It's a very nice pool! Construction on the facility finished last summer (which makes it the newest pool I've ever swum in, I think), and it's a very clean, very good facility. It's a 50 meter pool, and they had the bulkheads in the middle to split it into two 10 lane pools. There was also a separate 6 lane warmup pool and a six lane diving well. The competition pool is fast--I'd say about 9 feet deep, good deep gutters, and non-turbulent lane lines. The blocks were good, too. On a cool side note, they've got a strip of LEDs on the front edge of the block that light up when the race is started (for some reason, with my hearing, I've always tried to begin my start off the light from the starter box if I can see it, not the sound, so I thought this was pretty helpful, and with how attentive and focused I am on the block, it felt like it was a pretty measurable difference between the light and the sound). In addition, they've got relay pads, so the block has sensors in it that work with the pad on the wall so they can tell if someone leaves early on a relay exchange. Pretty sure they didn't have it set up for it at the meet, but I know top level swimmers use those systems to see what their reaction times are off the flat starts and on relay exchanges--I've seen some ridiculous relay exchange times posted, like within .03. The pool was also kept nice and cool, as well. I'd guess around 74, not quite quite as shockingly chill as the Sportsplex in Nashville, which if memory serves me, is kept at 72, but still a pretty good temperature.
They seeded the heats and swam the events in a kind of odd order. The events were by and large circle seeded by age group, starting out with the old folks first and working down to the 18-24 age group in the last heats. They swam the odd heats in one pool and the even heats in the other. Overall, it worked out pretty well, but it was rather jarring seeing yourself be in heat 34 of something and know you only actually had 16 heats before yours, not 33. In addition, sometimes one pool would get ahead of the other, so you'd look at the scoreboard and see that one pool was on heat 11 and the other was on 16.
As a group (there were four of us from AMS there: Katie, Sarah, Dan, and myself), we had a pretty good meet overall! A few less than excellent swims between us, but overall a pretty sweet meet. I'll cover my swims and some of the more notable ones from the really fast swimmers at the meet. I'll post the videos of our swims and the fast swims tonight or tomorrow, depending on how long it takes to get them uploaded.
Friday
I got up at 5:30 to finish shaving and to reshave my head (seriously, I had to reshave it all three mornings since it would be stubble each day), then we went to the pool at 7:00 for warmups (when I say we, I'm referring to Katie, Dan, and I--Sarah stayed with a friend of hers at a different hotel and had her own transportation).
100 fly: This race was simultaneously freaking frustrating and totally awesome. It was the first event on Friday after the 400 IM, so I was freshly warmed up and rarin' to go. Dan and I were in the same heat, I was in lane 5 and he was in lane 8. I took the first 25 out a little bit slower than I planned, but wasn't too worried....then coming off the first turn, my entire right leg cramped up. I don't mean a single quad cramp, or a single calf cramp. Quad, hamstring, inner thigh, calf, foot, Achilles tendon, the whole shebang. Completely locked up off the wall. I panicked a bit on the second 25, then just tried my best to just swim through it. As a result, I basically only kicked with my left leg for the 75 after the cramp, with my right leg just along for the ride. On a side note, you can't even notice the disparity in the video of the race! Anyways, my first 50 ended up about 3/4 of a second off the pace I wanted to go out in, but my second 50 was only about 1/2 a second off of it. I thought I would have been way off my pace due to the effective loss of my right leg, but I wasn't that far off! I'd been trying all season to break 1:00 in the 100 fly, but had had no success, and had been plateaued at a 1:01 for a few months. Well, I finally broke it! I went a 59.53, dropping 1.74 seconds in the process! My splits were 27.61 and 31.92. I was hoping to go out with a low 27 and back with a low/mid 31, but I will definitely take it! If I was able to go a 59.53 with the leg issue, I'd assume that I could have hit a 58 sans leg cramp. Dan had an excellent race as well, and beat me with a 58.32. Probably would have been right there with him. Oh well. I'm very happy that I broke a minute, regardless of how the actual race was!!
The guy who won the 100 fly did a 46.86, smashing the previous record by over a second in the process. I totally missed his swim and really wish I'd seen it!
