It's nice getting back to the normal Nationals schedule of short course in the spring and long course in the summer! In 2020, both were canceled, then last year they were both pushed back--short course was in the summer and long course was in the fall, so this was my first normal Nats cycle since 2019.
Anyway, here's the recap of each event, as well as a comparison at the end of each recap of how my times were compared to my time expectations from before the meet, and capping it off with thoughts for long course this summer and the next short course season starting in the fall.
Note--for anyone who's read my blog, you know I tend to be my harshest critic and don't give myself much slack in evaluating my races, so that's going to be a constant theme in my race recaps/critiques.
Friday
Friday I had my first 2 events of the 6 I had lined up for the meet. First up was the 100 fly, then about 2 hours later I had the 200 free.
100 fly
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 13:30 mark on the video. I'm in lane 3 towards the top of the screen.
All in all, I'm quite happy with the time! That is my 5th fastest Masters time and the fastest I've been since 2017. My only faster swims were two in 2012 (59.53 and 1:01.27), one in 2013 (1:00.18), and one in 2017 (1:00.81). In 2012 I trained just for sprint fly, in 2013 I trained for sprint fly and sprint back, and 2017 I trained just for the 100 and 200 fly. Given that I neither trained fly nor trained for the sprints this season, I'm quite happy to getting back down towards those times.
It wasn't a terrible race, either. Excellent start (side note, I've been very happy with my reaction times in general and have been noticeably off the block quicker than the swimmers on either side of me the past few meets, and you can see that on the video here) and felt great through the 50. Started to feel the fatigue a bit going into the 3rd turn and struggled on the last lap. Dropped a dolphin kick off that turn and started to feel the piano with about 12.5 yards to go. Didn't go vertical, though! I've had some real humdingers where I've gone almost completely vertical, so while that's an exceedlingly low bar, I'm happy to have kept it to a pretty close semblance of normal butterfly. Should've taken another stroke on the finish, though, which might have gotten me under that #4 time from 2012.
Looking at the splits, I don't think I took it out too fast. Digging into my body of work in the 100 fly over the years, I've typically taken it out between a 27 mid and a 28 mid, with some outliers on either end. I think this was me just not being used to doing sprint fly and the energy demands of that race vs the mid distance work we've focused on this season. With some tweaking of my race strategy and taking that extra stroke at the finish, I'm pretty sure I could've pulled out around a 1:01 flat. Either way, I'm happy with how it turned out! Below is a list of my shaved and tapered 100 flys dating back to 2012--it doesn't have any of my in season swims, just my championship swims, to try and compare like with like. In that comparison, it was my 3rd fastest opening 50 and 3rd fastest closing 50, so while not great, it certainly wasn't terrible. I think I could've gotten that 2nd 50 below a 33 with a better turn and finish. I wanted to break 1:01 in this race, so while I missed my goal time, I wasn't too far off.
200 free
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 43:29 mark on the video. I'm in lane 7 closer to the bottom of the screen.
I'm happy with the time overall, as that's a new Masters PR by half a second!
That said, the time doesn't tell the whole story. It was a pretty terrible race from a technical perspective--4 of my 7 turns were really bad and I double breathed going into more than half the turns due to inhaling water twice and being in pretty severe oxygen deprivation for much of the race and honestly not being sure I could even do underwaters at all off those affected turns without taking the extra breath going into the turn.
3 of the bad turns were in a row, at the 75, 100, and 125 turn, with the last bad turn at the 175. 3 of the 4 bad turns were really long, 1 of which was almost long enough for me to miss the wall, and I jammed one turn really badly. On top of that, I choked on water twice in the race, once from the wake from the guy next to me going into the 75 turn and I honestly don't know why I inhaled water the other time. After inhaling water the first time, I was running into oxygen deprivation underwater and shortened my kicks from 3 off the wall to 2 off the wall, and I'm almost positive that's what screwed up my stroke counts after that point.
Looking at the splits (see below for comparison to every other time I've swum it shaved and tapered dating back to 2013), even with the atrocious turns and general lack of oxygen on the back half of that race, I held it together better than it felt. Given my state of suffering from spiraling oxygen debt and just general state of pain, I thought the wheels would have fallen off, but the splits are quite reasonable for me. Going back to 2013, the only swim where I took it out close to that aggressively was back in 2019 at my former MPR swim, and I faded a bit harder in that race than I did here. What I find interesting is that while I took it out substantially faster than every other race but the 2019 one, I also closed it significantly faster than all but that race, too.
I think the parts are there for me to be able to finally break 2:00. I'd been hoping for a 1:59 in that race and definitely think I'd have had it in me if I hadn't screwed up the turns. Oh well, that's a forced error on my part, but all in all I can't complain about going a new masters PR! I definitely need to play around with this race more, I think for next season it's going to be my primary focus event and I'll plan to swim it at every meet that I can, so I can iron out all the bugs and nail down my exact pacing and technique stuff.
