Zones!!

This past weekend (April 19-21) was the Colonies Zone Championship Meet at George Mason University.  Friday was the distance day (1000 and 1650), so I just swam on Saturday and Sunday.

And when I say I swam on Saturday and Sunday, I don't mean I swam a couple of events each day, I mean I swam a LOT!

On Saturday, in order, I swam the 100 free, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay (back), 200 IM, 100 back, 50 fly, 800 free relay, and 200 free relay.
On Sunday, in order, I swam the 200 free, 400 medley relay (fly), 100 breast, 50 free, 100 fly, 400 free relay, and 200 medley relay (breast).

Here's the synopsis of my swims:

Saturday

100 free: I'll just start off by saying that I don't do freestyle.  Sure, I swim it in practice, but I don't train for it in any distance, sprint or long distance.  When I swim it in practice, I swim it just to get it over with and move on to the next thing.  

This was the first time I'd swum the 100 free since last summer/early fall.  I was pumped up and ready to go, and was doing fine till the 50 turn.  I hit the wall too high and shoved the pad up, which made me go straight down off the wall.  Lost a lot of ground and speed there, and it was pretty dang demoralizing, too!  I was even with the front of the pack going into the turn and came out towards the back of the pack, and I couldn't pick up that ground in the second half of the swim.  Not exactly how I wanted my first event of the meet to go!

Overall, I never felt great, even before The Turn.  While I felt *fine*, I felt stuck in a lower gear and couldn't get up and moving like I should in a 100.  And after The Turn, it went downhill from there.

I ended up with splits of 26.78 and 29.95 for a 56.73.  Just terrible!

400 free relay: I was still pretty bummed about my 100 free. I had a good relay start, but that was about it.  None of my turns were on the mark, and I couldn't get my turnover up.  Felt like I was stuck in a middle gear the entire time, and my second 50 just dragged.  I had splits of 26.76 and 30.22 for a 56.98.  Not a good swim.

200 medley relay (back): This was a better race, despite being right after the 400 free relay!  I had a pretty terrible start (horrible reaction time and my right hand got caught on the pad) and a long turn, but I actually felt fast in the water!  My time itself was just decent, 29.45, but that's in the ballpark with where I've been all season (besides the previous weekend's 28.98).  I'll take it, especially since I hadn't already swum two events before I swam my 50 back at any of the other meets this season!

200 IM: I was already starting to feel sluggish at this point.  I made the mistake of not eating any food until I got to the meet, and my energy reserves weren't there--having already swum three events that morning just compounded the issue.

I had a fairly good first half, leading the heat/holding pace with the fastest guy.  The burn in my shoulders kicked in with a vengeance a bit before the 125 mark, and the last 50 was terrible.  I had splits of 29.28, 34.66, 42.06, and 34.25 for a time of 2:20.25.  While that's my fastest time this season by about 2 seconds, it's still about .75 off my best from last year, set at Zones (when I believe that was my first event of the day, sans beard).  Comparing the performances, my fly was about 1.5 seconds faster last year, but the rest of my splits this year were a few tenths faster than last time.  I REALLY need to figure out how to swim the back half of an IM again!  To compare, I found my splits from the last time I swam the 200 in high school: 27.64, 32.10, 39.11, and 31.02 for a 2:09.87.  I don't remember if that was my fastest 200 IM ever, but the difference between then and now is pretty striking.  I can get my fly down there (last year I was only .2 off my 18 year old pace), but my back is 2 seconds off and my breast/free are both 3 seconds off.  Not good!

100 back: This was the event I most wanted to do well in at Zones, and I merely did decent in it.  Unfortunately, after the four events I'd already swum that morning, I was only running at what felt like about 75% energy.  Technically, I had a good  race, besides popping the pad again like I did in the 100 free, although thankfully not as badly this time around.  However, I lost circulation in my legs at around the 75 mark and just was running low on energy.  I had splits of 30.03 and 32.60 for a 1:02.63.  That's .3 off my best time, but again, with everything I had already done that day, not to mention the suit problem, I'll take it!

50 fly: This was an unmitigated disaster!  I was beat by this point in the day.  The 100 back is the most leg draining event I swim (it's worse than the 200 back, in my opinion, because the tempo is substantially faster for me), and I was seriously hurting in my legs and everywhere else.  I had a sloppy start, then couldn't move my arms at all.  Well, I could move them, just not with any semblance of speed.  On the plus side, I didn't feel nearly as flat in the water as the last few times I've swum fly, and didn't have any excessive problems with my arms dragging through the water.

Umm, that's about all the positive stuff I can say about this race.  I had a long turn and an abominable finish.  I blanked out going into the finish and totally lost my sense of where I was in the pool.  Lifted my head to take a breath so I could see where the wall was...and found out I was about a foot away from it.  I flailed my arms forward in an attempt to keep from faceplanting in the wall, and I'm honestly surprised that the resulting arm movement was even remotely legal for butterfly.  I went a 27.44, which is a full second off the last time I swam it and 1.5 seconds off my Nationals time from last year.  Yep, it was a disaster.

