Oof...the long road to Nationals just got shorter

At the beginning of the short course season back in October, I thought that you could get Nationals cuts up till a couple weeks before the meet.  Well, they posted the online entry form last week, and you only have through March 23rd to get the cuts, a full month before the meet.  I mean, I understand why they have it like that, I just assumed they'd give us more time.

My original game plan from December for the rest of the season was for me to go to a total of eight meets from January-April before Nats.  The last meet before Nats is the Zone championship meet from April 13-15 (Nats is April 26-29).  I had thought it would be like USA swimming, when you could go to the State B meet two weeks before the State A meet and still get A cuts.

With the shorter time frame, the last two pre-Nats meets are now meaningless on the cuts front, since there's a meet March 25 and then Zones.

Since I've now got a bit less than 7 weeks to get Nats cuts, I gotta move up my meet schedule.  I'm trying to get Nats cuts in the 50 fly, 100 fly, 100 IM, and possibly the 200 IM.  With those four events in mind, here's my new meet schedule for the rest of the eligibility session:

• February 11-12: Two day meet in Richmond, longer distance events (200s on up) on the first day, sprint events (50s and 100s) on the second day.  I'm swimming my full repertoire of fly, back, and IM events, minus the 200 fly.
• March 3: One day meet in the Baltimore area.  It's a longer distance meet, 200s on up.  I'm probably going to swim the 200 IM and 200 fly, maybe 200 back, too.
• March 4: One day meet in Warrenton, VA (about an hour away).  It's a sprint meet, so I'll try to get in the 50/100 fly, 50/100 back, and 100 IM.
• March 17: One day meet in Bethesda.  It's a short course meters meet, but they offer the full range of events.  This will be my last chance to make cuts (converted times are eligible qualifying times), so I'll swim whatever events I'm close to the cuts in.

After those four meets, I'll have two meets to get in the Nationals frame of mind.  There are two meets offered on March 25, so I need to decide which to go to.  One is a repeat of the meet in Annapolis I went to three weeks ago, so I think I might go to the other meet for a change of scenery.  And then there's Zones in April.  That will be my big prep meet, since it's a high level fast competition pool, as opposed to many of the pools we swim at.

Four meets to potentially make four cuts.  I can do this!