Meet double header + ruminations

I had a meet double header this past weekend, my team's Tropical Splash on Saturday, then a meet in Annapolis on Sunday. This was my first time doing two back to back days of racing since Zones in 2024, which was the only double header I did that season, since I didn't go to Nats that year.

I signed up for a fairly aggressive lineup for Tropical Splash when I entered the meet in early December--100 back, 100 free, 100 fly, 100 IM, and the 200 medley and free relays. At the time I entered the meet, I'd intended to be back in full training mode by the time the meet rolled around and would suit up for it as a pseudo midseason time check meet.

I took two weeks off over the Christmas break and then had an old back injury pop it's head back up 1.5 weeks ago, to the point that I got all of a whopping ~3000 yards or so in practice over the past 4 weeks leading up to the meet. The back issue had been bad enough that as of the Wednesday before the meet, I couldn't do flip turns or butterfly kick in the water. 

After lots of stretching, very liberal use of a theragun, and a long massage focusing specifically on the back issue, I was able to successfully do flip turns and butterfly kick again on Thursday.

Going into the Saturday meet, I figured I would play each race by ear, and wouldn't bother suiting up for a meet I might not end up doing at all if my back flared up again. I ended up scratching the 100 fly and 100 free as game time decisions, but swam the 100 back, 100 IM, and both relays. Most importantly, my back was mostly pain free! I decided to race in the jean speedos instead of a tech suit, and rotated through the three I have as the meet went on. 🤣

Tropical Splash

100 back

Eh, not a great race, not a terrible race. Took a while to get my tempo up and moving off the start, but it was solid once I got there. My left foot started cramping really bad off the last turn and I'm not sure how much propulsion it was actually contributing during the last lap, but I survived. The scoreboard didn't show my time, but the timer had me at a 1:07 mid, which is about a second off the time I swam in the same race at this pool about 5 weeks ago. I was happy with it! My back was twinging on the start and first turn, but subsided after that. I really had no expectations for this besides thinking that I'd be happy sub-1:10, all things considered.

200 medley relay

I swam the breast leg on the relay. No clue what my split was, and my sprint BR will *always* feel weird, but it felt fine. 🤷

200 free relay

I led this one off with a high 26, my fastest in about 2 years. It felt fine overall, but time aside I was more happy that I did something I have only done a handful of times as a masters swimmer! I successfully did a 1 down, 1 back breathing pattern for the race, something I can count on one hand having been able to pull off instead of my normal 1 down, 2 back breathing pattern. If I actually raced this more than once or twice a season, I'd work towards a 0 down, 1 back breathing pattern, but I'm happy with checking off the 1-1 breathing pattern here.

100 IM

Solid, all in all. Fly felt good but I was about half a stroke long going into the turn. Couldn't get my tempo up on back, but nailed the crossover turn just about perfectly and made up noticeable ground on the teammates on either side of me on that transition. Breast felt like...something...and I didn't start to die till the last 5-10 yards on the free. I was a 1:07 low, only about half a second off the time I went at this meet in December. Not too shabby!

Best of all, across that event lineup, after the early twinges in the 100 back, my back was painfree the whole meet.

Annapolis meet

I signed up for just the stroke 50s for this meet. I don't train for sprinting, so I figured this would effectively be a throwaway meet, but a good gauge of where my top end speed is right now. At least, that was my rationale before my unintended nearly 4 week break from swimming. My initial intention was to swim this meet unsuited after swimming TS suited, but after swimming painfree at TS, I flipped that around and suited up. Side note--shockingly, losing 50 pounds affects how well a tech suit fits! 🤣 I wore a tech suit that I've worn for 3 meets before. Sure, it's naturally stretched out a bit from being previously worn, but it wasn't nearly as compressive as I would expect a good tech suit to be. Better than wearing a practice speedo, for sure, but at least 1-2 sizes too large at this point to be truly effective as a tech suit.

50 back

Boy, this was a comedy of errors! One of my feet slipped on the start and I entered at an awkward angle, simultaneously causing my goggles to completely fill up and causing me to go too deep. I swam the race blind and relied on my stroke count for the first 25...but my stroke count was close to two full strokes off due to the jacked up start. I was loooooong on the turn and barely grazed the wall with the tips of my toes. I mentally adjusted my stroke count for the second 25 and was much better on the finish, but was a touch longer than preferable. All that said, I went a 30 mid, which is the fastest I've been in it since 2022, and my stroke felt good throughout. I have no doubt I'd have been sub-30 sans abominable start and turn,  it it is what it is. I'll take it!

50 fly

Man, I could not mentally get my breathing patter right for this! The entire race was one giant brain fart from a breathing pattern perspective, haha. I usually do a 3 down/1 up bp for the 50 fly, but didn't hit that cycle once the entire race. I normally breathe the 2nd to last stroke going into the turn, then the 4th to last stroke going into the finish, but this time I breathed the 3rd to last stroke going into the turn and didn't adjust my stroke properly, and hit the wall mid stroke. Going into the turn, I didn't breathe for the last 7 strokes and tightened up a bit going into the finish. Breathing derpiness aside, it felt solid. I was a 28 mid, a full 1.5 seconds faster than in December, and my fastest in season 50 fly since all the way back in 2020. That's more an indictment of my fly top end speed having fallen off a cliff (pre-2020 my in-season 50 flys were usually in the low-mid 27 range) than it is of my prowess at this meet, but I will happily take it.

50 breast

I had zero expectations going into this. The last time I trained for anything shorter than the 200 breast was all the way back in 2018, and the last time I trained for breast *at all* was 2019. Couldn't quite find that top sprint gear in this race and my turnover was slower than it should be for a 50, but I went a 33 mid. That's my fastest time since 2019 (and a full second faster than my 2nd fastest time since 2019, from a late season meet in 2024), albeit my in-season 50s breasts in 2019 and prior to that season were in the 31-32 range. Still, quite refreshing!

Ruminations

I've obviously got a lot of work cut out for me over the next three months till Nats in Greensboro, but I'm honestly quite pleased with where I was this weekend even after the back issue and nearly a month out of the pool. Losing 50 pounds from last spring (217 last May to 167 this past Friday) is definitely helping, as is being back in the weight room for the first time in years, and working with a personal trainer who specializes in training athletes who've had injuries.

I don't remember if I've posted about it here on this blog at some point over the years, but I've had micro tears in the labrums in both shoulders. In swimming, I've mostly compensated for it and haven't noticed any real decrease in my strength in the pool...but in my first season with the trainer a couple months ago, I struggled with a set of 3x8 with *5* lbs on the overhead press machine! Fast forward to today and I did 3x12 with 30lb dumbbells, and I've got quite a ways to go! That's a microcosm of how a good few muscle groups have gone in the weight room. Pitiful ability to lift/pull/press a weight with a specific muscle group as a result of some sort of injury, and now I'm up to putting up ok weight with that same muscle group, and lots more room to improve. She knows I'm a swimmer, and while she isn't a swimmer herself, she's focusing on functional strength gains that will benefit me in the water, not just to be a gym-bro.

Taking all that into account, I wouldn't be surprised if this season I don't get back up to my old normal of having enough Nats cuts that I can swim whatever I want at Nats (you can swim three events without a cut there, but need cuts for all additional events you swim up to the six event max...up through 2023, I typically held ~11 cuts season to season), but I expect to get enough cuts over the next two months of racing that I can swim a decent lineup at Nats.

Looking forward to next season, if I can hit my target weight (150-160), maintain a swim practice tempo, and maintain the great work and progress in the weight room, I full expect to return to that norm of Nats cuts allowing me to swim pretty much whatever I want to at Nats.

Wildly preliminary thoughts for Spring Nats event lineup

I took some time at lunch today to do a deep dive into my historical time progressions from past seasons, then compared them to my times from the meet this past weekend, made some ad hoc suited vs non-suited time adjustments, and projected that out over the remainder of the season in comparison to the cuts for Nats.

Up front, I only have one Nats cut right now. The rule is that you can swim 3 events without any cuts, then up to 6 events total as long as you've achieved a cut in the additional events within the past two years. Right now the only event I have a cut in is my 100 back from spring of 2024--the cut is a 1:04.21, and I squeaked under the wire with a 1:03.94 that spring. Since I didn't really train for the past two seasons, my times in that two year lookback window (spring 2024 - spring 2026) are pretty slow. Because of those doldrums, I'd have to look back to my times from the '22-23 season and earlier for comparable times over the course of a season. Just looking at the '20-'23 seasons and comparing them to the current cuts, I'd be sitting at 4-5 cuts, which opens up just about every event I'd want to swim at Nats. Looking back at the '17-20 seasons before the covid hiccup, I'd be sitting at 11 cuts, including a handful from in-season swims instead of shaved, tapered, and suited Nats times. The cuts this year do seem a bit faster than for this age group in years past, but it's the two years of not really training that's put me in this position. This is uncharted territory for me! 😆 

Anyways, looking at my historical in-season time progressions over the past decade and comparing them to my performances from this past weekend + adding a bit of a fudge factor for the suit issue:

100 IM (1:06.55 at the meet last weekend)

• '22-23 season: 1:04.97 suited in December > 1:02.79 at Nats
• '21-22 season: 1:05.53 unsuited in January >  1:01.90 at Nats
• '15-20 seasons: Not a single progression, but usually a 1:02-1:03 suited in January > 1:00-1:01 at Nats

With the suit fudge factor (not even counting my bad turns), I think my 1:06.5 last weekend would likely be equivalent to around that 1:04.9 from December 2022. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get back down to sub-1:02 at Nats this year if I swim the 100 IM there, but I'd like to get back down to around the 1:02 I went at Nats in 2023, and think that's definitely reasonable presuming the season doesn't go off the rails.

