Yesterday I had my first meet of the season. Every October, there's a sprint meet at George Mason. The longest events are the 200 free and 200 IM, with their being 25s, 50s, and 100s of all the strokes, and the 100 IM, as well. It's a fun, fast meet, and usually serves as a pretty good barometer for how I'm going to do that year.
Well, I had a great meet! Hopefully this year will be a great year!
I swam 7 events: 100 breast, 100 IM, 50 back, and then all four 25s in IM order. Here's how they went down.
100 breast
While swimming the race, I was disappointed. I'd had some fantastic starts in warmup, but it felt like I basically just fell off the block in the race. Good reaction time, but no explosiveness, and I was merely middle of the pack on the first underwater pullout, versus leading the pack as I normally do. Finally felt like I was picking up speed going into the first turn, though, and the middle 50 felt phenomenal. My biceps started to lock up really bad on the last lap and I could feel myself slowing down, but I kept at it. I did way better than I was expecting with a 1:12.84. That's my fastest in-season 100 breast time and is only 1.47 seconds off my shaved and tapered time from Nationals in San Antonio. My two other in-season 100 breast times are a 1:13.77 from this past March, and a 1:14.18 from February 2013.
After watching video of my breaststroke races from San Antonio and watching the pros swim breast, I've been working on shooting my hands forward faster than is habitual for me. This was the first race I've done that at, and I feel like it really made a difference.
Maybe there's hope for my breaststroke after all! :-P
100 IM
This was another great race! I had a great start, fly felt like I was stuck in 6th gear instead of 7th gear, but body rhythm surprisingly felt good (on a side note, for the past few years, I have had a really hard time getting the proper body rhythm on fly when I sprint--I'm fine on the 100 and 200, but body rhythm has been all out of whack on the 50 or 25). Back was good, although I botched the timing of the back-breast turn--I had the timing down to do the crossover turn, but had a brain fart and ended up doing a slower open turn. Breast and free surprisingly felt great. That's where I always fall apart in the IM, no matter if it's a 100, 200, or 400. I was going to be happy if I swam a 1:05 (last time I swam the 100 IM, February 2014, I went a 1:06 and change). My gast was truly flabbered when I looked up at the scoreboard and saw that I went a 1:03.48! That's my second fastest in-season time, with the only faster in-season time (1:02.78) coming from February 2013. The 2012-2013 season was my best season to date, so to see that I'm just a shade over half a second off my best in-season time from my best season, and it happening 4 months earlier in the season, to boot, is awesome!
50 back
This was my only "disappointing" swim of the meet, and it was only disappointing in that it wasn't as good as the other swims. I had a simply rotten start and turn, resulting in me being stuck underwater for way too long. I may or may not have surfaced past the 15m mark off the start, but there were no judges on the side to look for it, thankfully. On the turn, my feet hit too high on the bulkhead, so I went straight down. Came up before the 15m mark that time, but stayed underwater for 4 dolphin kicks longer than I wanted to. Even with all that (I figure I lost half a second due to being stuck underwater, at least), I went a 30.07. In season, that's the fastest I've been since this same meet in 2013, when I went a 30.06. My best in-season time is a 29.32 from February 2013, when all I was training was backstroke. With better underwaters, I would have been in the ballpark for my best in-season time, so I'll take it!
25 fly
Meh, I can't sprint fly. Let me rephrase that...meh, I can't sprint, period. That being said, it was a good race! Like I mentioned earlier, I've had issues the past few years with getting a good body rhythm going on sprint fly. Well, I had that here, and it felt like I stayed completely flat in the water. Oh well, I still went a 12.89, which is a Masters best by .02. :-)
25 back
Much better start on this one than on the 50 back. Came up when I wanted to and went a 14.25, which is a Masters best by .36.
25 breast
I had a much better start on this one than on the 100 breast, going a 15.12 and setting a Masters best by .30 in the process.
25 free
I was a 12.09 on this one, completely botched the finish--thought I was a stroke further out from the wall than I actually was and pulled with my right arm, and as it was coming out of the water on the recovery, right before I started to pull with my left arm, my left hand hit the wall. Oops. Turns out this one wasn't a Masters best, missed it by .06. Should have been under 12 if I'd actually finished appropriately!
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I am beyond pleased with how this meet went! It's the best in-season meet I've had in 2.5 years, and since I've got another 6 months of training to go in this season, I now have high hopes for what April will bring in Greensboro!
