Last full taper day before Nationals!

Today is my last full taper day before the drive down to Nationals with Dan and Katie tomorrow afternoon!

Last night was the last full taper practice--tonight I'm doing a 30-45 minute technique and turn session, and tomorrow morning a meet warmup, but no more full practices till after Nationals.  Looking back at the last week and a half, I've had a pretty darn successful taper!  I did some sprints from the block last night (the Tuesday night practice pool has the best blocks of the three pools we swim at) and did some decent times--I did a 50 fly, 50 free, 50 back, and then 25s of each.

50 fly: Terrible start (my sister started me...and let's just say her starting technique needs work...), freakishly horribly long turn, and I caught the massive wake from the other team's sprint practice in the lane next to mine for pretty much the first 35 yards of the race.  All that said, I did a mid/high 28.  That's what I took my 100 fly at Zones out in, so I'm pretty comfortable with that time.  In addition, I did 27s for two fly 50s last Tuesday and didn't have the problems with the start/turn/wake that I did last night.  I figure there's about a 10% improvement in my regular meet times compared to my practice times, so add in the FSII jammers and the shave on top of that 10% (I'd say those are worth another 5% drop), and I should be right where I want to be.

50 free: First time I've done one of these (actually racing) in practice in a good three months, I think.  Totally felt out of sync the entire 50, but did a mid 27 nonetheless.  Add in the 10-15% projected drop for the meet (I lead off the 200 free relay on Friday) and that puts me right where I want to be.  Now that I think about it, given that I almost always choose a stroke other than free when we're doing sprint sets and I'll get enough rest to pull it off, being able to do a 27 with a bad race in practice is a pretty darn good job for me!

50 back: Cruddy start (to be expected, since I only have good starts off the pads, not off the bare wall), but I went a high 30 or a low 31.  Given that my current best meet time is a 29.22, I'm VERY happy with that time.  I focused on my head position and hand position on the pull, and it sure looks like those are a big help when I race.  10-15% drop puts me well under my current best time!

Tonight I'm going to work more on my back technique, trying to iron out the remaining kinks.  I've got the head position down pat now, so it's mostly just the hand position on the pull that I'm still actively working on now.  Then it's some open turn work and that's it for the pool for today.

When I get home, the roomie is shaving my head.  I'm going to practice tomorrow morning to do a meet warmup, and also to verify that my goggles still fit on my newly shaved head.  If they don't, I can either adjust that set or put together a new pair from the three sets of spares I have.  After the short practice in the morning, it's shave time!  Doing the full shave...except for my eyebrows...so I'm pretty pumped about that!  Then I'll just relax the rest of the day till I pick Dan and Katie up in the afternoon.

To say that I'm pumped up right now would be a *slight* understatement!