100 back (1:06.57 at the meet last weekend)

• '23-24 season: 1:08.11 unsuited in January > 1:03.94 at Zones
• '22-23 season: 1:07.97 unsuited in March > 1:02.47 at Nats (admittedly, the March swim was an AWFUL race)
• '17-18 season: 1:04.17 suited in November > 1:01.19 at Nats
• '16-17 season: 1:04.75 suited in November > 1:01.91 suited in March
• '14-15 season: 1:05.39 suited in November > 1:03.62 at Nats

With the suit fudge factor, I think my 1:06.5 would likely be equivalent to probably a bit faster than the 1:05.39 from all the way back in November 2015. I was in significantly worse overall shape that season, though in better swimming shape at this point of the season, so I think I can reasonably get down to around the 1:02 I went at Nats in 2023.

100 breast (1:17.80 last weekend)

Hahahahahahaha...I think breast is off the table at Nats this season. The last season I had respectable breast times was the '20-21 covid season. I'll still do some breast events at meets this season so I can see where I'm at when I'm not gassed at the end of a 3 event in ~15 minute turnaround, but I think there are larger issues with my breast than that.

50 fly (30.26 last weekend)

• '23-24 season: 29.67 unsuited in December > 29.40 unsuited in April
• Pre-covid seasons: Typically a :27.5-28.8 mid season suited > 26.4-27.4 at Zones/Nats

I dunno. Ever since covid, my fly sprint speed has fallen off a cliff. I went from reliably going suited 27s-28s in season to having a 29.09 being my fastest post-covid time. Admittedly, that 29.09 was unsuited, but methinks there's something rotten in the state of Denmark...aka, my sprint fly. My 100 fly post-covid hasn't seen nearly as drastic a slowdown (I've been able to get it down to a suited 1:01.5 at 2022 Nats, with only swims from 2012, 2013, and 2017 faster than that out of my 20+ 100 flys as a masters swimmer), so there's something fishy going on with my top end sprint speed. I prefer the 100 fly to the 50 fly, anyways, so no real sweat off my brow if I can't drop this time this season.

Looking ahead at potential Nats event lineup

There are at least 5 more local meets that I plan to do this season, potentially as many as 8 more, before the entry deadline for Nats. I plan to crank through a good number of events, though not all are Nats candidates. The list of events I plan to swim at the local meets, with asterisks marking the ones I plan as of now to swim at Nats, and bold with asterisks marking the ones I think I should be able to achieve a Nats cut in, if I don't already have a cut:

• 50 free
• 100 free
• 200 free*
• 500 free
• 50 back
• 100 back*
• 200 back*
• 100 breast
• 200 breast
• 50 fly
• 100 fly*
• 200 fly
• 100 IM*
• 200 IM*
• 400 IM

That would give me a lineup at Nats of the 200 back and 200 IM on Friday, 100 back on Saturday, and 200 free, 100 fly, and 100 IM on Sunday. Ideally I'd space it out as two events per day at Nats, but while that Sunday lineup isn't ideal, it's manageable. The saving grace at Nats is that with how big the meet is (usually 1800+ swimmers!), even if you're swimming back to back events, you're pretty much guaranteed at least an hour of downtime between races.

As I crank through these events at meets, some might drop off the list of Nats contenders, some might get added on, but with just a single meet under my belt, this is what I'm thinking so far.

If we have Zones this year, I'm considering doing the 400 IM and 500 free there. I plan to do them at least once at a local meet before then, but I'll suit up for Zones if we have it. My team hosts a meet in mid-January at the same pool we just swam at last weekend, so I'll suit up for that meet, too, and have entered the 100 back, 100 fly, 100 IM, and 100 free. Definitely a hefty event lineup for a single day meet, but I want to see what I can handle, as well as how I'll do in the 100 back and 100 IM suited; on the plus side, the events are spaced out so I shouldn't have any back-to-back-to-back swims like last weekend that put me through the wringer. Besides that meet and potentially Zones (they haven't announced yet if we're having it this year), I'm currently planning to swim the rest of the meets unsuited.

Going off on a bit of a tangent--I prefer the 200s to the 100s, so I'm currently penciling in a gameplan for next season (presuming I stay healthy and in the water, yada, yada, yada) where I do all five 200s again at Nats, a la 2019. Even setting aside my current struggles with top end sprint speed, I don't particularly like the 50s as a matter of principle. I have a running joke where I tell my friends on the team that I don't have a single fast twitch muscle in my body, and philosophically that's not far from the truth. The 100s are about at the top of my comfort zone as far as sprinting is concerned, and 200s are my sweet spot. I'll do the 500 and 400, but definitely prefer the 200s most of all the races.

First meet of my comeback season!

It's no secret that the past two seasons have been less than stellar. Between injuries and just life in general, my training was thoroughly mediocre at best, and I took almost 6 months out of the pool from spring to summer this year. I still swam a good number of meets during the 2023-2024 season, but my results at them were pretty lackluster. In the 2024-2025 season, I swam only one meet, and it very unsurprisingly went poorly.

This season, on the other hand, is much better! I've lost ~45 pounds, I'm back in the water training regularly, I'm back in the weight room for the first time in ~8 years, and I'm staying healthy (so far, at least). If all goes according to plan, I should finish out the season with 7-9 in-season meets before going to Nationals in Greensboro at the end of April. That'll put me at the most meets I've done since the 2018-2019 season!

I had the first meet of my season today. I picked events I swam at this same meet in 2024 (it was the one meet I did last season) and 2023, and used my times from those swims as my seed times so I could do a 1:1 comparison. I swam the 100 IM, 100 back, 50 free anchoring the 200 free relay, 100 breast, and 50 fly, in that order.

My only goals for this meet were to beat or match my seed times in each event. In practice to date this season, my endurance has been coming along quite nicely, but my speed isn't there yet. For example, prior to 2023, my normal times in practice for 50s free at 200 pace from a push were :31-32, and currently I'm holding :33-34. My endurance is there and I'm not at all dying in practice, but my speed has noticeable room to grow. I'm not worried about it yet, as the speed has been improving--doing the same set in late October, for example, I was holding :35-36. If I'm still plateaued at :33-34 come March, though, then it'll be time to panic.

100 IM

I had some kerfuffles on the fly and breast turns due to my right goggle having filled up on the start and making my depth perception *slightly* less than ideal, but the swimming itself felt great. I went a 1:06.5, exactly 2 seconds faster than the last time I swam this event, at this meet last season!

The 1:08.5 I went last year was my 2nd slowest 100 IM as a masters swimmer, with only a 100 IM from my very first meet as a masters swimmer all the way back in 2011 being slower than it. The 1:06.5 is now my 6th slowest masters time, which doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but it is my fastest unsuited December 100 IM!

Note: Prior to fall 2023, I swam the vast majority of my in-season meets suited, wearing my tech suit from the previous spring's Nats. Since the fall of '23, I've worn a jean speedo to in-season meets, to Alaina's absolute delight. Joking aside, there is a noticeable difference in my times when I'm suited vs unsuited. I went a suited 1:04.9 at this meet in 2022, and I think that time is probably more or less comparable to the 1:06.5 I went today. Time comparisons for suited vs unsuited swims in the same event aren't an exact science, but anecdotal results I've seen from swimming the same event at back to back meets, one suited and one unsuited, make me think the 1.6 second difference between the suited and unsuited swims at this meet in 2022 and 2025 means the two are pretty comparable.

100 back

I almost completely whiffed the turn at the 50--going under the flags; I was a half stroke off my normal count, so I made the dumb split second decision to try turning long instead of short, and ended up barely touched the wall with the tips of my toes. Effectively no push off that wall, but my underwaters made up for it at least somewhat.

I went a 1:06.5 (I'll need to check when the official results are posted, but I might have gone the exact same time I went in the 100 IM, ha!), which is a drop of 1.6 from my seed time. In absolute terms, while this is now my 4th slowest 100 back, compared to the 2nd slowest that was my seed time, it is my fastest December 100 back, suited or unsuited. Doing a similar ~1.5 second handicap due to being unsuited like for the 100 IM, that would put me solidly in reach of my normal fall times. My back hasn't felt great in practice lately, there's been something off with my stroke and hip rotation timing; it wasn't as bad of an issue here as it was as recently as two nights ago at practice, but my back technique is still a bit off. Presuming I am able to get that sorted out, I expect to be able to drop this time some more on top of continued progress from my speed improving in general.