800 free relay: ...Speaking of disasters...this was a hilariously awful race for me!  It was right after the 50 fly (like maybe 10 minutes), and I was a completely drained mess at this point of the day.  I anchored the relay, and swam against some quite fast guys--our head coach had entered us as a 7:39 (why, I have no idea, since only 2 of us on the relay could reasonably have been expected to go sub 2:00) and we were in a heat with a bunch of relays that actually went that time.  I crashed and burned, and the result most likely would have had me in stitches on the floor if I'd been watching it unstead of swimming it.  I took it out in a mid 28, which wasn't bad, but then I D.I.E.D.  As in splits of 32, 35, and 35 for the remaining 50s, for a 2:11 overall.

200 free relay: Seriously, at this time of the day, what was the point?  I had no legs, no arms, no shoulders, no back, and no energy.  I split a 25.61...which honestly wasn't as terrible as I expected.  Still, my relay split at the Tropical Splash in January was a 25.0, and my time from Nats last year was a 24.9.

Sunday

200 free: I was rather sore and tired from Saturday.  I swam about a 1200 in warmup, but still felt sluggish and not up to speed.  Behind the blocks, I felt like I was only running at about 80% energy.  Diving in, I felt fine for the first 50, started to peter out a bit at the 75, and by the 100 I was done.  I just felt bad in the water and didn't have any oomph.  My legs just wern't there, and I was having a hell of a time getting air (not a problem in the middle of the pool, but going into the turns, that's why I was double and triple breathing...which totally kills my turnover, I know).  I went a 2:07.75, with splits of 28.54, 32.06, 33.57, and 33.58.  That's particularly bad, given that I've been able to hold 32 repeats from a push in practice...

400 medley relay (fly): I actually felt much better going into this event than going into the 200 free.  For whatever reason, I felt more relaxed and had more energy.  Given everything else I had to swim on Sunday, I didn't try hard on the swim, keeping it long and relaxed.  I had a phenomenal start (almost thought I false started, since I could see the starts judge start writing when I was in midair and thought he was writing about me, but we didn't get DQed) and kept it very relaxed and smooth for the whole 100.  Splits of 29.47 and 35.08 for a 1:04.55.  Don't think I put out more than 85% effort.  I felt good!  I had no problems with my kick or dragging my arms or any issues with body movement.  That was the best I've felt swimming fly in several months, including practice.  Given my effort level, I was right where I wanted to be time-wise.

100 breast: This was by far my standout race of the meet.  I don't train for breaststroke at all--the only time I swim it is when I'm doing an IM set in practice, and then I only swim it to get through with it, not to focus on it and work on technique/speed/power.  This was the most throwaway of all my non-core events at the meet, and the one I cared the least about.  Behind the blocks, I didn't care what I went, just wanted to relax, swim it, and not kill myself.  I had a good start and felt very good in the water for the first 75.  I felt clean and smooth, and kept it at about 85-90% effort.  My technique started to fall apart a bit on the last 25, but that's to be expected, since I don't even remember the last time I swam more than a 75 breast in practice.  I had splits of 33.71 and 38.03 for a 1:11.74.  That's a full 2.5 seconds faster than when I swam it in February!

I noticed one big thing both during the race and watching the video afterwards: I've got a hell of a lot better pullout than the people I swim against.  They can generally trounce me on the surface, but underwater...whoever I'm racing is usually my bitch! :-D

50 free: This wasn't a terrible swim, but my left shoulder started locking up when I was warming up for this race.  Any time I was at full extension with my left arm, the shoulder would freeze and I'd have to exert a lot of pressure for it to unlock.  It stayed that way through the race, too.  And, by this point in the day, I was running low on energy--the accumulation of the day before and what I'd already swum on Sunday was wearing me down, so I felt like I was running at about 75% energy.  With a long turn and that shoulder issue, I went a 25.44.  That's my fastest outside of Nationals last year, but I think it probably would have been around a 25 flat sans 15 bazillion previous events/long turn/shoulder thingy.

100 fly: Oh man, this was terrible.  I was pretty exhausted by this point in the day and got a massive left hip cramp when I bent down for the start, so my dive was pretty much a one-legged dive, and my turns were all pretty awkward/painful.  I tried to dial it up and swim this hard...and it completely fell apart.  My back/shoulders locked up and I died big time on the second 50.  My splits were 29.67 and 35.04, for a 1:04.71.  That's .16 seconds slower than my much easier paced 100 fly on the relay earlier that day.  It was horrible!

400 free relay: This was only about 5 minutes after my 100 fly, and I felt awful.  I didn't have time to warmdown, so I was still *enjoying* all the lactic acid that had built up in the fly and was scraping rock bottom for my energy level.  My left hip was still cramping, too.  I couldn't generate any turnover and had no legs.  I went splits of 27.35 and 31.32 for a 58.67.  Not a good swim at all!  At least I was under 1:00, haha!

