First meet of 2014...hahahahahahahaha!

Had the first meet of 2014 this past Sunday in Annapolis.

Overall, not as terrible as I thought it'd be.  I've only been swimming regularly for the past few weeks, so I figured I'd have an awful meet with slow times and lots of crashing and burning.  I swam three events, the 50 fly, 100 back, and 200 back, in that order.

50 fly

Sigh.  This could have been so much better.  My back foot slipped a bit on the start and I didn't enter the water at the right angle, causing my goggles to flood as soon as I hit the water.  I almost would have preferred them to have fallen off, since I would have been able to see when breathing, at least.  Anyhoo, I couldn't see crap with them filled, and when I came close to the wall for the turn, the refraction in the water made me think I was at the wall.  I dove forward thinking I would touch the wall momentarily...and had to kick for a second or two since I had to be at least 1-1.5 strokes away from the wall.  Oops.  Lost at least a second on the turn and couldn't make up for it in the second half.  I could see the vague shapes of the other people in the heat when I pushed off the wall and I think I would have been in the lead if I hadn't boffed the turn.  Sigh.  I went a 27.9.  On the plus side, this is the first time in over a year that I've felt like I've been able to sprint fly.  I didn't have any problems with establishing a body rhythm, which has been my big problem with the 50 fly for a long time.  If I'd nailed the turn, I probably would have been a mid/high 26.

100 back

This was only about 10 minutes after the 50 fly, so I wasn't very rested going into the event.  I was in the lane next to Dan, so my only concern was beating him.  Had an only so-so start and he beat me into the water.  Caught up to him underwater, but he pulled a little ahead of me on the surface.  Pulled ahead again underwater off the first turn and then extended my lead from there, although I reallllllly stretched out the second turn (had a brain fart and only took one stroke inside the flags instead of two).  Legs gave out at about the 85 yard mark, but went a 1:03.9 and beat Dan by about 1.5 seconds.

200 back

Wow, this was a pretty hilariously terrible race.  I had a ridiculously hilariously awful start--my left wrist locked when I was positioning myself (sometimes my wrist will lock into one, usually painful, position and I can't apply any weight to it without it hurting) and then my left foot slipped off the pad right before the start, so I just flopped back into the water and had zero push off the wall.  On top of that, I psyched myself out and had convinced myself that if I took it out too fast I'd burn out, given my lack of conditioning at this point in the season.  Took it out too slow (around a 1:10, versus the 1:07 or so I should have been) and ended up dying at about the 125.  On top of that, I choked on water at the 150 turn, so I almost went into full panic mode trying to get to the surface.  Came back in a 1:13 for a 2:23.  Should have been around a 2:18.  I almost wish I'd had Dan video tape this race, cuz it would go perfectly with a laugh track!

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Overall, this could have been a much, much worse meet.  I've only been swimming regularly for about 3 weeks now.  With the exception of the 200 back, my times weren't that far off of where I was at this point last year with a much higher training and conditioning base.  I've got what should be a pretty stable next three months at work, so my schedule should allow me to get in the pool much more than I did in the fall, so I hope to maintain my current training through Nationals in May.