50 free

This was quite soon after the 100 back, I had time to do all of a 150 cool down before lining up for the relay. 😬

I am a very leg-heavy backstroker, and my legs were toast going into this race. I anchored the 200 free relay and it surprisingly felt good, though I have no clue what my split was. Given the ongoing speed issue and my legs being pretty much gone, I expect it was slow, despite how good it felt.

100 breast

Like the 50 free, it was a very quick turnaround! I got another 150 cool down in after the relay before hopping out to line up behind the blocks. My legs were still toast, my arms felt like noodles, my heart rate was still elevated, and my breathing still hadn't fully returned to normal by the time I got on the block, but I gave it my best effort. All total, there was around 15-20 minutes between the 100 back and 100 breast, which even when I'm in top top shape is not ideal for doing three events back to back to back.

I went a 1:17 and change, about a second slower than my seed time. The race itself felt fine overall, but I was just gassed. This race replaced my seed time as my 2nd slowest 100 breast on record as a masters swimmer, which is quite fair. Going into this meet, I had pretty low expectations anyways, as I have done zero breast training in practice outside of doing it in IM sets. My breast feels fine in practice (I've had a number of seasons where it's felt off even when I've been training it, so I'll for sure take it feeling fine!), I just haven't specifically trained it or done any speed work with it, so my hope was to just match or hopefully improve on my seed time by a bit. Oh well, I think I swam it about as well as I could expect for being my third of three races in 15-20 minutes. 🤷

50 fly

I had a longer break after the 100 breast, so I was able to do a good 500 cool down. Got my heart rate and breathing back to normal, got my legs to stop feeling like jello and my arms to stop feeling like noodles, and mostly felt ready to go, though definitely not at 100%. I dropped from my 31 seed time to a 30 and change, so I'll take it! I felt strong and in control for the whole race and didn't fade at all, so while the time was slow in the grand scheme of things, the overall race was an improvement over how I've swam it the past couple of years.

That 31 seed time was my slowest masters time, while the 30 is my 2nd slowest time. I have 10 different 28s and 29s as a masters swimmer (and 10 different 27s!) all suited, so I think I'd have been right there in the mix if I was not as tired and was suited. Still, progress is progress, so it's a positive sign.

On the plus side, given how strong I felt and how I didn't fade at all, I think I'm ready for the 100 fly first the first time in two years at one of the meets coming up in January. I certainly don't expect to go a fast time, but I'm interested to see where I'm at now. As recently as early November I was noticeably fading during a 50 fly in practice and could even feel it at the end of a 25 fly, so I'm 100% moving in the right direction even if the time isn't there yet.

Overall thoughts

I'm making quite satisfactory progress. That's the key takeaway from this meet--while none of my times were anything at all to write home about in and of themselves, with the understandable exception of the 100 breast they were all an improvement over the last time I swam them. My top end speed isn't there yet, but I stayed strong in each race and didn't fall off a cliff like I did at this meet last season, or how I did at most of my in-season meets in the '23-24 season.

With continued consistent training in the water and weight room, losing the last ~10 or so pounds to reach my target weight (my target weight is actually a bit under what I graduated college at, and by far the lightest I've been since then 2008 or so!!!), and hopefully continuing to stay healthy, I have high hopes for Nats in Greensboro in April. I don't think I'm on track to hit any lifetime PRs or possibly even any masters PRs, but after 2 seasons of injuries/lackluster training at best/resultingly slow times at meets across the board, I think I could have some very solid performances at Nats. If I can continue this kind of training and healthiness all through this season and next season, then I think Nats in 2027 could be a barnstormer.

Regarding '26 Nats, I'm leaning towards doing just 100s and 200s, though I'm conceptually tossing around the 400 IM and/or 500 free. Over the next handful of meets from January-March, I'll have plenty of opportunities to get solid racing under my belt and see which events are optimal for my training this season. The 200s are philosophically the ones I like best, as even in the seasons where my top end speed has been the best, I just am not built to be a sprinter, but I'm not ruling anything out just yet. The entry deadline is April 6th, so I should be able to get through all of the local meets before I have to make the decision. Usually the deadline is before the last one or two local meets, so it's nice that I should have a chance to race all my potential events and make an informed entry decision this go-round.

Onward and upward! 😀

2024 Zones recap

It's been a long time since I've swum at Zones! The last one I swam at was at GMU in 2019. This time around, it was at the Jeff Rouse Swim Center in Stafford.

The meet used to be held at George Mason University, but after covid the former meet host decided not to host it anymore, and it was up at Rutgers the past few years. I don't travel for Zones, so this was my first Zones in 5 years. Honestly, with the exception of doing backstroke starts in this pool, I like it better than GMU.

This was my first multiday masters meet when I've been in as comparatively poor swimming shape as I am this season, so going into the meet I was prepared to lay an egg in some of my races due to poor swim conditioning. I signed up for five events: 200 back, 200 IM, and 100 free on Saturday and 100 back and 200 free on Sunday.

Saturday Events

200 Back

This was frankly a better race than I expected! This was just my second time swimming the 200 back this season and I didn't have much in the way of expectations going into it. I left probably about a second in the pool due to an absolutely atrocious start and an inadvertently super-long turn at the 125, but a 2:22 puts me just about smack dab in the middle of my historical 200 back times, and once you take out the 5 different times I've swum it at Nats when I've been fully trained, shaved, and tapered, and this compares quite well to my fastest suited in-season time on record of a 2:18 from all the way back in 2013. More recently, 2017 was the last season I was faster than this swim in-season.

Final time aside, I split this quite well. That was my biggest concern going into this race, that I'd take it out too fast and not have the conditioning to bring it home, but I split this just about ideally for how I swim the 200 back. Going back to my MPR from 2013 when I got a very solid training block under my belt and focused almost exclusively on backstroke that season, I split that race 30-33-34-34, so with the exception of all of my splits here being correspondingly slower, they line up pretty well in comparison. Looking at my other times from Nats over the years, they all follow that general pattern, so this swim was in good company!

200 IM

I mean, I guess I dropped time from the one random 200 IM I swam last season? I haven't trained IM at all this season and haven't trained breast at all in two seasons, and it shows. Fly and back felt good, I had absolutely nothing on breast (it legit felt like I was treading water), and while I've definitely had slower (some significantly slower!) free splits on my 200 IM over the years, that particular split was on the wrong side of the trend line.

Stripping out my trained/shaved/tapered 200 IMs, this comes in at 13th out of 17 200 IMs I've done as an adult. Obviously not great, but could've been worse, and it was indeed a nearly 6 second drop over my seed time from that one swim last season, so there's that.

100 Free

I've raced more this season than I have since 2019, despite my concurrent lackadaisical approach to training, and one of the refrains at every single meet has been that I don't have a top gear this season. I haven't been able to find that top end speed in any stroke this season, and that was the case in this event, too.

Besides being a goofball and turning too far out from the wall at the 75 turn and nearly missing the wall in the process, this was a good race. I probably left a couple tenths in the pool on that last turn, but it likely wouldn't have substantially moved the needle for my overall race.

My speed kerfluffle was mostly seen just in the first 50--as recently as at Nats last year, I was able to take the first 50 out a full second faster, while my second 50 here was less than a second slower than last year. Looking at Nats in 2021, after the short covid season, my first 50 was about 1.5 seconds faster. Looking back at other 100s I've done over the years, that pattern more or less holds true--conditioning and the botched turn pretty much explains the gap on the second 50, but the first 50 is inexplicably slow.

Oh well! I don't often swim this in season, with nearly an even split of my 100s free swum at Nats vs in-season, but this was still faster than about half of my in-season swims, so I can't really complain too much.

Sunday Events

I had the 100 back and 200 free on the docket for Sunday. I was honestly worried going into the session--two day meets, especially ones where you don't just swim short events, is tiring even when you're fully in shape. I am not. Driving to the pool, I felt like I was at about 75% energy and had all sorts of aches and pains from the previous day's racing, despite a very long cooldown, lots of stretching, and liberal use of a massage gun Saturday night. I repeated that regimen Sunday morning when I got to the pool, but was still nowhere near top shape. I decided to just take the events as they came and try to have no expectations.

100 Back

This was WAY better than I expected! My start was merely adequate, though light years better than the absolutely atrocious start I had in the 200 back, I jammed the 50 turn, and probably should've taken another stroke at the finish. Still, after taking out all the Nats swims, the last time I was faster than this in-season was alllllll the way back in 2015. Between the three wall issues, I probably could've been down in the low 1:03/high 1:02 range, which would've put my only faster in-season times back in the stellar backstroke season of 2013.