200 medley relay (breast): Finally, my last event of the meet! I was totally dead at this point.  I had a good start and good pullout, but then my left hip cramped on every kick.  I tried to substantially up the tempo over what I did in the 100, but it didn't work out too well for me.  My breast technique falls apart and feels really sloppy when I try to drive my arms/legs faster than normal.  It felt like a very sloppy swim--I didn't get much glide one each stroke, and it all felt disjointed.  I went a 33.36, which wasn't terrible.  However, it was only .35 faster than the first 50 of my 100, when I didn't have the benefit of a relay start and kept it much calmer and more relaxed.  On top of that, it was actually .02 slower than when I swam the individual 50 at the beginning of March.  Not my best performance, but still proportionally much faster than my free on the 400 free relay!

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Overall thoughts

This was an exhausting meet, the most exhausting meet I've swum since I did the Iron Man meet in highschool (400 IM, all the 200s in order, and then the 500, all in the same session).  I don't put enough yards in in the pool anymore to be able to keep up this level of racing and not die horribly.  All that said, I had a total blast!  I've outlined my specific focus areas from the meet below:

Fly: I've got two weeks to figure out how to sprint fly again.  I did just fine when I kept the 100 fly on the medley relay nice and long, but had horrible 50/100 individual swims.  I need to figure out how to move from 3rd to 5th gear without completely falling apart.  That said, my stroke has felt better than it has in quite a while--my arms aren't dragging too much in the water and I have good body motion.  On top of that, it felt like I finally had a kick again, something that has been missing all season in fly.

Back: No real concerns here--everything felt in order, although my kick started to die off at the end of the 100.  Given the suit/loss of circulation issue, I don't know if that's something directly attributable to my backstroke or if that will be resolved with the new suit.

Breast: This was my biggest surprise.  Dropping my 100 down to a time I haven't gone in 9 years, especially with me not having trained for it at all, was an eye opener.  On top of that, I am only a bit over a second off Katie's 100 breast time now, and she's the fastest regularly competing breaststroker on the team.  Over the summer and fall, I think I'll actually train for breast, not just improving my technique like I played around with with Katie last summer.  On the other hand, my breast in the IM is pretty shitty.  I need to figure out how to maintain my form/speed from the individual event into the IM.  This will no doubt be a long work in progress over the next 6+ months.  If I can get my IM breast up to speed, that will provide a significant boost to my 100/200/400 IMs!

Free: Wow, I don't know what happened last weekend.  That was the worst my free has been all season.  One way or another, I need to relearn how to sprint...and how to hold pace for longer than a 50...and how to not completely fall apart in an IM.  Lots of work to do on this!

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Issues for Nationals

Nationals starts for me in two weeks, on 5/10.  I've got the 50/100/200 back, 50/100 fly, and 100 IM on tap, along with at least one each of the 200 free/medley relays (we've got 4 guys and 2 girls, so we'll be swimming both a men and mixed of both relays, I just don't know who's going to be on the mixed relays).  Over the next 10 days of training (I fly to Indy on 5/8), here's what I'm going to focus on:

Fly: I'm not really focusing on speedwork too much this next week, but will focus on that during Monday-Wednesday of Nats week.  Next week I'm just focusing on putting in fly yards.  My fly meltdowns were atrocious last weekend, so I'm going to try to put enough fly yards on my body that I won't meltdown during either event at Nats.  On the Monday-Wednesday of Nats week, I'll focus on getting that tempo up without destroying my rhythm.

Back: I'm focusing almost entirely on my kick, and spending a little bit of time focusing on staying underwater as long as I can without losing speed.  Staying underwater won't be an issue for the 50, but will be an issue at the 75 in the 100, and for about the last 125 of the 200.

Breast: I'm working solely on keeping my tempo up going from back-breast in the 100 IM.  There is a marked tempo drop from back-breast now, even accounting for the inherently slower tempo of the breaststroke stroke, so I'm focusing on keeping that tempo up.  Come Monday-Wednesday of Nats week, I'm going to work on experimenting with keeping a longer glide/more relaxed stroke vs a short/high turnover stroke for the 200 medley relay, since I'm swimming breast.  At this point, I don't know which one is faster for me, but I do know that right now the short stroke feels awfully sloppy.

Free: I'm working at being able to swim at speed.  That's it!

Turns: I'm going to work on a faster flip speed.  Watching my videos, except for a couple races in particular, my flip speed isn't terrible.  That said, it can always be faster, so I'm going to work on throwing my legs over faster on back and free.  As far as open turns go, I'm going to focus on snapping my legs forward under me faster.  And I'm going to keep working on the back-breast crossover turn.  The last three times I've swum an IM in a meet, I've had the stroke timing down perfectly, so I've been able to do the turn without having to make it choppy or glide in a really long way.  I'm going to work on finetuning the timing/positioning so that if I hit it right on the 100 IM, I'll have a faster flip on it than I do now.