50 free on the 200 free relay: I led off our free relay and had a phenomenal swim, all things considered! I had what felt like a great start and breakout. However, at the turn, I have no idea what I was thinking. I almost started my turn stroke a full two strokes out from the wall, realized what I was doing a split second after I started the turn stroke, recovered, then managed to turn on the proper stroke. However, even that turn was still a bit farther out than I'd have liked, so I didn't have a very good plant on the wall. Normally, my sprint free is pretty flat in the water, without much body rotation from side to side. Watching a lot of the top tier sprint freestylers, they have a dominant side and a decidedly rolling stroke. I tried that technique out on the second 25--not sure how I did with it, but hey, it was fun to try! Anyways, I touched the wall with a 24.92, a full 1.2 seconds faster than the last time I swam the 50 in January! Our relay was entered with a totally made up 1:40.40, and we went a 1:41.10 and got 11th in our age group...by less than half a second. If we'd gotten 10th, we'd have gotten medals and points for the team. Phooie! I had a great race (time), so I'm not complaining!
Saturday
Up at 5:30 again to reshave my head, then we went to Waffle House for a deliciously healthy breakfast before heading to warmups at 7:00.
100 IM: Again, this was the first event of the day after the 500 free. My goal was to throw out all my previous efforts at pacing the IM and just sprint the dang thing. It worked pretty well, although I couldn't get my turnover rate up on backstroke! I dropped .97 from my Zones time to a 1:01.77. I'll definitely take it, especially with how sucky my breaststroke is. In addition, I jammed my right thumb on the breast-free turn, and it still hurts today. Definitely getting better at the IM!
50 back on the 200 medley relay: I led off our medley relay. I was not very happy with my swim, although the time was fine. I went a shade deep off the start, but nothing drastic. However, on the turn, I was a bit too close to the wall and my heels hit too high up, so when I pushed off the wall, instead of going out and a bit downwards, I went down and a bit outwards. Went way too deep for comfort off the turn, so I was struggling to get to the surface. Still, all that said, I did a 29.2, right at my time from Zones. We were entered with a totally made up 1:54.00 and went a 1:54.95
There were some fantastic 50 frees on Saturday! A few big name sprinters came out, Cullen Jones ('08 Olympic gold medallist), Josh Schneider, Bryan Lundquist, and Nick Brunelli, all from North Carolina (NC groups all the different Masters clubs under one state wide team). Brunelli was the first of them to race, and went a 19.87. Dominated his heat. Next up were Jones and Lundquist, in lanes 5 and 6 of their heat. Lundquist bombed the start and couldn't make up the ground, but both dominated their heat with Jones going exactly his entered time of a 19.53 and Lundquist going a 20.18. Last up was Schneider, who completely destroyed his heat with a 19.36, setting a new USMS national record for his age group. What is that all these guys are deep in their training for Trials, and are tired and not tapered! Heck, Jones even had a bit of a beard!
I've seen some faster swims on youtube and obviously have watched guys like this at the Olympics, but seeing these guys go at it in person is absolutely amazing! Totally would have been worth driving to NC just to see those races! The entire complex was gathered around to see the races--the pool deck was standing room only, the spectator seating was extremely crowded above the pool they were swimming in, and huge rounds of applause after the races. Sooooo cool to be a part of that!
There were also some fantastic 200 free relays (the all male/female free relays were on Saturday). NCMS set the record two years ago with a 1:18.32 and it looked like they had a real shot at breaking it this year with those four sprinters. However, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they did this, they entered their fastest relay with Jones, Schneider, Brunelli, and their coach...a 53 year old guy. I mean, he's not slow--he went a 23.87 as the anchor, but still. Going by their entered times, the four guys would have been on pace to shave a tenth or so off the record. Got it and Lundquist's relay on my camcorder, too.
We got done with the meet around 5:30ish, I think, so we went back to the hotels for a bit, then went to a barbecue place by the pool, then hit up a bar in downtown Greensboro. You know, I think I kinda like this whole meet thing better as an adult than I did as a teenager!