Going off on a bit of a tangent, I think the main reason I did so well in this race was because I had a legit competitor in the lane next to me. Back in the 2012-2013 season, when I focused almost exclusively on backstroke, there was a local swim friend that I competed against multiple times in the 100 back, usually in lanes next to each other. We had some epic duels at various in-season meets and us trading off wins from meet to meet was a key factor in my backstroke success that season. Fast forward to this race and it was like time warping back to the '12-'13 season. I was better underwater than the dude next to me and he was better on the surface. We swam neck and neck for most of the first 75, then stroke for stroke the last 25, and it came down to .2 at the finish. It was great!

I've raced the 100 back a lot since 2013, but whether at an in-season meet or at Nats, I've almost always either been comfortably in the lead or haven't been in the picture (e.g. at one Nats where I went a 1:01, if memory serves, the dude in the lane next to me went something like a 50 point). Having an actual competitor in the lane next to me was awesome and I wish I could have that experience every time I race, 100 back or any other event!

200 Free

Eh, I'll take it!

Frankly, I was gassed after the 100 back and it being the end of a long meet. This was a season best by juuuuuuust about 5 seconds and my race was delightfully well split in comparison to many of my previous 200s free, but it was definitely slow in the grand scheme of things. I might have left a second or so in the pool over the course of the race despite there not being any clear issues like with, say, my start in both backstroke races, but I think this one can be chalked up to a lack of conditioning, being tired, and lack of top end speed in general. My fastest in-season time that I've got splits for was a 2:04 from the spring of '22, and in that swim I went out nearly 2.5 seconds faster on the first 100 than I did here, though my second half splits were relatively comparable.

Overall Thoughts

All foibles with turns/starts/finishes aside, there are a few clear takeaways from this meet, thankfully mostly positive:

• With this meet capping my season, I've officially gotten back into the ballpark of my pre-covid number of meets each season. Pre-covid I was consistently racing at anywhere between 8-13 meets per season between masters meets and age group meets, but the '18-'19 season was the last full season I was able to hit those numbers. I was well on track in '20, but only finished up the aborted season with I think 5 meets. Since then a number of the regular pre-covid masters meets didn't come back, I took a few seasons off from racing with my NCAP kids, and I also had scheduling conflicts with a few of the relative few masters meets still on the calendar. As a result, since I was doing so few meets each season, I was permanently rusty when it came time to race, regardless of my actual conditioning. I'm over that hump now! That's not to say that I don't still have kerfluffles when racing (cough, cough, 200 IM, cough, cough), but for the past two meets, I've actually felt confident for the upcoming race when stepping up to the block.
• All season I've felt like I've had very little power in my underwaters--for me, when those are my key selling point as a swimmer and have often been the deciding factor in races, that's a BIG deal. Whether in practice or at a meet, all season I've consistently felt like I'm not getting nearly enough power or speed from my underwater dolphin kicks. That changed at this meet! I don't know for sure if I was back to my old levels, but I was quite happy with the speed and power I got off all the walls when doing UDKs, even when gassed in the 200 free. I'm sure racing in a speedo vs tech suit plays some role in that, but whatever the reason, I'm happy to finally have had good underwaters again!
• I've gotta figure out my top end speed issue, particularly in free. The tricky issue is that my free *feels* fine and I *feel* like I'm swimming any other, faster, 100 and 200 free that I've ever swum...just the speed isn't at all there. It's the same issue in fly, though not quite as drastic as in free. Even looking back at seasons where I've had an abridged training block or what have you, it's way more of an issue this season in both strokes than in years past. It's just the top end speed, too--back end speed on those races has been comparatively much better than front end, so that tells me it's a speed issue vs an endurance issue at this time.

Onward and upward!

Thoughts on the season so far and path forward to Nats in June

My first three meets of the season are under my belt--a meet in mid December, Tropical Splash a week ago, and I swam an event at a NCAP meet yesterday. Mixed results overall, but some definite positive signs, too!

December Meet

• 100 breast - 1:16.1
• Outside of doing IM work, I hadn't (and still haven't) trained any breaststroke since 2022 Nats at San Antonio. Pacing was off, stroke felt off, and there was no top end speed, but for a throwaway race with zero specific training to back it up, it wasn't half bad.
• 50 free on the 200 free relay - :26.7
• Slow, slow, slow. Tweaked my lower back on the start and had ZERO turnover. Pretty much felt like the easy speed I aim for in the first 50 of the 200 free...and was a whopping .4 faster than my typical Nats opening split in the 200... 😬
• 50 fly - 29.6
• Abysmally slow, couldn't get into anything resembling a good body rhythm till about a 25 and a half into the "race" and my pull and kick were out of sync for the whole swim. Didn't die or even fade at all, just didn't swim fast.
• 100 IM - 1:07.5
• I was gassed by this point of the meet. I hadn't eaten enough and the meet was running an hour over by that point, so my tank was just about empty. With the exception of a shallow breakout on free, though, it was a clean swim, just no speed.

December Meet - Overall Thoughts

I didn't start training in earnest this season till a few weeks before this meet. I hadn't, and still haven't, ramped up to a full training regimen at that point (a full regimen is a consistent 5-7 practices per week), but I'd been getting in 2-3 good practices for a few weeks going into the meet. All in all, it was a decent starting point after not racing since April, and beyond just the total lack of top end speed, gave me some things to focus on in practice. Another big plus is that with the exception of tweaking my back on the one start, all of my dives felt fantastic--good reaction times, great power off the block, and clean entries.

Tropical Splash

• 100 back - 1:08.1
• Utterly atrocious walls on the start, first turn, and third turn. Utterly mediocre start due to having to use the bar instead of my normal gutter start, feet slid sideways and I ran straight into the rope on my first turn bent at a 45 degree angle, and my feet slipped again on the third turn. I think those issues realistically probably cost me easily 1-2 seconds. I felt good underwater...when I wasn't getting up close and personal with the lane rope...and felt good on the surface, so it wasn't a total loss of a race.
• 50 breast on 200 medley relay - 34.0
• Honestly, given that me and sprinting don't mix in general, and me and breaststroke sprinting especially don't mix, not to mention my current lack of speed, this was a solid time. I was noticeably slow getting off the blocks, but this was my fastest 50 breast since 2019. Over a second slower than 2019, sure, but surprisingly the fastest I've been in 4 years, so I'll take it.
• 50 free on 200 free relay - 26.4
• .3 faster than the December meet with a slower start (not sure why, but my relay starts at this meet were noticeably slower than in December--clean starts both times, just horrendous reaction times that were slow enough that multiple teammates commented on them... 😬). Felt a touch less like swimming in molasses than in December, so I'll take it. Probably would've been in the 25s if I hadn't decided to take a nap before diving! :-D
• 50 back - 31.3
• Same issue on the start as in the 100 and I slipped a bit on the turn, too, but overall a cleaner race than the 100. Historically, when I've trained for backstroke, a 29 high/30 low has been a good in season suited time. With where I'm at in my training right now, an unsuited 31 low is promising. Fastest in season time since a suited swim in 2022 and my second fastest in season time since 2019, so nothing to complain about!
• 100 fly - 1:10.4
• I did not *race* this swim. My shoulder issues on fly have been flaring up off and on in practice, so I decided to just swim this to physically complete 100 yards of fly, something I have yet to do this season sans fins. I cruised it till the last 10-15 yards when I finally pushed it, but I was able to successfully complete the 100 while keeping my underwater kick counts, my breathing pattern, and maintaining a good body rhythm...and even better, no shoulder pain!

Tropical Splash - Overall Thoughts

Ya know, besides the slooooow relay starts and the walls debacle in the 100 back, this was a good meet. Quite promising signs in both the 50 and 100 back, I made progress in the 50 free in comparison to a month prior, successfully checked off the 100 fly, and shockingly swam a decent 50 breast. On the non-swimming part of the equation, I made sure to keep myself well fueled going into and during the meet and it paid off. Unlike in December, I didn't run out of gas, so that was good! The 50 free on the relay was mildly intriguing--historically, when I've swum the individual 50 free at this point of the Nats training cycle in the past, I've been a suited 25.8 or so, dipping to a 24.9 or so at Nats, with my relay splits following a similar trajectory. My 50 free here, correcting for the abysmally slow start, honestly would probably be right in that ballpark.

NCAP Meet

I swam the 200 back with the kids at a meet yesterday. I was there at 6:30 am to coach the 11-12s, then the 13+ kids started at 2:00, and I swam around 6:00 pm. Being on your feet for ~10 hours coaching before swimming a 200 back is...not ideal...but it turned out better than I expected!

I went a 2:26.3, which is about 3.5 seconds faster than when I swam it at roughly the same point of my training cycle last season. For a 2:26 and where I'm at right now, I split it fairly well! 33-36-38-38. I had one major snafu during the race, which was my goggles completely fogging up around the 75 mark. It is an exceptionally dark pool (ceiling lights are dim and at either end of the pool with no lights over the pool and limited underwater lighting in the pool itself), so with my mirrored swedes already being very dark in that pool before fogging up, I effectively swam a 125 of the 200 blind! I did have a bit of peripheral clarity in the goggles and could make out the blur of the lane rope, but that was it. Couldn't see the flags and could barely see the blur of the T on the wall.