Kick: I'm going to do some long kick sets on my own, focusing on a mix of high speed and high intensity (fairly high speed, extended distances compared to sprint kick) sets.  Mostly free/back, with some fly thrown in there.  I'm also going to throw in some vertical kick sessions, something I haven't done at all in the last 3 months or so.  That should help my fly kick, for sure.

Back to back meets on 2/9-2/10...meh...

I swam at back to back meets on 2/9 and 2/10.  The meet on the 9th was an evening meet outside of Annapolis, and the meet on the 10th was in the morning in Richmond.  The Richmond meet was actually a 2 day meet, but I wanted to swim at the Annapolis one on Saturday instead.  That was probably a bad idea.  The Annapolis meet was supposed to start at 5:30, but got pushed back to 6:30, and I didn't finish swimming till about 9:30...and didn't hit the road for the drive down to Richmond till about 9:45!

I'd swum at the Richmond meet last year, so I was familiar with the pool, but this was my first time at this Annapolis pool, and I was decidedly not impressed.  It was small, the shallow end was really shallow, and the touch pads were not fixed at the bottom, so they bowed out from the wall (when you'd do a turn, you'd have to push the pad back into the wall before you could push off the wall, which is really sucky).

Here's how it all went down.

Saturday

100 back

This was my first event of the meet.  I'd had a big problem during warmup with the pads bowing out from the wall and feeling really spongy, and that applied to the race, too.  There was no gutter to hold on to (and I can't do a non-back flop start from the block's bar), so the shitty hand position and shitty pad position really screwed up my start.  I went absurdly deep and used up almost all of my speed just trying to get back up to the surface.  The first 50, aside from the bad start and first breakout, was actually pretty good.  However, at the 50 turn, I lost a bit of momentum having to push the pad back to the wall.  Realllllllllllllllly not a fan of that pad setup!  The third 25 also felt fine, but I just couldn't bring it home at the end.  I was racing against a recurring competitor, Justin H, and he soundly whupped me on the last 25.  I took it out in a 30.17 and brought it back in a 32.46 for a 1:02.63.  Not a terrible race, just looking at the numbers (and only .3 off my best), but I *should* have been able to break a 1:02, and probably would have except for the start and 50 turn.  On a side note, this was a rematch for Justin and I--we raced next to each other a few weeks before and I beat him then, a 1:02.3 to his 1:03.0.  I think we'll have another rematch in March, so I hope to regain the crown then! :-D

50 breast

Ugh.  This was my race to lose, and I lost it.  I got third, and all that separated me from first was .18 (I went a 33.34).  Good start, good speed, everything felt great...and then I totally bombed the turn.  Had a brain fart at the wall, since there was no gutter for me to grab onto.  Lost at least a few tenths of a second there, and that was all that separated me from first!  I should have been able to just break 33.  Sigh.  Did I mention that I'm not a fan of this pool?

50 back

This was my best event of the meet, which is pretty sad.  I had another shitty start, although I didn't go as absurdly deep as I did on the 100.  Once I came up, everything felt fantastic...till I got to the turn.  Coming off the wall, I was a shade deeper than I usually am, and due to how shallow the pool is at that end, I kicked the bottom twice before I came up!  All that said, I went a 29.32, which is my best in season time and only .4 off last year's Nats time!  If I can come that close...with The Beard...with kicking the bottom...and not shaved/tapered...I think I'm doing pretty well for myself!

I didn't warm down after swimming the 50 back.  It was already after 9:30 at this point, so I just wanted to get the hell out of there.  I stopped to get dinner on the drive down to Richmond, and didn't get to the hotel and into the room until around 1:00.

Sunday

200 back

I overslept and didn't get up till 7:30, and didn't get to the pool till right about 8:00.  There were only two heats of the 200 back left before mine when I got to the pool, so I only had time to jump in for a quick 250 warmup.  Umm...in case you were wondering...a 250 isn't NEARLY enough to loosen up after not warming down the night before and getting ready for the 200 back...  I know, I know, it's my own fault, but man, I did not feel good in the water!
The race itself was pretty good, all things considered.  I went a 2:18.89, with splits of 32.59, 35.81, 35.30, and 35.19.  I didn't start to feel warmed up till about the 100 mark, as is evident by my decreasing splits.  That's about 2 seconds off what I manually timed my 200 back video from the Tropical Splash the week before, but only about half a second slower than my *official* TS time.  Given how poorly I felt in the water, I will absolutely take that time!
I figure with another month and a half or so of heavy training under my belt, and sans The Beard, I should be able to shave 1.5-2 seconds off each 50.  I'll be swimming it at all three meets in March, so I'll be able to see how my heavier training impacts the swim.

