Well, that was definitely a hit or miss kinda meet! There was a three day short course meters Masters meet this past weekend at George Mason's Manassas campus. I didn't compete in November, so this was my first meet since October. I swam the 100 back on Saturday and the 100 IM/100 fly on Sunday.
First off, I do not like short course meters. Nothing against that distance itself, but the only time I ever swim SCM is in a meet, so I'm not used to the distance. I'm a yards swimmer through and through, although I can adjust to long course meters if needed. But SCM? No thank you. It's that middle distance that is just long enough to make my turn timing awkward, while not long enough to necessitate the mindset change that is LCM.
100 back
Ugh, I just don't have any speed. In warmup I tried doing some pace 50s and was holding 36s, which converts to a high 32/low 33 in yards...or about 2 seconds off my desired pace. That's how my backstroke has felt all season--nothing feels fundamentally wrong with the stroke itself, I just haven't been able to eke out any speed.
On the start, my right foot slipped off the pad, so I pretty much had a one legged push. I went long on the first two turns and just ran out of steam towards the end. Even before running out of steam, though, it just felt like I was swimming through molasses, with no speed. My final time was a 1:13 and change, 2 seconds slower than the last time I did the 100 SCM back, in March 2013. On the plus side, it was a second faster than when I did the event in December 2011!
100 IM
After Saturday's annoyingly bad 100 back, I was psyched up for Sunday's 100 IM. The 100 IM is one of my favorite events, and I'd been bummed when I had to scratch the IM events in the spring and summer due to my bum knee. I swam the 25 breast in October, but this was the first *real* race that tested my knee. I had a good start and felt fantastic on the fly and back. Got a big confidence boost on the fly/back turn when I came off the wall just a shade after the guy in the lane next to me, but then came up to the surface almost a full bodylength ahead of him! Breaststroke was very flat, uncoordinated, and felt like I was getting no power from my kick, but the important thing is that it didn't hurt! My free felt really good, too, the best it's felt in an IM since at least the 2012-2013 season. Usually by that point I'm sucking wind and my technique falls apart.
The only downside to this race, besides the cruddy breaststroke leg, were my turns. None of them were quick. Kinda like my 100 back, while my turns felt technically sound, they just were slooooow. Still, all that said, I pulled out a mid 1:10, just a couple tenths of a second off my best time from the runup to 2012 nationals, and 1.5 seconds faster than my time from spring 2013. Given my complete lack of breaststroke training this year (the most I've done in a practice since February has been about a 50) and lack of speed training since the summer, I will count the 100 IM a rousing success!
100 fly
...And I came crashing back down to earth on the 100 fly. I've been doing a lot of fly training in the past few months, since I think my main event at nationals is going to be the 200 fly. I haven't been doing any fly sprint training, though, just getting in bulk yardage. I've been able to put together some decent 100 fly repeats in practice at a moderate pace, but haven't haven't worked on 100 pace. I'll touch on that again in just a second.
My start was good, first 50 felt great, and I was only barely starting to feel it going into the 75 turn when it all fell apart. Curling my legs into the wall on the last turn, both of my hamstrings cramped up, and coming off the wall I could only do the downkick, not the upkick. Attempting to overdrive the arms to compensate for the loss of leg propulsion, my lats cramped up, too. The end result was me going vertical for the last 15 or so meters of the race. Sigh. I was happy about two things, though. One of the main things I've been working on in practice has been increasing my underwater time off the walls. Historically, I've done 4-5 dolphin kicks off the wall on the 100/200 fly, and I've been working to increase that. I did 9 off the start, 7 off the first wall, 6 off the second wall, then 5.5 spastic kicks off the third wall. On top of that, I've been trying to force myself in practice to mostly keep to a 2-up-1-down breathing pattern (only exception is the last stroke into the wall--I want to breathe on that stroke), and I was able to hold to it in this race, even when I went vertical! I'm very pleased with that part! I ended up with a 1:12, I think (might have been a 1:13, but don't quote me until I see the official results), which is about 3.5 seconds off my time from the leadup to the 2012 nationals, but 4 seconds faster than I was at this time in 2011.
I'm really starting to wonder if there's something wrong with my fly training. Ever since the summer, I've been able to do aerobic fly training with no out of the ordinary issues, but when I've raced fly since the spring, I've had massive lat cramps towards the end of the race, whether it's the 50 or the 100. At long course nationals in August, I swam the 50 fly twice, once on a relay and once individually. On the relay I kept it relaxed and stretched out, while still going at around 90% effort. No cramping issues then. Later, I did the individual race, bumped it up to 100% effort, and developed massive lat cramps around the 40 meter mark. Similar effect when I did the 100 in October, and same thing this time around. This one was by the simultaneous hamstring cramps, which is a first for me. Even when I have done fly speed work in practice, I haven't had the lat cramping issue that so far has only stuck in meets. I don't know what it is, or what I can do to prevent it.
All in all, I was fairly pleased with this meet. I did way better than I expected in the 100 IM, and the best part was that I had no knee pain, so maybe I can swim the IMs again! I'm beginning to wonder if this is going to be another "lost" season for backstroke, like my '11-'12 season was. That season I proportionally did markedly better in fly than back, then I reversed that the following season. So far this season is shaping up to follow the '11-'12 season's pattern. I'll see how things stand in February, which will give me time to change up my training strategies as necessary in preparation for nationals in San Antonio in April.