I'd warmed up for about a 500 before swimming the 200 and I'm glad I got my stroke count then, cuz that was the only thing that got me through the race! I inadvertently jammed one blind turn and was close on two more blind turns, but the rest of the race was shockingly clean for swimming blind. Didn't play ping pong in the lane, didn't run into the lane rope, nailed my kick counts for all but one turn, and managed to not turn irredeemably too far out or too close to the wall from my stroke counts.

That 2:29 I swam at this approximate point last season turned into a 2:19 at Nats, so with Nats being pushed back two months this season, I'm hoping that extra time in the water will translate into the 2:26 turning into a 2:15 or so. 2:26 was my fastest in season time since 2019 and .2 off of being my fastest in season time since 2017. Back in 2019 I'd gone from a 2:26 in season to a 2:17 at Nats, and looking back at the seasons where I'd trained for the 200 back, there has consistently been a 7-10 second swing between swims at this point of the training cycle and my shaved/tapered time at Nats, so I'm cautiously optimistic about that ballpark 2:15 target time for Nats.

Funnily enough, I was only 1.7 seconds slower at the 100 split than my debacle of a 100 at the Tropical Splash a week prior. Typically that's a roughly 4-5 second gap! If I'd had the normal gap between the 100 and 100 split, the 1:08 would have likely been a 1:05/1:06, which lines up with my contemporary thoughts at TS.

Thoughts from these Meets

With these three meets under my belt, my key takeaways:

• My top end speed is nonexistent across all four strokes, but it *should* come back with targeted speed training in practice closer to Nats in June
• My backstroke is by far the highlight. Rusty, slow in the grand scheme of things, and I'd like to increase my kick count by 1-2 kicks off all the walls which means a lot of very sucky underwater training over the next few months, but it's the best feeling of the four strokes and comparatively the fastest across the board.
• Freestyle is an open question, as is my ability to actually *race* a 100 fly instead of cruise it

Looking Forward

My main focus in training over the remaining 5 months till Nats in Indy is going to be backstroke. The 2017-2018 season was the last time I trained backstroke as a primary stroke, so I'm intrigued to see how things have changed in the past 6 years. Beyond back, I want to train enough fly and free to be able to put up a solid 100 fly and 100/200 free, but my primary focus is going to be back.

Looking at the event lineup for Nats in June in Indy, there are four days of racing (for me, there are five days total including the 1000/1650 day...which I'm certainly not going to do). As of right now, the 50/100/200 back are the only events on my schedule for sure. Other potential events would be the 50/100/200 free, 100 fly, and 100/200 IM. Given the six event limitation for Nats, I'm obviously not going to be able to do them all, but those are my options right now.

Taking a look at the currently posted meets on the various meet calendars, there are three masters meets and one NCAP meet that I can race at between February-April, with likely one to two more masters meets being added to the list. Between those 4-6 meets, I want to swim all of my potential events at least once, with my likely event lineup at each meet being one of the backstroke events + one or two of the others so I can knock out the whole list and see where things stack up.

If there are any meets in April-June that aren't on the calendar yet, I want to try out the 200 fly and 400 IM. I'm definitely not going to swim either at Nats, but it's been several years since I swam either and I  just want to see where I'm at.

All in all, I'm pretty pumped right now! I'm making good progress in the pool, my backstroke is showing signs of life after being dormant for a few years, and I've got a solid ~5 months to train, iron out kinks, and do all that fun stuff before Nats.

Nationals recap!

Whew, that was a great and exhausting Nationals! I normally don't post my post-Nats recap this quickly, but I'm sitting in the hotel with literally nothing else to do, so figure I might as well knock it out.

Feel free to skip down to the daily recaps if you want to get into the actual swim stuff.

Pre-meet Thoughts

Going into this meet, I had pretty low expectations. I'm not going to rehash everything in detail that I've posted in previous blog entries, but this was a unique season. I was mentally burned out after spring Nats last year and didn't train seriously at all from May-December 2022, I got my chest tattoo in the fall which physically kept me out of the water except for a handful of practices for 10 weeks, then the family crisis in January that kept me out for a while...the long and short of it is that I didn't start training seriously till towards the end of February, then had another family crisis at the end of March/beginning of April that also impacted my training and emotional/mental state in general.

With about 10 weeks of actual training under my belt going into this meet, I didn't really know what to expect. I'm fairly old school in my personal training philosophy and usually do a solid 8 months of focused, typically (relatively) heavy training before tapering for this meet. Even with the shutdowns in 2020, I was able to get just about that normal training block in before Nats in 2021, so this was the first time I've had an abbreviated season pre-Nats, let alone one this drastically short.

Anyways, that's all just to say that I had no idea going into it how I'd do at this meet. I didn't think I'd bomb it, slow times at the handful of in-season meets I went to aside, but didn't have high expectations. I signed up for events I thought I'd do decent in, but figured I'd go solidly middle of the road times at the meet.

Friday Events

I kicked off my first day of the meet with the 200 back and 100 free. I'd done the 200 back at a meet in March, but hadn't done the 100 free this season.

200 back

I entered with a seed time of 2:26 (I'd gone an unsuited 2:29 in March). 

I started doing backstroke work in practice in March and had a solid 4-5 weeks of actual backstroke training under my belt by the time the meet rolled around. The last season I'd actually trained for backstroke was the 2017-2018 season, so I didn't really know what to expect. I knew that, until just the last week before the meet, in practice my stroke felt good, but my times (both in practice and at meets) were pretty far off what I was used to doing through 2018. I remember being able to hold :30-:31 for 100 pace work 50s in practice back then, and holding :33-:34 for 200 pace work 50s. This time around my 100 pace in practice was :32-:33 and my 200 pace was :36.

Historically, I've been on the 200-back-is-pure-PAIN train and the amount of pain I've been in during that race has been a good measuring stick for how well I've swum that race, with the time closely correlating to that pain. In 2013 when I went my 2:12 MPR, I literally blacked out for about a 50 of that race (I remember the first 125, then the next thing I remember was going into the 175 turn) and had to crawl out of the pool on my hands and knees.

I can't do that kind of performance with just 10 weeks of training.

Over the past couple of seasons training with the senior group in the mornings, I've been working on learning to train (and race) smarter, not necessarily harder, so while I conceptually know racing doesn't have to be maximum pain for maximum performance, it's still 20+ years of deeply ingrained racing/training habits that I'm fighting against, and I still have plenty of mental blocks about it.

All that stuff said, I came into the meet with what I thought was an ambitious target time of a 2:20.5, but was realistically going to be satisfied with a 2:21 or faster. 

I went a 2:19! That was the fastest I've been since 2019, definitely my fastest without a full season under my belt, and my 10th fastest masters time out of 20 SCY swims. One key note is that with the exception of the 2:12 from 2013, my fastest masters time was a 2:16 from 2018 and I've got a whopping 11 swims in the 2:17-2:23 range, so this was statistically one of my better 200 backs.

Race video:

My race starts at 46:58. About the only critique I have for the race is that I inhaled water on my turn stroke at every wall from the 75-175, and as a result I ended up dropping 1-2 kicks off each turn. I've been training in practice to hit 5 kicks off of every turn in the 200 and have been able to consistently do so in practice, but due to the lack of a breath on the turn stroke I dropped the kicks down.

Besides that, it was a significantly better race than I anticipated. I've had some 200 backs in the past where, despite having a faster time, I've split the race poorly, but my splits were just about ideal for the time I went. Honestly, I don't really have anything negative to say about the race besides the inhaling water part, and I was able to handle that without negatively impacting my performance. I might have been able to hit a 2:18 with the 5 kicks off each wall, sure, but I have nothing to complain about with my actual time.

100 free

I really had no idea what I'd go in this. While I hadn't done a 100 free this season, I'd done several unsuited 50s free in meets during this short season, but was consistently mid :26 (my suited in season best is a :25.4 and my shaved/tapered best is a :24.9). In practice I struggled to break :30 for a single 100 pace 50, so I thought I might be anywhere from a :55 to a :58 in this race. I picked what I thought was a fairly ambitious 55.8 as my target time pre-meet, but was going to be happy with a 56.5 or faster.

Unlike the 200 back, I don't have a ton of history or mental baggage with this event. I'm not a freestyler at heart, as I am a backstroker at heart, though I've certainly become much more of a freestyler over the last 5 years or so compared to the first 25 years of my swimming career, so I don't have nearly the breadth or depth of experience in this as I do with any of the backstroke races.

I had a :55.8 goal time and went a...:55.8 😀 This was my 5th fastest masters time. I've got two :54s and two :55s faster than this swim and a whole mess of :56-:59s slower than this one, so I really can't complain about the time in the grand scheme of things.