100 breast

This was a pretty bad swim.  I felt good for the first 50, started to tighten up on the 3rd 25, and completely locked up on the last 25.  The meet ran very quickly (start to finish was only 2.5 hours!), and since many events only had 2 heats (quite a few only had one heat), tops, I didn't have a whole lot of time between my 200 back and this race.  I attribute that to the pacing of the meet, me not training for the 100 breast, and me not being sufficiently warmed down/up.  Anyways, I split a 35.09 and 39.09 for a 1:14.18.  Not a downright awful swim, but I should have been closer to a 1:10-1:11, with splits around a low 34 going out, low 37 coming back.
On a side note, the guy in the lane next to me should have been DQed--on every pullout, he was doing a dolphin kick at the beginning and end of it, and then did a dolphin kick at the finish.

100 fly

I crashed and burned.  My legs were toast at this point and my upper body was quite tight and sore, and I totally died on the second 50.  I took it out in a 30.30 and brought it back in a 35.22 for a 1:05.52.  Horrible splits!  I had no speed taking it out--I should have been 2.5-3 seconds faster on the first 50, and at least 2-3 seconds faster on the second 50.  Besides the aforementioned factors affecting me at the meet that day, I need to really train for this event, since that was a pitiful performance!

Great Tropical Splash on Sunday!

My team hosted the Tropical Splash this past Sunday, and I had a blast!!  The meet itself was quite fun and it had a pretty lively atmosphere (well, for a meet, anyways).

I swam a pretty big lineup of events--in order, the 100 IM, 200 back, 50 free on the 200 free relay, 50 breast on the 200 medley relay, 200 IM, and 200 breast.

EDIT: videos have been added for the races in which I was filmed--everything but the medley relay.

100 IM

This race felt pretty good, with some exceptions.  My back foot slipped on the block and I thus went deep on the start.  Normally I stay under for about 8 dolphin kicks off the start on fly, and this time I was under for 10 before I made it to the surface.  And then on backstroke, I went too deep and completely misjudged where the surface of the water was, so I started my breakout stroke while I was still about a foot under the surface, so I had to take another three dolphin kicks before I finished the stroke.  Besides those problems, everything else felt pretty good!  I dropped about a second from my time at the last meet to go a 1:02.7, which is right at my time from Zones last year, which was my best non-Nats time.  Probably could have shaved off at least half a second to a full second by coming up to the surface faster on fly and back.  Still, with the lack of heavy duty training up to this point and with the significant drag my beard gives me underwater (I can definitely feel it, at least), I'm gonna say I should be under my 1:01.7 Nats time from last year by the end of the season.

EDIT: I watched the video twice and used my stopwatch to get my splits from the video.  I came up with around a 28.30 and 33.59 for a 1:01.89.  (First time I got my splits, I got a 28.26 and 33.65 for a 1:01.91). I don't know why there's a ~.75 difference between what I got and what the timers got!
If I did in fact go around a 1:01.89, I'm right where I want to be at this point in the season!

200 back

This was a much better swim than my 2:22.9 at the beginning of the season in September--I dropped down to a 2:18 mid.  That being said, my legs died at around the 125.  Again, I attribute that to my lack of heavy duty training at this point in the season.  I think I could have hit around a 2:15 if my legs hadn't died.  Anyways, the race felt pretty good--good start, good turnover, everything felt strong for the first 125 and then I started to fade over the next 75.

The Nats cut is a 2:12.94, so with me being less than 6 seconds off, I think this should most likely be a slam dunk by the end of March!

EDIT: I watched the video three times and used my stopwatch to get my splits.  All three times, my splits were within a few hundredths of each other, so here's a good approximation of them: 31.66, 34.38, 35.33, and 35.39, for a time of 2:16.76.  That's nearly two seconds faster than what the timers told me, so either they can't time worth crap or there's something fishy with the video...
If I did in fact go a 2:16, that puts me in even better position than I expected at this point in the season! That would put me less than 4 seconds off the Nats cut, which should be easily achievable!  In addition, my turns look much, much better than they did in September!  Still have work to do, but a significant improvement.  On the downside, my turnover rate is still substantially faster in my head than it is in actuality.  Hmm.

50 free (200 free relay)

Umm, this was a bad swim.  I had a fairly decent start--pokey reaction time, but the dive itself was good, and the first 25 felt really good...and then I bombed the turn.  I started the flip too far out, so I tried to lengthen the turn and ended up with just one long awkward mess.  And then nothing was in sync on the second 25.  My hips weren't rotating at the same time or angle as my shoulders, my kick felt off, and my two breaths made my stroke lopsided.  Sigh.  Don't know what my split was, but I'd be surprised if I broke a 26, what with how horrid it felt!

EDIT: I watched the video twice and got my split both times--24.91 and 24.98 (I'm the anchor in the middle lane).  Nowhere near as bad as I thought!

50 breast (200 medley relay)

This made up for the 50 free!  I was pokey coming off the block (I'm still getting used to having to go off someone swimming backstroke, since this is only the second meet in at least a decade in which I've done breast on a relay, and it's definitely a work in progress), but otherwise had a great start.  The rest of the race felt good, although I did take a half stroke on the finish instead of gliding in.  I split a 32.1, which is .3 faster than the relay two weeks ago.  Not too shabby!