Sunday
Didn't have to get up as early this time, but was still up at 7:00. Breakfast at the hotel, then back to the pool for my last two events. I had the 50 fly and 50 back on the schedule, and was looking forward to them, since they are just pure speed races and don't require any sort of pacing, or even thinking really.
50 fly: Like my 100 fly, this race was simultaneously frustrating and awesome. There were supposed to be five of us in my heat...but only one other guy showed up, and he was three lanes over, so totally of no use for pushing me. I had a good start, but it took me two strokes out of the breakout to get up and going. That really ticked me off, since I'd worked on that in warmup and didn't have any issues with getting up and going in warmup. My turn felt fantastic, and my first stroke off the breakout was good...and then I hit the last wave of my wake from the first 25...and my arms started dragging water at the very back of the stroke. Destroyed that stroke, but I was moderately successful at a clean stroke on the next one. I've been fighting at the 26.00 barrier since March, so I really hoped I'd break it in this swim. As soon as I touched, though, I thought the breakout problems might have sunk my chances at breaking the 26.00 mark. Nope! I dropped .54 from Zones and went a 25.90, so I'm ecstatic about that swim!
50 back: I just wanted to break that dang 29.00 mark! I've been fighting it since March and just wanted to finally clear that hurdle. I had a decent race--nothing about it was really good or really bad, just a moderate race. That being said, I finally broke the 29! I went a 28.96, dropping .26 from my Zones time. Overall racewise, I think the Zones race was better, but my technique has improved since then, hence the drop in time.
Overall takeaways from the meet
- Nationals is sooooooooo much fun! I'm definitely going to do summer Nationals and plan to do both each year moving forward!
- I don't think I was even close to peaking in fly in highschool. My 50 fly is almost a full second faster than my fastest 50 fly back then, and my 100 time is only a few seconds off my fastest from back then. This is all without me really getting in a lot of fly training like I did back then, without me doing weights at all, and with me still losing weight and getting into shape. I haven't a clue what my ceiling on fly is going to be once I really get into it. I mean, I'm at this point with just six months of relatively non-serious training! Who knows what I'll get to at next year's spring Nationals in Indy, with a full year and a half of training under my belt then!
- Unfortunately, it looks like I might have peaked at backstroke in highschool, or at least that's how it looks as of now. I'm well over a second off my best 50 back time from then and am waaaay more than that off my 100 back time. I think my backstroke potential now is in endurance and the IMs--if I can get my endurance back, I should be able to put together a pretty decent 200 back.
- I don't know if I peaked in free in highschool. That 24.92 in the 50 free was actually faster than a couple of my 50s my senior year, and I actually trained (at least some) for free then. I'll add some sprint free training in over the summer and fall just to see where it takes me.
- I need to do pylometrics and other exercises to work my fast twitch muscles. I don't have the sheer movement speed, even when I'm sprinting, that the majority of the folks faster than me have. The pylometrics, specifically, will especially help out on my starts and turns--I saw some phenomenal starts and turns at the meet.
- Going along with the previous point, I'm a good bit stronger now, without weight training, than I was at my weight training peak in highschool. I've got a LOT more muscle mass than I did then, although it ain't quite as defined as it used to be. With adding in weight training, I expect I'll develop quite a bit more power than I had.
And finally, here's my time progression for this short course season, tracing my times from my first meet in October when I was badly out of shape through Nationals.
|
Event
|
Initial
Time
|
Fastest
Time
|
|
50 freestyle
|
26.93
|
24.92
|
|
100 freestyle
|
57.52
|
57.52
(only swam it once, in January)
|
|
50
backstroke
|
31.71
|
28.96
|
|
100
backstroke
|
1:11.57
|
1:06.03
(haven’t swum it since February)
|
|
200
backstroke
|
2:24.72
|
2:24.72
(only swam it once, in February)
|
|
50
butterfly
|
29.30
|
25.90
|
|
100
butterfly
|
1:04.86
|
59.53
|
|
200
butterfly
|
2:32.90
|
2.32.90
(only swam it once, in March)
|
|
100 IM
|
1:10.21
|
1:01.77
|
|
200 IM
|
2:23.82
|
2:19.62
|
This week, I'm going to unwind and do some easy effort practices, then back to it next week to start training for summer Nats!
