My team hosted the meet today, the Tropical Splash. The pool is a kinda cruddy pool (compared to the competition pools at like the Sportsplex, the UK pool, IUPUI, George Mason, or any of the other top tier pools) and it was manual timing, but it was quite a good meet!
I swam a total of seven events, in order: 50 back, 100 IM, 100 free, 200 free relay, 200 mixed medley relay, 50 fly, and 50 free. I had some great swims, some good swims, and some decent swims. Had a bit of a problem with the walls/bottom/depth perception in the outside lanes, but other than that it wasn't too shabby.
50 back: First event of the meet, and it started off pretty well. Had a pretty good start, good underwater work, and felt like I had good arm speed. ...And then I missed the flags (foggy goggles), turned a stroke early, and barrrrrrely grazed the wall with the tips of my toes. Came to a dead stop, and that basically killed my race. I think I was neck and neck for first in my heat going into the turn, but came out of it towards the back of the pack. Second 25...once I actually started picking up some momentum again...felt pretty good. I was PISSED at that point, so I had a lot of energy on the back half of the race. All in all, it wasn't a terrible swim--I was entered as a 30.89 and went a 31.36. If I'd had a good turn, I most likely would have easily broken a 30.00. Sigh.
100 IM: By far my standout event of the meet. Last time I swam it, I died from lack of air on the back half of the race, so this time I tried to slow the first half down just a bit, and worked on getting plenty of air on the breast and free legs. Worked out quite well! Don't know what my splits ended up being (I think I took it out in a 27 or 28 or something), but I went a 1:03.70. Everything felt good on the race, although I didn't sprint all out on the free, since I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the heat and didn't have anyone to push me. VERY pleased with that swim, since I was entered as a 1:07.00! Even better, that puts me well within reach of the Nats cut, which is a 1:00.77. In the three meets I've swum the 100 IM at, my time has gone down from a 1:10.21 to a 1:03.70. If I've dropped 6.5 seconds already, then I can probably eke out another 3 seconds. Now my training goal for the 100 IM is to pick up the pace on free and get back to doing the back to breast flip turn thing I used to do. Much faster than an open turn, but tricky as all get out to get the timing down, not to mention doing it without getting DQd...
100 free: Those of you who've known me for a while know that I've never been anything more than a middling/decent freestyler. The 100 free has never been one of my favorite events, and still isn't. Hadn't swum it since early 2005 and had no clue where I was at in it, so I entered myself as a 58.99. I had a decent race, but had a *slight*issue with my pacing. I took it out at maybe a 200 pace, if not closer to 500 pace. Didn't think anything of the pace until I flipped at the 50, then realized how slow I was swimming. Not my best 100 free ever, but I still went a 57.52, so I beat my made up time. Hey, I'll take that!
200 free relay: Decent race. I went second on the relay, and have no clue what my split was.
200 medley relay: I swam the fly leg of this race, and had problems with the waves, along with a slow start (we haven't really practiced relay starts much, so my timing is awful). Our lane was sandwiched between two faster relays, and the lane ropes did almost nothing to stop the wakes of the other swimmers from crossing into my lane. My stroke on fly is just above the surface of the water, so if there's a wave, I'm going to hit it. It normally isn't an issue in an individual fly event, but it was a big problem in this race. I think I still split a low 27, but I splashed a LOT of water.
50 fly: Sigh. My other not-so-good swim. The race itself felt great, but I totally misjudged where the wall was on the finish. I thought the wall was one stroke away, so I took the stroke and then dove into where I thought the wall was....but I had done that a stroke too soon, so my finish was terrible. I thought the timer said I went a 27.75, but the ribbon I got said 29.75. Given that I was entered as a 28.16, and with how good the race felt besides the finish, I'm going to say my time was probably a 27.75, and they just had a data entry error when printing up the ribbons.
50 free: Again, it's a free event, so not really my forte. I was entered as a 26.93, and went a 26.13, so I'll take it. The swim portion felt good, and I had the correct distance from the wall on my turn, but it was just a slooooow turn--I really need to work on the quick flip, driving in and out of the wall. If I'd sped up the turn, probably would have been in the mid 25 range.
Overall, a pretty darn good meet, wall issues notwithstanding! A fair number of swimmers from my team came out (15, I think?), which is a big improvement over the 2-3 of us who normally swim at meets. I had a blast hanging out with them, along with all my other friends on the team who didn't swim, but came out to time or help run the meet, so I'd say this meet was an unmitigated success!
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