In lieu of the regular Saturday morning practice, we held a practice meet instead. Lots of folks on the team have never done a swim meet before, or haven't done one since they were a teenager. This was an attempt to familiarize them with the meet process and hopefully drum up their interest in competing in real meets with the team.
In terms of that aspect of the whole shindig, I think it worked very well! I spoke to a handful of the meet newbies afterwards, and they all said they were interested in doing meets now. +1 for us!
In terms of my performance (I swam the 50 fly, 100 free, and 50 free), I only swam fair to middling overall. Had some of the best competition that I've had at any Masters meet, since all the fast guys were there and swam--swam against one of them in the 50 fly, and then swam against two of them in the 100, then all three of 'em in the 50 free.
I didn't have high hopes for my times going into the meet, though. My upper back and shoulders have been ridiculously tight and sore for who knows what reason since Wednesday night. On top of that, the pool we swim at has moronic blocks--they've got the slatted surface, but the slats run vertically, rather than horizontally, so there's no purchase for your feet. I can't even count how many times I've flubbed my starts off those blocks in practice. With all that in mind, though, here's how I did.
50 fly: I had a rather ginger start, since my back foot had slipped on both of my starts in warmup. Not much speed or power off the block, but once I entered the water I actually felt really good. I felt a bit flat in the water, but everything felt like it was clicking...until the turn. I completely misjudged the wall and went to dive forward at the end of my last stroke into wall...only to realize that I was nearly a full stroke out from where I thought I was. As a result, I ended up doing 4 kicks to get myself to the wall. The second 25 felt great, though. If I heard the timer right, and if she actually got the time right (they used stopwatches, and several times people got were very iffy), I went a 26.48. With the wussy start and abominable turn, that's a heck of a good time! I went a 25.90 at Nats, and that was when I was tapered and all trained up for the 50. Not to mention that I was shaved and had no major problems with the race. If I did in fact go a 26.48 (the fast guy next to me was told he went a 25.8, which makes my time sound about right in comparison), that means I can probably cut off at least a second from that this season. Without the start/turn trouble, I probably could have kept pace with the other guy and hit my Nats time! I might need to update my 25.50 goal time for the season...
100 free: Okay, this one wasn't that hot. Since we were cramming 7 events into 40 minutes, there was very little time between swims. I didn't get a chance to swim down more than a 100 after the 50 fly and my upper back had really tightened up. I had another wussy start but then took it out pretty well. Unfortunately, I started to fade a bit on the third 25 and ran out of gas halfway back on the last 25. Still, I went a 58.5 (again, if the timer is to be trusted), which is what I went at the meet a few weeks ago, when my performance all around felt better. My 55.0 goal time for the season should definitely be in reach.
50 free: Blegh. I don't think it was a bad swim, all things considered, but I just couldn't everything put together. Had probably my best start of the three, but it felt like I was stuck in second gear and couldn't shift. I went a 26.5...a shade slower than my 50 fly, even with that swim's turn problems!
No comments:
Post a Comment