200 IM

This was not a good race at all, not even close.  And that's solely due to my totally screwing up the pacing!  When I swam the 200 IM both times last spring, I had a pretty good first half and then crashed and burned spectacularly on the second half.  Not having swum the 200 since last April, I was a bit leery of repeating that, so I decided to hold back a little bit on the first 100, just enough to have gas left in the tank for the second 100.  Oops.  I took it out waaaaay too slow!  I took it out at 400 IM pace and didn't realize that till I was going into breaststroke, when I realized that I wasn't tired at all.  At that point, it was too late--I had too much ground to make up and couldn't swim that fast to make up the difference.  I finished with a mid 2:22, which is a full three seconds slower than my Zones time last year.  At Zones, I took it out in a low 1:03, vs taking it out in a high 1:07 this time.  On the plus side, I did swim the second half of the race almost 2 seconds faster than I did at Zones!

On a side note, I swam in the same heat as Katie.  I should have had about a bodylength lead on her going into breast, and then finished about even or a bodylength behind her.  She was ahead of me going into breast and just kept extending that lead over the back half, ending up with a 2:16.  If I'd paced the race properly, I should have been right there with her.  Sigh.  Till next time...

EDIT: Again, watched the video and got splits.  All three times I watched the video, the splits were all in the ballpark of 30.28, 35.74, 40.95, and 33.63 for a final time of 2:20.62.  That's a full two seconds faster than what the timers told me!
While the time is quite a bit better than what I was told, it still wasn't a great race.  The only bright spot was the breaststroke leg--it was about 1.5 seconds faster than the last time I swam it.

200 breast

This was the first time I'd swum the event since 2004 or 2005.  I had no race strategy except for making it to the end.  Good start and good first 100.  My biceps and lats started to tighten up at the 125 and completely locked up at the 150.  That turn was really darn slow, as was the turn at the 175.  And that whole last 50 was pure torture.  I finished with a 2:47, which was faster than my completely made up 2:50...but is way off from my 2:32 from a decade ago...

On the plus side, I beat my teammate who also swam it, Sara, by 2 seconds!  And she's a legit breaststroker!! :-D

EDIT: Video, splits, yada yada yada.  My time from the video was a 2:45.87...again about two seconds faster than what the timers told me...  I got a 36.30, 41.82, 43.72, and 44.03.  Not too horrific!

All in all, it was a pretty good meet!  Despite my bad swims and quite noticeable lack of heavy duty training (especially compared to this point last year), I swam pretty well, all things considered!

What to swim at Nationals?

I've got 5 meets, and a bit under 2.5 months, to figure out what I want to swim and submit my entry for Nationals.

So, I've gotta figure out what to swim.  As of right now, I only have a single cut, the 50 fly.  My 100 fly Nats time from last year is about .5 off the cut, but I should be able to hit that this by the entry deadline.  I'm about .6 off the 100 back cut, but should hit that in the next meet or two.  I'm a bit over 9.5 seconds off the 200 back cut, but have a pretty decent shot at that by the deadline.  That gives me four events.  I can pick two more events to swim at Nats, even if I don't have cuts in either of them.

With that in mind, here's the breakdown of all the possible events I could train for and swim at Nationals, and put up decent times in:

50 free: The Nats cut is a 24.31.  I went a 24.9 leading off the 200 free relay at Nats last year, but haven't broken 25.5 this year.  I just can't find that top gear in freestyle!  This is looking like a no-go.

100 free: The Nats cut is a 53.87.  I went a 57 at the end of our practice meet back in September, but haven't swum it since.  This should be *conceivably* within reach, but like with the 50, I can't find the top gear, so this is most likely a no-go.

50 back: The Nats cut is a 28.31.  I went a 28.96 at Nats last year, but haven't broken a 29.4 since then.  On top of that, I have consistently been taking the 100 back out in around a 30.0, which is way too close to my 50 time for my liking, even though the perceived level of exertion and effort is much less in the 100 than the 50.  For whatever reason, while I'm exerting a lot more energy and effort in the 50 back than taking out the 100 back, my 50 isn't finding the top gear.  With the amount of energy/effort difference between the two, I'd expect the 30.0 I take the 100 out in to correspond with a mid 28 in the 50, but that's not happening.  Ergo, unless I can figure out how to tap that top gear, the 50 is shaping up to be a no-go this season.

100 back: The Nats cut is a 1:01.71.  I went a 1:02.30 at last weekend's meet, having dropped nearly 4 seconds already this season, with five more meets to go.  This should be a slam dunk.

200 back: The Nats cut is a 2:12.94.  I've only swum this once so far this season, back in September, and it was a pretty poor swim even then--I went a 2:22.93.  I've broken a 2:30 from a push numerous times in practice, so this should be a fairly safe bet over the next five meets, especially if I get my 100 under a 1:02.  This should be a slam dunk.