Race video: 

If it misses the time stamp, my race starts at 1:22.05. This was an excellent race till the 75 turn. It was a 100% rookie mistake on my part, but I hadn't been paying attention to my stroke count on that lap, and with the glare in the water from the angle of the sun, I couldn't really see where the wall was and flipped too early. It's not nearly as apparent in the video as it was for me in the race, but when I flipped at the 75, I barely grazed the wall with my toes and lost quite a bit of speed off that wall as a result. I'd like to think I'd have been around a :55 flat with a clean turn there, but hey, :55.8 isn't terrible for me!

Everything else about the race except for that turn was good--start, surface swimming, race strategy, breathing pattern, underwaters, all of it was good but that one turn. Live and learn!

Saturday Event

Saturday was my light day with just the 100 IM on tap. I just chilled at the hotel, ate a nice, hearty breakfast and earlyish lunch, got some extended stretching in, and just relaxed in general before heading to the pool midday.

100 IM

I really had no expectations for this event pre-meet. There are some seasons where I feel like I can actually sprint and have a top gear, but this has not been one of those seasons. On top of that, my breaststroke has felt atrocious since last summer. Given that I spent the 2017-2022 seasons working on breast and made good progress each season, I'm not sure why my breast devolved so much this season. Anyways, that's a whole 'nother topic, and suffice it to say I didn't have a good idea of what I could go in this event. I'd been an unsuited 1:04.9 in December, so picked a more or less arbitrary 1:03.5 as a goal time for this event, but had no clue if it'd be an ambitious goal time or a cakewalk.

I ended up going a 1:02.7, which is quite respectable! I'd entered with a 1:02.1 seed time that was the time I went at Nats in 2021. 

Race video: It appears that USMS has taken down this video, but I expect it to go back up in the next couple of days, at which point I'll embed it here.

I had a great start, but my fly felt horribly out of sync and I couldn't get my pull and kick to mesh well, let alone get a good body rhythm, till inside the flags going into the turn. I was a little bit long (maybe 1/3 stroke too long) on that turn, but nailed everything else about the race. Going off on a bit of a tangent, I've been struggling with sprint fly this season. I've posted about it before, but my unsuited 50s fly this season have been :29s, while I was consistently going suited :27s in season just a couple seasons ago. I really don't know why I apparently can't find a top gear...or even an upper gear...in fly anymore, but I might work on it next season before deciding to write off sprint fly for good. Besides the issues with fly, that was an excellent race! It is a full 2 seconds off my masters PR from 2018, but with the exception of 1 in-season time from 2019, all 9 times I've been faster all came as shaved/tapered swims, so I don't have much to complain about.

Sunday Events

I closed out my meet with 2 final events, the 100 back and 200 free. I'd woken up in the morning with a very sore set of traps and shoulder blades despite feeling fine when I went to bed Saturday night, so I scheduled a massage for before the 100 back. The massage therapist said my upper back was a mass of knots, but she got them out and I thankfully felt much better afterward!

100 back

As I mentioned in the 200 back recap, I didn't have much of a sense of what I would go in this race. I'd been struggling to hit :32-:33 when trying to do 100 pace 50s in practice, with :31 being an all out sprint to the touch, let alone to the feet. I'd done 3 separate unsuited 50s back this season at meets and went :31s on all of them, and when I did an unsuited 100 back in March, had an awful race for a 1:07.9. Given all of that, I had what I thought was an ambitious 1:04.5 goal time pre-meet. After taking my 200 back on Friday out in a 1:07.9, I thought I might be able to go a sub-1:04, but wasn't sure.

I went a 1:02.4!

Race video: Like with the 100 IM video, USMS seems to have removed it momentarily (they're missing from midday Saturday onward, despite them being up as of shortly after each event through midafternoon today). I'll embed it here when they reupload the race video.

I decided to go HARD on the first 50 and see if I could break :31 (ha!) and try to hold on from there. Well, mission accomplished! I went deeper on the start than I expected and had to take an extra two butterfly kicks to surface, but the first 50 felt great. I started to tighten up going into the 75 turn, flipped a bit too close and got my feet stuck high on the wall and had to drag them down a bit to avoid pushing straight down on the push (which felt like it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. but probably wasn't much longer than a normal turn for me), then really tightened up on the last 25. I locked up big time and everything SHUT DOWN in the last 12.5 yards, with the final ~5 yards being, bar none, the most excruciating final 5 yards of any 100 back I've ever swum in my entire swimming career. I dove back probably a full stroke too early on the finish, but honestly don't know if I could've physically taken another stroke, that's how bad I'd locked up. All told, that race was easily in my top 3 most painful 100 backs of all time, and since it was one of my events as an age grouper I've swum that race probably close to 75 times over the course of my career.

But I'm very happy with it! That was a slam dunk of a race, and while I might have been able to shave off a few tenths with a better 75 turn and taking another stroke at the finish, that's still my 5th fastest masters time and the fastest I've been since 2018.

200 free

Beyond all my other races, this was probably the biggest question mark in my book pre-meet. While the training I do in practice naturally lends itself to the 200 free, the short season and it being the last event of the meet made it a total question mark. Having no frame of reference, I didn't know how my comparative lack of conditioning would impact me in the 200 compared to when I've swum it at other meets. In practice, I'd been consistently hitting :31-:32 on 200 pace 50s, while in seasons past I've held :30, so I knew I wasn't going to go near my masters PR of 2:01. I figured a 2:04.5 would be an ambitious goal time for the 200 if it were the only event I were to swim at the meet, but more realistically figured a 2:06 or faster would likely be reasonable given its place in my event lineup.

I went a 2:05.3.

Race video: Same as the last few.

Honestly, this was a solid swim. I paid for that 100 back big time on this race--while from a technique and pacing standpoint this was a solid race, I was running on fumes and was totally gassed. I didn't fall apart, for the first time in recent memory I swam this race without choking on water from the wakes of the guys next to me, and there was nothing wrong about this race except for the lack of get up and go. This was still my 7th fastest 200 free I've done as a masters swimmer, so nothing at all wrong with this time. 

I think this is the first race where the lack of a full training cycle under my belt really made an appearance. Last spring at Nats was when I went my 2:01.1 MPR (with splits of :27, :30, :31, :31), but I'd had an excellent training cycle that season. Both as a coach and as a swimmer, I don't think you can really nail 200s by themselves without putting the work in all season, and you definitely can't nail multiple 200s over a 3 day meet without putting that work in, and this was a case in point.

For what it was, I'm happy with this and am even happier that my comparative lack of conditioning waited till my last event of the meet to make an appearance! 😁

Miscellaneous Other Thoughts

One of the many Olympians entered in the meet was Markus Rogan. He's a few years older than me and swam for the age group team I now coach and is that team's most accomplished alumnus--represented Austria at the Olympics from 2000-2012, was a double silver medalist in the 100 and 200 back in 2004, was the SCM Worlds gold medalist in the 200 back in 2008 and also held the SCM WR that year in that event.

I tracked him down, introduced myself, and got to chat with him for a bit on Friday, then ran into him behind the blocks for most of my races. Super nice guy! I also got a big kick out of him giving me a fist bump and wishing me luck before my 200 free today.

Speaking of Olympians, there were a ton at this meet! On Friday during warmup, I shared a lane with Jenny Thompson (one of the American mainstays from 1992-2004) and Gabrielle Rose (1996 for Brazil and 2000 for the US). Growing up Jenny Thompson was one of my idols, so it was surreal sharing a lane with her here!

Overall Thoughts

I was quite pleasantly surprised with how this meet turned out. For those of you who've followed my blog and/or my ramblings on Facebook, you know I'm generally pretty critical about my swimming. I give myself a hard time about pretty much everything I do in the water, but I thrive on intrinsic motivation. I know I'm not fast enough to pretty much ever place at Nationals outside of the gimme events like the 200 back and sometimes the 100 back, where there are inexplicably usually never more than 10 swimmers and I place by default, but I train and race because I genuinely love to do so, and love to do so no matter what kind of shape I'm in or if I come remotely close to placing.

I loved everything about this meet, even with all the stumbles and starts and stops I had during this season that prevented me from getting anywhere near to a full training cycle under my belt in preparation for this meet. The 100 back was the home run success story here, but every other race was good in its own way, even the 200 free. I knew I wasn't going to realistically set any MPRs at this meet, but this was still an unqualified success of a meet!

Since this meet capped off such a short season, I decided to go back and compare my times to my best times from suited swims at meets from more or less comparative time periods (ie, November-December, +/- a few weeks) in seasons past. Obviously I wasn't partially shaved and tapered, but I was suited at those meets and my conditioning was pretty analagous to my conditioning right now. I didn't race some of those events until January, so those would've benefited from an extra couple of months of conditioning; I've marked those with an asterisk. The long and short of it is that while none of these are a true 1:1 comparison, they should all be directionally accurate comparisons between events.

