myself that this was why I came back to the sport and why I gave college swimming another try.
But in 2023, fear and uncertainty were creeping in. Still, it was kind of the same story: I had a really, really good two weeks of training. My taper was phenomenal. I felt like a totally different swimmer going into that meet, like I was totally revived. In prelims, my goal was to win that heat and secure a spot in the A final, and I did. It felt super easy, and it was a season best, like 1:47.1. The time wasn’t anything spectacular, but it had been so long since I felt like myself in a race. All of the pressure I felt just went away after that prelim, and I was back to where I was in 2022, knowing I could get it done again that night.
d3so: But you were battling an upper respiratory infection since November?
Yeah, it was crazy. I was seriously coughing all day. During the whole practice, I’d be coughing up a lung. It was so frustrating. Even sitting at my desk doing homework, I could hear my lungs when I breathed in. Nothing was working. I tried a few different types of antibiotics and had an inhaler, but I just wasn’t responding to it. It was very frustrating.
d3so: And you continued to train as best you could?
Yeah, I think that’s the thing that put me in a position to ultimately do well at NCAAs. I still showed up every day and gave it my best, even though my best compared to the year before wasn’t as good. Honestly, I didn’t have the best year of training, but the effort was still there. That’s the one positive I took from it, especially the Fall. The Fall was pretty rough with the sickness.
I had extreme doubts until about two weeks before the meet. When I finally responded well to the antibiotics, I felt like a totally different person. I had energy throughout the day. I wasn’t coughing uncontrollably, and my performance in practice leveled up a ton. I really felt like I was starting to rest, and that was what gave me confidence. But yeah, my season leading up to it, not a single part gave me any sort of confidence that I was going to be able to put up a 1:45, which I ended up doing.
Cause that one in particular, I let out a lot of emotion after winning in 2023, just because of the season I had leading up to it. I had to really dig deep to get it done and overcome the pressure of defending the title and the sickness. It was one of those moments. I remember watching the video back because I knew how I felt when I saw the "1" next to my name and the 1:45. You can just see the pressure leave me in that moment. I felt it right away, like, okay, this is going to be great. The monkey is off my back, and I can just have fun now.
2024: The closure thing
I feel like it was totally different from the previous two years. I felt a lot less pressure, even though Derek [Maas] was in the mix. I had already gone back to back [2022, 2023], which was something both me and the team really cherished, and I was super proud of it. I knew that a three-peat would just be a bonus.
Honestly, the 200 IM didn’t go how I wanted it to. I didn’t feel like I had a great race, even though I posted a best time. Technique-wise, it wasn’t very refined—it was kind of sloppy. I remember on the last 50, like I told you last week, it was one of the few times where I was really mindful of where I was in the race. I think that awareness hurt me in the last 25. I just didn’t have that last bit of energy to give everything I had. I got to the wall, and I knew pretty quickly that if I could turn the clock back 10 minutes and give it another try, I could have hit 1:44.
That hurt a little bit—not so much getting second, but the closure thing too, because it was probably the last 200 IM I’ll ever swim since I don’t enjoy that race. I wanted it to be a race where I could look back and say, "Even though I got second, I still had a great race." But honestly, I can’t say that. It’s okay—I’m over it—but it was a good race, not a great race.
d3so: It was a 1:45.2, right? So your fastest ever.
Yeah. I feel like I didn’t execute the race I was capable of, especially looking at midseason invite and UAAs. Even though I wasn’t fully tapered for those, I still put up a 1:46 low, which I hadn’t done in the previous two years. I executed really good races at both meets. So, I thought if I could just repeat that execution, I would have been a little bit quicker in the NCAA final.
d3so: But it’s still a 1:45.2.
Yeah, it’s still a really, really fast swim—a swim that would have won the 200 IM every year since COVID, except this one. Outside of the Andrew Wilson year when he set the record. Yeah, it would have won any other year. And it was my best time, too.
[pause]
In 2023, I had tunnel vision around the 200 IM. It was all I could think about, even though I was training for other events. Mentally, it was draining, just thinking about defending that title. But this season, it wasn't like that at all. I told myself, especially with Derek being 1:42 coming into D3, that even if I had a phenomenal swim, I might not hit 1:42. So I shifted my mindset to train for the four-day meet, not just for the 200 IM.
Also, since I was a captain this year, part of my role was to be there for the team throughout all four days, staying present and supportive. I didn’t want to check out if the 200 IM didn’t go my way. I shifted my focus from day one of the season to wanting to have a good meet, not just a good 200 IM. And I think I executed that well.
