This past weekend was the Zone Championship swim meet. If this were the past two years, it'd be my local untapered champ meet, with Nationals following several weeks later. Alas, work conspired against me and this became my sole championship meet of the short course season. On top of that, I hurt my left knee three weeks ago, so I went into the meet with rather low expectations. The cherry on top of my crap sundae going into the meet was that not only did I have low expectations (I planned to only swim at ~90% effort), but due to the knee issue and wanting to not destroy it, I had to scratch the 200 fly, 200 back, and 100 IM. The doc said no breast at all, and since turns are where my knee hurts the most, I didn't want to put the stress of 7 turns of the most dolphin kick intensive strokes on my knee.
Anyhoo, here's how my meet went down.
Saturday
Mixed 400 free relay
Not too bad! This was my first event of the meet and I actually felt pretty good. I kept it at about 90% effort and tried to not put too much torque on my knee, with limited success--slightly twisted it on the last turn and it hurt doing the few dolphin kicks before I switched to flutter kick. With a relay start, I was a 57.79. If I'd gone all out, probably would have been a 56 and change. Not great, but I'm decidedly not a sprint freestyler, so I'll take it!
Mixed 200 medley relay
I was the fly leg on this relay and wanted to play it safe. My knee still felt a bit wonky after tweaking it on the previous relay, so I only swam at about 85% effort...and still managed to further tweak it on the turn when my left foot twisted a bit on the bulkhead. Go figure. With fly kick hurting for the next 10 yards or so, I went a 27.82. Meh. That's about 1.75 seconds off where I should be right now when I'm at 100%. When I'm fully in shape and at 100%, I should be able to split a mid/high 25 with a relay start, but for now 100% would be a low 26.
100 back
Ugh. This one hurt--I over extended my knee on the start, and then further tweaked it on the second and third turns. By the third turn, it hurt enough to make me drop from my normal 5-9 dolphin kicks off the wall to 2 dolphin kicks before switching to flutter kick. Given that the overwhelming majority of my speed in back comes from the underwater dolphin kicks (usually 14 off the start, 11 off the first turn, 9 off the second, and 7 or so off the third turn), having to cut them down takes a lot of my speed away. I went a 1:05.15. Could have been worse, but could have been much better, too. Oh well. In my current shape (without knee issues), 100% would probably have been around a 1:03 low. After this swim I took a handful of ibuprofen, which helped for the remainder of the day.
50 fly
I was hurting by this point. I had no turnover with my arms and my knee hurt off the block, though it was fine for the rest of the race. 28.91, which is by far the slowest I've been this season. Yuck. Just a bad swim all around.
Men's 800 free relay
Bizarrely enough, this was actually one of my better swims of the Saturday session! Not in time, but how it felt and how pain-free it was. When I swam this relay at Zones last year, I had an epic melt down and went from taking it out in a 59, if I recall correctly, to bringing it back in a 1:12. This time around, we put together a less competitive relay (only one of us was capable of a sub 2:00 swim, whereas last year I was the only one who wasn't capable of it). I didn't feel the pressure I did last time to swim hard, so I took it out at about 80% effort and just cruised till the last 50, when I saw a guy two lanes over who had half a body length lead on me and tried to run him down. I failed in running him down, but at least he didn't lengthen his lead! My splits this time around were out in a 1:05 and back in a 1:10. Better yet, I didn't fall apart and had no knee pain!
Men's 400 medley relay
This was two heats after the 800 free relay...and I was running on fumes. Although my 200 free hadn't been near 100% effort, it still took a lot out of me, so I was only running on about 40% energy by this point. Tried to get the arm spin going on the first 25 and failed miserably (plus, I had no legs at this point), so I decided to switch tactics and go for a slower turnover with maximum power per pull. Well, that's what I tried to do, anyways... I just flat out didn't have any steam for this swim, and the 1:08.35 I went aptly illustrates that point. I had been hoping for around a 1:06, so this was understandable, but still kinda disappointing.
Men's 200 free relay
I wasn't supposed to swim on this relay, but while I was dog tired after my 100 back on the 400 medley relay (which was just about 5 minutes before the 200 free relay), I very bizarrely felt pumped up to swim a 50 free. I swapped out with the anchor of our relay and swam in his place. I had what felt like a really good start and felt fantastic for the first 25, but at the turn I couldn't see anyone (we were in lane 1 and everyone but lane 2 at least a full 25 ahead of us by the time I went), so I pulled it back a bit but still gave it enough gas to beat lane 2. Went a 26.73, which, honestly, is substantially faster than I thought I could go at that point.