50 fly: I've already got the Nats cut, having swum a 25.90 at Nats last year (the cut is a 26.83).  This will be a slam dunk.

100 fly: The Nats cut is a 59.06.  I swam a 59.53 at Nats last year.  I have only swum this event once this season, and I didn't try at all in it.  It will be a fixture at the next four or five meets and *should* be a slam dunk.

200 fly: The Nats cut is a 2:14.93.  I've only swum the 200 once as a Masters swimmer, and that was almost a year ago.  I can almost certainly drop about 10 seconds from the abysmal 2:32.90 I swam then, but I don't know if I have the full 18 second drop in me over the next 2.5 months.  This is probably going to be a no-go this season.

100 IM: The Nats cut is a 1:00.95.  I went a 1:01.77 at Nats last year, but haven't broken a 1:03 since then.  That being said, I've not been able to have a good race in it since Nats, either having it be a back to back event, or it being the last event of the day, or not having eaten enough food, etc.  I *should* be able to make the cut, but I'm just not sure if I'll be able to align the stars over the next 5 meets.  I think this is going to be a maybe this season.

200 IM: The Nats cut is a 2:14.93.  I went a 2:19.62 at Zones last year, and that was with a horrific back half of the race.  My breaststroke has vastly improved since then, and my free is better, too, so I'd like to think I could get to around a 2:15 pretty easily.  I'm swimming this at the first of the 5 remaining meets, so I'll see how it goes then.  Comparing my splits from Zones to Katie's 2:15 at Nats, I was almost 3.5 seconds ahead of her going into breast, and then we were dead even going into free.  I don't think my breast is nearly that much slower than hers anymore (more on that later), and I'd really like to think she doesn't have that much of a lead on me in free anymore, so a 2:15 should definitely be within reach.  I'm gonna say this one is a slam dunk.

400 IM: The Nats cut is a 4:50.13, and I went a 5:09.40 last weekend.  That 19 second gap is a lot smaller than it appears, since I most likely could have easily shaved off 10 seconds or so just from better race management.  And it *should* be fairly achievable to shave off the other 9 seconds by training for the race over the next 2.5 months.  All that said, it takes a lot of time to train for the 400 IM, and I'm already putting a lot of time in on other events, so I'll just call this one a maybe this season.

50 breast: The Nats cut is a 30.82.  If the split for the relay was correct, I went a low/mid 32.  Given how abominable my start was, and that I was laughing for the first 25, I might be able to pump out a high 31 right now, without any breast training.  That being said, I haven't swum the 50 in a meet yet, so I'll have to wait a meet or two to see what happens with it.  If I train for it, and have a race where I nail the turn, I could conceivably hit the cut this season.  Based on the IMers I've swum against this season, I've got a much stronger pullout than everyone I've swum against, even the ones who royally kick my behind once I'm up on the surface.  Stands to reason that I should be able to tweak my actual swim enough to carry over some of that speed to the surface.  I'll list this one as a maybe this season.

100 breast: The Nats cut is a 1:07.03.  Way back in the day, my fastest was a mid 1:08...but my 50 relay split is right at my all time fastest 50 ever...so it stands to reason that I *might* be faster now than I was back in highschool.  I'll have to swim it at a meet, though, to see where I'm at, since I haven't swum this event in ~8 years.  This'll be a maybe this year.

I'm trying to hit all of these events over the next two meets (2/3 and 2/9), so I can see where I'm at with each one and figure out what I need to focus on.

Should be interesting!!!

First meet in a while...

I had my first meet in a while on Sunday.  I haven't been training much at all since before the holidays, so I didn't have high hopes.  I was pleasantly surprised!  I swam three individual events, the 400 IM, 100 back, and 100 IM, and the 200 medley relay.

400 IM

It's been a loooooong time since I'd swum this in a meet--spring of 2005.  Back then it was one of my go-to events, along with the 200 back and 200 fly.  I've only swum it a handful of times in practice in the last year and a half, and have done absolutely no training for this event at all.  Given how little rest I'd gotten the entire weekend (coaching and going out with friends), I had even lower expectations at the meet itself.  On top of that, I had eaten very little food that day.  I'd entered myself as a 5:30, and with how I was feeling behind the blocks, would have been happy to hit that.
I took the fly out at about 75% effort.  I'd hurt my right shoulder last week, and hadn't been able to do more than a 50 of fly straight without it hurting in practice, so I was kinda leery about the 100 fly to kick it off.  No worries!  While I was deliberately going slow, my fly felt great.  Smooth, pain free, and felt like I could've gone for the 200 fly instead.  Unfortunately, my left goggle fogged up at the first turn and my right goggle filled up at the turn, as well.  Dan was in the lane next to me, so I was gauging where I was in the pool by his outline (he was about half a bodylength ahead of me on the fly), since I couldn't really see forward or down.  Switching over to backstroke, I still held back and kept it at about 75% speed.  My back felt great, though!  Did something I haven't done in ages, and fixed my goggles during the swim at the 125 mark.  After that, I could see again, and the rest of the race was less problematic.  On top of that, I pulled about a bodylength and a half ahead of Dan!  Going into breaststroke, I hammered the swim, and let the walls just serve as a quick oxygenation point, not focusing on fast walls.  That's the best my breast has ever felt, at least as much as I can remember.  It felt powerful and fast, and didn't feel near as uncoordinated as it normally does.  I think I pulled to about 2-2.5 bodylengths ahead of Dan on the breast, but then died, like always, on the free.  I don't think it was quite an epic meltdown, but Dan made up a LOT of ground on me on the free.  I finished with a 5:09.40 (time on the board after the swim was a 5:09.23, so I'm not sure what's up with the extra .17 they sent out in the results) and beat Dan by about 3 seconds.  Hell of a lot better swim than I expected!  Just through better race management, I probably could have cut that down to around 5:00.  I'm considering actually training for this event, since the Nats cut is only a 4:50.  I've still got about 2 months to go to get my cuts for Nats, and have 5 more meets to swim between now and then, so I'll see how it goes.