• 200 back (January 2017): 2:19.6*
• 200 back here: 2:19.4
• 100 free (December 2019): 55.3
• 100 free here: 55.8
• 100 IM (January 2019): 1:02.5*
• 100 IM here: 1:02.7
• 100 back (December 2018): 1:03.6
• 100 back here: 1:02.4
• 200 free: (November 2019): 2:03.2
• 200 free here: 2:05.3

Frankly, with the exception of the 200 free, those all hold up really well! Without me bombing that last turn on the 100 free, I'd have likely been a bit faster than my time from 2019. The 100 back remains the standout, with both it and the 200 back faster than the past swims. With those comparisons in mind, I'm even happier with how this meet turned out than I initially was! 😀

Looking Ahead to Next Year

I'm not mentally burned out! I'm planning to take a few days off to relax, then get back at it later this week. Short course Nats next year are going to be in June in Indy at IUPUI. While Nats had outgrown the facility in 2018, the last time it was there, I hope this time they'll have something figured out to accomodate the likely size of the meet.

Since the meet is approximately 2 months later than spring Nats normally is (they're doing it in June to coincide with the last few days of Olympic Trials, also in Indy), I'm excited to see what the extra 2 months will do for my training cycle, presuming I stay healthy and don't have any more major training disruptions. I will be getting one more tattoo at some point this summer/fall in memory of my dad, but it'll be a much smaller forearm tattoo that should only take one session and only keep me out of the water for a week, +/- a few days.

After my successes with backstroke here, I'm planning to double down on backstroke for next season. I'm ecstatic with my times after only about a month of focused backstroke training and subpar conditioning, so with a full+ training cycle and continuous focused backstroke training, I don't think it's out of the question to get back towards my 2013 MPRs of 1:00 and 2:12 for the 100 and 200 back, respectively. I don't know if I'll be able to surpass those times, but I certainly think I could approach them! I also want to get back into seriously training for the 100 fly, as although I didn't end up swimming it at the meet except in the 100 IM, I've been happy with my (non-sprint) fly in practice lately. Presuming my shoulders stay healthy (I believe I've mentioned it in other posts, but I've had micro tears in the labrums in both shoulders that have flared up off and on since 2016 or so and have impacted my ability to swim fly when they flare up) the 100 fly is a definite.

Besides those 3 events, I'm not sure what else to enter. If I can figure out how to get my breaststroke halfway decent again after the aberration of this season, the 200 IM is likely a go. If I can figure out how to sprint again, the 100 IM is a freebie. I might toss in the 200 free again if my training goes well, but I might take a season off from it.

Events I plan to do in-season, but with no current intentions to do at Nats, are the 200 fly, 400 IM, and 500 free. They'll probably be events I'll do at spring meets with a solid 4+ months of training under my belt, but I'd like to do them just as benchmarks. Now, if I'm magically blown away with how I do in them next spring, who knows, they might become possibilities for Nats entries, but I'll have to carefully weigh them against the other events.

All in all, I'm significantly more excited about this next season than I was after Nats last spring!

First real taper in a while!

I've got one practice left for my taper before heading to CA tomorrow evening. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure this is my first proper taper since 2019. No Nats in 2020, the ones in 2021 were pushed back and effectively midseason meets so I trained through them, and last spring we went on vacation just a couple weeks before the meet, so my schedule was thrown off. And then I didn't taper last summer, primarily because I wasn't really training.

So far in this taper I've been focusing on my 200s free and back, more so on the latter.

The last time I actually *trained* for backstroke was back in 2018, so I've been pretty rusty while doing back this season. That said, with Saturday's backstroke taper set and this morning's backstroke taper set, I'm getting pretty pumped for the 200 back! Saturday I did a lot of good underwater work and then a 100 trying to hit my target pace for the 2nd 100 of the 200. I hit a 1:11, which was faster than my target time of 1:13ish! Moving forward to today, I did 3x50 on 1:30 aiming for 2nd 50 of the 200 pace, followed by another 100 trying to hit 200 back half pace. I held :33 on the 50s and went 1:10 on the 100.

Looking at both of those practices, my backstroke times have consistently been a bit faster than I expected. Given that it's been 5 years since I actually trained backstroke, I hope it's a sign that my stroke is rounding back into form more than I expected and not that I can't figure out my pacing (e.g. thinking I'm going 200 pace but actually going 100 pace, etc).

Free has been much less of a focus for me, but I've been pretty happy with my times while doing similar sets. Unlike with back, they haven't been faster than I expected, but they've mostly been right on what I expected, so I'll take it. My free stroke doesn't feel as clean as my back, but it feels good enough.

Tomorrow I'll change gears and do some IM sprint work and transition turn work.

All in all, I'm happy to be doing a legit taper again and happy with how it's going!

Countdown to Nationals!

I'm in the last little bit before Nationals, with my flight being in 11 days.

I signed up for six events, the 100/200 back, 100/200 free, 100 IM, and 100 fly, with the 100 fly designated as my 6th event. Due to the size of the meet, they ended up dropping the 6th event, so I'm just sooooo heartbroken that I don't get to swim the 100 fly. Darn.

I did one last set of meets a couple weeks ago as a final pulse check. That weekend, on day 1 I swam a handful of SCY events: the 50 free on a 200 free relay, 50 fly, 100 fly, and 50 back on a 200 medley relay. On day 2 I swam two LCM events, the 50 fly and the 200 free. I swam all the events on both days wearing just a practice speedo instead of my normal tech suit.

SCY events:

1) 50 free: No clue what my split was. It felt good on the surface, but I slipped pretty badly on the turn and likely lost a significant chunk of time there.

2) 50 fly: I went a 29.1, which, while it felt like a great race, is sloooooow. I honestly have no idea what has happened to my in-season fly speed--as recently as just pre-pandemic I was regularly a 27 mid at in-season meets. I can't believe the speedo would reduce my speed that much compared to a tech suit for just a 50.

3) 100 fly: I went a 1:07.1, which was a bit better than I actually expected. I completely bombed the first two turns, but besides that it was a solid race. Honestly, it was a comparatively better time than my 50 fly time--in the recent pre-pandemic years I was typically a suited mid 1:03 in-season, so a non-suited time coming in less than 4 seconds off of that, with two utterly abysmal turns to boot, is better than I expected.

4) 50 back: Watch had me at a :31 and change, which is on the slower end but not terrible. I had a bad start and jammed turn, but all in all not as terrible as it could have been. I'd like to think I'd have been able to shave off about a second with a clean race, but not awful.

LCM races:

1) 50 fly: I went a 33.0, about a second off my shaved/tapered/suited time from last summer. With the exception of inhaling the wake from the much faster dude next to me about halfway down the pool, it was a clean swim. My technique didn't fall apart, I didn't die, I kept my breathing pattern, etc.

2) 200 free: I went a 2:34. The results haven't posted, so I don't know what my splits were, but for my first time swimming the LCM 200 free in close to 20 years, I thought it was a decent race. My pacing was wonky--felt too slow on the first 100 and still had gas in the tank at the finish despite trying to push it on the back half, but I'm satisfied with that time. Looking at my 100 free, which I've done in back to back SCY and LCM seasons, I typically have about a 19% time conversion from SCY to LCM, which would put my approximate SCY time around a 2:09ish. As recently as a couple years pre-pandemic I was typically going suited 2:06-2:08s in-season, so an approximate 2:09 equivalent was a great swim.

Beyond the meet performances, I've felt pretty good in practice. My kick is inching closer to where it typically is at this point in the season despite me effectively tossing away the first 5+ months of the season, my free is also in the ballpark, and my back, while admittedly slower than I'd like, feels good. My fly feels good (besides being inexplicably slow), but my breaststroke feels pretty terrible--since I'm only doing a 25 BR in the 100 IM, I'm fine with it feeling bad since I can BS it and rely on the other 3 strokes.

I'm beginning my taper on Friday (planning for a 5 practice taper before flying out to Irvine), but plan to hit it hard till then with 5 or 6 regular practices pre-taper.

I don't think I'll come all that close to setting PRs at Nats this time around, but I do think I'll be able to put up some solid times. My ballpark target times by day and event for the meet:

Friday: 

-200 back: 2:20.5

-100 free: :55.8

Saturday:

-100 IM: 1:03.5

Sunday:

-100 back: 1:04.5

-200 free: 2:04.5

None of those target times are close to PRs. I'll be thrilled if I hit those times or go faster than them, but on the flip side I won't be heartbroken if I go slower than them. The 200 back is *probably* the iffiest of those target times, but regardless, I'm going into this meet just to see where I'm at shaved (except for my head this time around, I save that for championship meets I'm fully trained for), tapered, and suited.

It's gonna be fun! 😀

Debrief on yesterday's meet

Having now had a day to think about the meet yesterday, I'm lightly revising my initial impression of it.

Specifically, I'm actually happier with both events than I was yesterday, though that doesn't change the fact that both were slow.

100 back

BLUF: Decent time, awful race execution.