Sunday
Mixed 800 free relay
In warmup, my back was all knotted up and sore, and free was the only thing that didn't hurt. Given that, and also given my surprisingly not sucky (relatively speaking) free performances on Saturday, I decided to see what I could do on the relay by actually trying...or at least trying more than I did the day before. I had a fantastic start and took it out markedly faster than I did the day before, but took it down a notch at the 100 and then held it through the finish. Went a 2:10, going out in a 1:02 and coming back in a 1:08. While that time is absolutely nothing to write home about, it actually felt really good, all things considered. I still only swam it at about 90% effort, so I'd like to think I might have had a 2:05 in me if I'd really pushed it. Honestly, it is quite surprising for me! I don't train for free in the slightest, don't care about it, don't like swimming it in practice, but apparently can sorta race it (that is, "race" it by my loooooow standards). Very peculiar.
Mixed 400 medley relay
I had enough time to do a 200 easy in the warmdown pool after the previous relay before we were up for this one. For whatever reason, I was the freestyler on this relay, which NEVER happens. I can't even remember the last time I swam free on a medley relay prior to this. Anyhoo, my lats and triceps were completely locked up from my 200 free, so it's a good thing I wasn't doing fly or back, since those kill my triceps and lats on a good day! I had an ok start (slow reaction time and went too deep, but had good distance in the air), but the 200 hit me at about the 35 yard mark. I faded pretty darn hard but managed to scrape out 59.88. With how much I was hurting going into the swim, I had considered it a good race if I broke a minute, so there's that.
Mixed 200 free relay
I wanted to see how I'd do in this when I was actually swimming it for real, unlike on the 200 free relay on Saturday. Except for a really slow start (I was going off someone I've never gone off before and didn't know her stroke count, and thus left at least .5 on the block) and a slightly too long turn, it was a fantastic race. Great distance through the air, entered at the right angle, and got up and moving after a good amount of dolphin kicks. It felt really, really good, even better than my swim on the 200 free relay at Nationals last year, and that's with me not doing a very big flutter kick in an attempt to not put too much strain on my knee. I went a 25.53, which is my best non-Indy Nats time. With a faster start and bigger/stronger flutter kick, I'd like to think I'd have been sub-25. I don't know where the hell this swim came from, because although in the grand scheme of sprint freestyle, it's a pokey time, it's my second fastest Masters 50 free time, with my fastest being with me shaved down, in shape, uninjured, and wearing a much better suit. I'll definitely take it, but I don't know where it came from!
50 back
I was a deck seed for this event--long story short, my registration for this event got messed up and I was entered with a NT instead as a deck entry. This was right after the 200 free relay--I literally had managed to walk from our relay's lane to the bleachers where we were sitting, not even to the warmdown pool, just to the bleachers...and then got called back for the 50 back. From the 800 free relay to this point, probably only 15 minutes had elapsed, with me only having done about a total of a 250 warmdown between the four events. I got stuck in heat 1 with the septuagenarians and octogenarians. My legs were gone, I was still out of breath, my upper body was nonexistent, and I felt like I was running on about 10% energy. I had a very weak start, good underwater...and then completely ran out of gas once on the surface. Went a 32.82, which is surprisingly not godawful, but definitely wasn't a good time for me. Without the back to back to back relays right before this swim, I would have liked to have been around a 30 flat. On a good note, my knee didn't hurt on any of these first four swims!
100 fly
I was completely spent by this point! I felt very sluggish while warming up for this race (it was about 2 hours after the 50 back) and had a hard time getting my arms out of the water--my back and shoulders were very tight and sore, and everything just felt incredibly weak. I had a good dive and felt good for the first, oh, 15 yards of the race. I could already feel myself tightening up at the 25, and my breakout on the second lap hurt. It just went downhill from there, with the 4th 25 feeling about the same as the last 25 of the 200 fly. Not a good feeling at all, but I managed to scrape by with a not completely abysmal 1:06.18. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with that time, all things considered. Last year at Zones I'd gone a 1:04 and change, if memory serves, and I was in much better shape then, and without a bum knee.
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All things considered, it was an ok meet. I think freestyle was actually my best stroke of the meet, which is not usual at all! My 50 free on Sunday's 200 free relay, especially, was the highlight of the meet for me. I'm not in a rush to go start training for free instead of fly and back, but I'm going to think about maybe entering the free events more often at meets. With my knee feeling as bad as it did on Saturday, I think I swam fairly well. In conclusion, not too bad of a meet, but not the best I've had by a long shot.
