I'm not a fan of SCM in general, in the context that it's just one meet a season and I don't swim SCM in practice, nothing against SCM in principle. For those who aren't familiar with SCM, the key problem for me is that the flags are set at 5m from the wall instead of 5y from the wall as for SCY. It's not a huge difference just looking at the numbers, but it comes out to about a ~.75 stroke difference for backstroke, on top of the general stroke count difference going from SCY to SCM. When you spend all season dialing in your stroke counts for 25y and then randomly have a meet that's in SCM with different stroke counts across the board, it's a pain in the butt!
Anyways, I swam 3 events, the 100 free, 100 back, and 50 fly. Those aren't my normal lineup for this meet, but I looked at this meet this year as my final chance to pick my last two events for Nationals. The potential options for those last two events coming into the meet: 50/100/200 back, 50 fly, 100 free, and 100 IM. The 100 back was going to serve as a proxy for both the 100 and 200 back, while the 100 free and 50 fly were 1:1 comparisons for their respective events.
100 free
I swam this last at Tropical Splash in January and that was an utter dumpster fire of a race with me almost completely missing the wall at the 75 and losing all momentum as a result, resulting in a correspondingly abysmally slow time.
Didn't have that issue this time around! The only problem I had in this race was unintentionally starting my flip too early at the 3rd turn and having to stretch it way out mid-flip, which ended up being a slow turn, though I was able to stretch it out long enough that I hit the wall in the right position and got a good push, unlike at Tropical Splash. I also switched from a 4-2 breathing pattern to a 2-2 breathing pattern midway down the 3rd lap instead of just on the 4th lap due to inhaling a bit of wake and needing to breathe earlier than anticipated, but otherwise a very solid race.
This was my 2nd fastest masters time after a 1:01.9 in 2017. The last time I swam this, in 2018, I went a 1:04.6, so I'm happy that this swim was trending in the right direction. Depending on which swim conversion calculator I use, 1:02.77 converts to SCY in the 56.4-56.5 range, which is actually a bit faster than my fastest in season time of 54.8!
My top end speed isn't there yet, but historically that's the case until I start tapering when I've been training for 200s as I have been this season, vs when I train for the sprints, so I'm not worried right now, especially with having gone an excellent time even with a somewhat flawed race.
100 back
Unlike the 100 free, this one was a straight up dumpster fire. In warmup I'd had a devil of a time trying to nail down my SCM stroke count and was very hit or miss. That continued here.
On the start, both feet slipped straight down off the pad and I got zero push off the wall. The underwaters are my strength in back and are a comparative advantage against most people I race against, especially on the start, yet I came up dead last by almost a body length compared to everyone I could see. Adding insult to injury, I blew the first two turns and started my turn at the right point for a SCY race, not a SCM race...early enough that I should have been DQed on both turns because I finished the pulldown well before I initiated the flip due to just badly misjudging how far away I was. That was a lot of just dead time in the water gliding into the wall, which torpedoed my speed. At least I finally got it figured out for the last turn and nailed it there, so the race wasn't a *total* s-show.
All that said, this was my 4th fastest out of 6 SCM 100 backs, so not a terrible time in the grand scheme of things, but not a great time (my times have ranged from a mid 1:10 to a high 1:13). I think the start and first two turns added up to at least a 1.5 second deficit, which would've pushed this to around my 2nd fastest time, which really isn't bad. If anything, it speaks to my speed having increased on the surface compared to the past, if I can have atrocious walls and start and still be in the running compared to my historical times without such egregious user error issues.
50 fly
I was pretty happy with this time! I really haven't spent any time this season on top end speed, and have spent zero time on top end fly speed, so I just threw this out there as a what the hell swim.
I couldn't turn it into high gear on the first lap and got stuck on the wall on the turn--I hit the wall at the appropriate arm length away, but misjudged it a bit and was diving down into the wall because I thought I was further away than I actually was; as a result, while I hit at the right arm length, my feet were up and my upper body was down and it took subjectively FOREVER to complete the turn. Pretty sure I've had faster turns in my 200 fly! On the 2nd lap, I think I found that high gear I couldn't find on the 1st lap, but my pull, kick, and body motion all felt out of sync.
Still, I'll take it! I'd only swum this twice before in SCM, both times way back in the '11-12 season when I trained just for sprint fly, and this split the difference between the times for those two swims. Depending on the conversion calculator, this time converts to a 27.6-27.7 for SCY. The last time I was faster than that in season was way back in the fall of 2012, when I went a 26.4. I've got quite a few 50s fly that are in the mid-26 to mid-27 range, but they are all from Zones when I've already started my speed focus leading up to Nationals and am at the beginning stages of my taper, so this is an excellent time even with the absurdly slow turn.
Overall thoughts and Nationals stuff
This was definitely an up and down meet. Issues galore (admittedly, mostly user error) with my 100 back and, to a lesser extent, the 50 fly, but all in all I'm happy with all three events warts and all.
100 free: Good signs all around. It made up for the utter debacle that was the 100 free at Tropical Splash, so it made it in as my 5th event for Nats.
100 back: Shit show of a race, but promising signs for my over water speed, especially in conjunction with my pretty good 50 back from Annapolis 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I'd have to devote a substantial amount of time and energy to ironing out the flaws in my backstroke over the next few weeks before Nats to be comfortable putting up a clean race in any of the three backstrokes, time that could be better spent on my other events/strokes, so no backstroke at Nats outside the IMs. Next year I might bring it back.
50 fly: Surprisingly solid, but not solid enough to make the cut for Nats. Excellent sign for my 100 fly there, though!
With those decisions, that brought my Nationals lineup out to the 100 fly and 200 free on Day 1, 100 IM on Day 2, and the 200 IM, 100 free, and 200 breast on Day 3. The 100 IM is potentially a throwaway event, since it was ridiculously slow at Tropical Splash but I've put up separate solid races of the individual strokes and had a good 200 IM at Annapolis, so I *should* be able to put up a solid 100 IM at Nats.
My dives were excellent yesterday. From what I could see peripherally, I was the first off the blocks and got just about the furthest distance on both dives, even with their postage stamp size blocks, so I'm quite happy with that! I'm hoping that at Nats with their large wedged blocks, I'll continue to keep my start as a strength point.
