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!!