Well, what a difference a day makes!
Somehow today I found it pretty much impossible to swim my 50m set slowly. It wasn’t perfect as the lane was fairly busy and I had a couple of slow reps where I couldn’t leave the wall or turn as I’d want because other swimmers were in the way, but other than those two, every rep was below my target time. I was very happy with that. I put it down to the slice of treacle tart I ate before I left the house 😀
It did mean that my 25m reps were a serious fight and I did have to skip one of those (and another I didn’t actually time because I wasn’t focused enough to start the watch), but overall I’m very pleased with the performance. Given how long it took me to cope with the previous reduction in time I’ll be very impressed if this step down turns out to be much easier.