100 back

I was starting to feel the effects of inadequate fuel intake during the day, but still had a good swim.  Didn't have all that great of a start, but felt fantastic once I started swimming.  Established an early lead and maintained it throughout.  I've been working almost exclusively on back so far this season, and I can notice a big difference from last spring!  Faded a bit on the last 25, but still won with a 1:02.30, dropping about half a second from my previous best.  I figure my beard is at least a second's worth of drag with how much time I spend underwater, so that puts me down around a 1:01... ;-)
On a side note, I'm kinda disappointed with my top end speed.  I just can't crank it out in the 50!  I only barely broke a 29 at Nats last spring, and my normal 50 time is a mid 29.  I was a 30 point at the 50 in my 100 back on Sunday--I'm swimming the 50 back at the next meet, I think, and I'll bet I'm less than a second faster than my 50 split from the 100.  For whatever reason, I just don't have that top gear when it comes to backstroke!

100 IM

Not that great of a swim.  I was really feeling the lack of fuel at this point and just couldn't get my turnover up on back and free.  Fly felt good, back felt slow but good, breast felt good, and free felt pretty bad--kept inhaling water, so I was double and triple breathing.  Botched the back-breast turn (stroke count was off, so I had to do an open turn instead of the crossover turn, which is much faster turn than an open turn).  I went a 1:03.7, which is right about what I did at the last meet, but is 2 seconds off what I did at Nats.

200 medley relay

This was the last event of the day for us.  We put up a men's relay, and for a change, I swam breast!  I honestly can't remember the last time I swam breast on a relay.  Given that we had Adam and then Craig on my club team since I was 12, I think it might be 13+ years since the last time I was the breaststroker on a relay!  I almost got us DQd on my start--the guy swimming back, Chad, ended up kicking in instead of taking the final stroke into the wall.  I start my windup on the second to last stroke, so I was expecting him to touch right as I started the dive.  Nope.  Since he was kicking in, he was still about a foot and a half off the wall as I started to lean forward.  I tried to jerk back enough so that I didn't blatantly pull a Dan (reference to our 200 medley relay at Zones), almost fell off the block instead, and then did a very flat dive with no windup and no forward momentum when he finally did touch.  I was laughing during the entire first 25!  I believe my split was a 32 something, so even with a hilariously awful start, I'm right there with the fastest competing breaststroker on the team, Katie!  I might have to swim some more breast events in the next few meets.

Overall, it was a pretty good meet!  The 100 IM was disappointing, but at least I didn't add any time from the last meet!  Over the last six months or so, I've apparently managed to turn my breaststroke from a liability to an asset, so I'm very happy about that!  My backstroke is feeling very solid, and my butterfly surprisingly felt good, although I haven't trained for it at all.

Gameplan for Nationals

Now that we're in 2013, I am starting to train for Nationals in earnest.  I can swim three events without making any cuts, and can swim up to six (individual) events if I make three cuts.

I've already got the cut in the 50 fly, and my Nats time is about .75 off the cut in the 100 fly.  I'm about half a second off the 100 back cut (1:01.71), and should be within reach of the 200 back cut (2:12.94), too, although I'm currently about 9.5 seconds off.  I could conceivably make the 400 IM cut (4:50).  The 200 and 100 IMs might be a stretch, though, but I'll see what I can do with them over the next two months worth of meets.

I think the 200 fly and all the breast events are out of reach.  I'm not going to bother really training for them this year, although I'll really go after them next year.  As of now, my plan is to have the cuts for the 100 back and 50 fly for sure.  I would really like to get the 100 fly cut, too, so that way I can then pick my three freebie events.  If I get the three cuts, my Nats lineup will be the 100/200 back, 50/100 fly, and 100/200 IM.

There are five meets left to qualify for Nationals.  I'm really going to hammer those events at the meets, and really focus on training for them in practice.  I'm in a much better position now than I was at this time last year!!