The pool at UMBC is only a bit over 3.5' deep at the start end, which is not ideal for my type of starts--I typically go deep on both my dive and back starts, usually probably somewhere around 5' deep, so the shallow depth put a crimp on my start. I briefly touched the bottom with my first kick off the start and then had a bit of trouble getting up to the surface since my angle of attack was not the normal one. I've been working on surfacing at 10 butterfly kicks, but in the race I came up at 14.

That extra few kicks had downstream impacts--I think it directly contributed to my screwed up stroke count on the first turn, and had oxygen debt issues towards the back end of the race, compounded by my other issues. 

On the first turn, I flipped almost a full stroke too far out from the wall and touched with my legs, while not completely straight, substantially straighter than ideal and just made contact with the balls of my feet. In an attempt to make up for the lacking turn, I added 3 additional kicks (I did 9 kicks vs my target of 6) before surfacing and did those kicks harder than normal to try and make up for the weak push.

On the second turn, I just plain screwed up my stroke count. It wasn't like the first turn where I was just in the wrong place for my stroke count, I just flat out flipped a stroke too early. Same thing happened with that turn as happened with the first turn--straight legs, weak push, extra kicks (though only 6 kicks vs my target of 5 for the turn), and harder kicks.

The third turn was right on--nailed my stroke count and flipped at the right time, which let me hit the wall right where I wanted and get a good push. On the other hand, the oxygen debt from the botched start and botched first two turns hit me with a vengeance then. I only did 4 kicks vs my target 5, and was sucking wind from the breakout. Legs died within a few strokes and then arms died shortly thereafter.

Thinking about it, I think that shutdown was caused more by oxygen debt than just poor stamina on my part. Stamina was definitely a part of it, but an extra 8, harder than normal, underwater kicks is roughly equivalent to another 10-12 yards underwater with the shape I'm in right now, which isn't negligible!

I'm also someone who tends to have a significant difference in how I swim back with a tech suit vs a practice speedo. The tech suit changes my hip and body alignment, typically allowing me to get 3-5 feet further underwater given the same amount of kicks, and the quad compression makes a huge difference on the feeling of my quads falling apart at the end of a 100.

If I'd swum a smart race and nailed my start and turns, I think my 1:07 probably would've been a 1:06 or 1:05 purely from not going into serious oxygen debt and shutting down at the end. Add a tech suit in there as I've worn for every other 100 back I've raced, and that probably would've been good for another second, down in the 1:04/1:05 range.

Looking at my 20+ 100 back races over the past decade or so and comparing states of training, this swim correlates most closely with my usual early season races in the October/November timeframe. Looking at my most recent early season 100 back, from October 2019, the last season I trained for back, I was a 1:04 at that meet, which tracks pretty well with what I did yesterday, adjusted for all the poor choices on my part.

100 breast

I'm not going to go into anywhere remotely as much detail on this one. The 1:18 I went was just darn slow, but while I was swimming it it felt like I was swimming a solid first 100 of a 200. Not a great pullout off the dive due to the shallowness there, but besides that it was solid all around. My stroke felt strong, smooth, and in control, and my other three pullouts were solid.

I just didn't have any of the top end speed I need for a 100. Comparing this swim to other early season swims, the most comparable early season 100 was probably from all the way back in 2015 (I started training specifically for the 100 and 200 breast in the 2016-2017 season, so since I'm not doing any breast training, I'm looking at my last pre-breast focus season), where I went a 1:12. Even throwing a tech suit on, I'd be surprised if I'd have gone faster than a 1:16 yesterday, which just means my breast is darn slow right now.

At least it means the 100 breast is decidedly not on the table for Nats! 😁

The state of my training and possible event lineups for Nats

Update on my training

This has been an odd season for training. Heck, my training has been off ever since last April when Alaina and I went to Puerto Rico. A combination of taking a break a few weeks before Nats in San Antonio last April, then being mentally burned out and barely swimming over the summer, then still being burned out in the fall, plus getting the chest tattoo and the requisite time out of the water for it to heal after each session, plus still dealing with the lingering after effects of burnout (for me those effects were total lack of motivation in the water, disinterest in getting up for AM practice, desire to just take it easy instead of pushing it in practice, and total lack of guilt for skipping practice for a week or more)...

The long and short of it is that I didn't start "training" training till February! Sure, I was swimming before then, but it was generally just a couple of times a week, if that, and I didn't really push it that hard in practice.

Anyways, since late last month I've been swimming regularly and am on track to get back to 6-8 practices per week starting next week, with this week being my first week of hitting all 5 weekday AM practices. I'm no longer dealing with burnout, I'm motivated in the water, and I'm pumped to be training again! I think I can realistically maintain this training velocity through Nats at the end of April.

On the plus side, with a few weeks of legit training under my belt, I'm pretty happy with my endurance in the water. Despite how much time I've been out of the water since last April, my endurance is tracking pretty closely to where I'd typically be at this point of the season. My speed, on the other hand...hasn't been great. That said, there have been flickers of actual speed here and there!

Yesterday we did a two person 500 backstroke relay, trading off by 50. I went :32, :33, :34, :34, and :34. Till yesterday, a :34 has been the fastest single 50 back I've hit in practice, so for me to have two that were faster than that, plus holding that pace for three consecutive 50s, all on less than :40r between 50s, is a great sign of progress being made in the right direction. Ideally, if I were to do that set again in mid/late April, I'd want to shave off :1-2 from each of those 50s, but for right now it's great.

My main set this morning was a long pull set. 300, 4x25 fast, 250, 4x25, 200, 4x25, 150, 4x25, 100, 4x25, 50, and 4x25. The 25s were all on :30, while the rest was just leaving on the next :30/:00, with the 300>50 being descend. I did paddles for the longer stuff, no paddles for the 25s. In my descend, I got the 100 down to a 1:11 and the 50 down to a :33. I'm pretty sure that 50 is just :1 off my best paddles pull time, and that 100 is right there, too! Given that I'd also done 5x200 pull before the main set and my shoulders and lats were tight and sore, I'm quite happy with those times.

All of that is to say that there are glimmers of speed and that my current training is pushing me in the right direction, by all indications. I wouldn't want to go to Nats this weekend, or at least I wouldn't want to go this weekend and set my typically high standards for my swims, but I'm quite happy with my training velocity and direction right now.

Potential event lineups for Nats

Ooh boy, this is a bit tricky. I'd gone into the fall thinking I'd train for the 100/200 free, 50/100 fly, and 100/200 back. On the other hand, I also really like the 100 and 200 IM, and after the 200 IM debacle in San Antonio, I kinda want to try to redeem myself in that event. On top of that, my breast has felt surprisingly decent in practice--my BR times haven't been there, of course, but the stroke itself has felt surprisingly decent, so the 100 BR is potentially on the table. The problem is that all that adds up to 9 events, and you can only swim a maximum of 6 events. Given that nearly 1300 swimmers have already signed up for the meet with a month left to go before the entry deadline, I'm guessing there's a pretty good chance that people will only be allowed to swim 5 events instead of the normal 6. The 100 free, 200 free, and 100 back are the only events that I'm definitely doing, with the other events all vying for the final 2 or 3 slots.

I've got 3 meets, possibly 4, between now and the entry deadline, so my goal is to get through most of those potential events and see how I comparatively stack up in each one. I came into this season not planning to do any breast, but if it turns out it's actually legit this season and is comparatively better than another stroke/event on the list, then I'll just suck it up and swim it at Nats.

My first meet in this sprint to Nats is this weekend, where I'm doing the 100 back and 100 breast. I hadn't planned on doing any breast at meets this season, but with the order of events at that meet and my breast feeling decent lately, it's the only one that works out besides the 100 back, and I'm not going to a meet to only swim one event, so 100 breast it is.

So, all that said, here are my potential lineups at Nats, depending on which events I decide to do. I'm keeping myself to no more than 2 events per day, so that also complicates things given the order of events at Nats. Day 3 is locked in, it's the event lineups for Day 1 and 2 that have several potential variations.

• Day 1 potential lineups
• Option 1: 200 IM, 100 free
• Option 2: 200 back, 100 free
• Option 3: 100 breast, 100 free
• Day 2 potential lineups
• Option 1: 100 fly, 100 IM
• Option 2: 100 fly, 50 back
• Option 3: 100 IM, 50 back
• Day 3 lineup
• 100 back, 200 free

Frankly, beside the 100 back and 100/200 free, I haven't a clue what the rest of my event lineup will be. I threw the 50 back in there as an option just because of the :32 I went in practice yesterday, but unless I magically turn into a sprint backstroker over the next month, I doubt it's really going to make the short list. The 100 back on Sunday will indicate how I'm doing in it, obviously, but will also serve as a somewhat indicative proxy for the 200 back and 50 back as options. 'Nuff said about the 100 breast. 

Across the potential 4 meets before the entry deadline, I could theoretically knock out every single potential event and pick my 2-3 extra events besides the 100/200 free and 100 back from those swims based on meet results.

Honestly, regardless how it all shakes out, I'm just happy to be consistently back in the water, training hard, and finally motivated again!