Saturday
100 IM
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 32:06 mark on the video. I'm in lane 6 in the middle of the heat.
Ya know, for this race being a textbook example of Murphy's law in action, I'm quite pleased in retrospect with the time. It was my 5th fastest time after swims of 1:00.59 in 2018, 1:01.42 in 2017, 1:01.56 in 2013, and 1:01.77 in 2012, and was the fastest I've gone in this event since 2018. From that perspective, this was a good race!
From a technique perspective, this was hot garbage. My back foot slipped on the start and I entered deep and twisted to one side, which threw off my kick and stroke count for the fly lap, my feet were too high on the fly-back turn and I went too deep pushing off on back which threw off the kick and stroke count for that lap, I jammed the back-breast turn due to my stroke count being off and as a result had a subpar underwater pullout due to just being pretty discombobulated, then I inhaled water on the breast-free turn and came up early in order to hack out the water and actually get some air. In short, except for me getting DQed, pretty much anything that could go wrong in that race did go wrong!
Looking at the splits in comparison to my other shaved and tapered 100 IMs dating back to 2012, it's a mixed bag. The first 50 was slow, which, given the struggles I had on the start and first two turns, I'm not at all surprised about, but the second 50 was actually not terrible. With better underwaters on breast and free I'd like to think I could've brought it back around the same split I brought back last year's overall slower IM (1:02.10 vs 1:01.90) home in, which would have put my time around a 1:01.4, right in the vicinity of my #2 time from 2017. Between the flags I'm pretty happy with how I swam, it was just the dumpster fire turns and start that I wasn't happy with for this race. Given my top end speed struggles all season, I'd had a goal time of 1:01.5, so I was in the ballpark!
Sunday
This was my hardest day on paper, with the 200 IM, 100 free, and 200 breast on tap, though going into it I expected Friday to be a harder day. The 200 IM doesn't kick me in the gut like it does for other people, the 100 free has never made a big impact on me in the grand scheme of things, and the 200 breast *usually* doesn't impact me nearly as much as, say, the 200 back does. That said, I'd been sleeping like utter crap due to the godawful AC in my hotel room alternating seemingly alternating between 22 degrees and 82 degrees at night and making it impossible for me to sleep for more than an hour or two at a stretch without waking up soaked in sweat or freezing my toes off, and several nights of crap sleep was definitely affecting me even before I got to the pool for warmup. I just felt tired overall, far more than I should've for the event lineup I'd swum on Friday and Saturday, and far more than I'd ever felt going into day 3 of Nats, even when I'd had a much heftier lineup, a la 2019 and the all-200 lineup.
200 IM
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 4:31:50 mark on the video. I'm in lane 8 towards the top of the heat.
This was...a disaster...plain and simple. I've had this momentary thing (truly momentary, as in it will happen for a half hour or so then go away for months at a time with no lasting effects) a few times over the past few seasons where the front of my right knee below my kneecap will become very weak and not be able to support any weight. When that happens, things such as climbing out of the pool or bending over on the block to assume the starting position become very dicey propositions and my right knee has legit buckled due to not being able to support weight when that's happened.
Welp, it happened while I was practicing starts in warmup before the 200 IM. I did 3 starts off the block and the first 2 were just fine and dandy, then on my 3rd and last start, it collapsed on me when I bent over for the start and I nearly took a header off the block. I spent the ~30 minutes between then and my race trying to stretch and roll out my knee, but pretty much to no avail.
Getting up on the block, it felt wonky, then when I bent over on the start, it buckled and thankfully the starter signaled the start then, otherwise I'd have likely gotten DQed for a false start. I basically fell off the block and that part below my kneecap hurt on every single kick all the way through the 125 of the race. I deliberately held back and didn't push the kick through that point and effectively wrote off the event before I even made it through the first 25. I didn't drive my kicks hard, I didn't push hard and try to explode off the wall, I didn't do the back-breast crossover turn even though I'd nailed the stroke count for it, and I kept my breast kick looser than normal to try and not put extra torque on my knee. The pain vanished after the 125 turn, though, and while I still didn't try to explode off the walls out of caution, I did kick hard on the surface.
On the plus side, though, even with all that garbage, I still went my 3rd fastest masters time after times of 2:14.87 in 2019 and 2:15.27 in 2017, so I dunno! I'd gone into this meet thinking a 2:13 was a reasonable goal time, so to be just 6 seconds off swimming with a bum knee, I can't complain *too* much about it. Here's the comparison with all my other shaved and tapered 200 IM swims.
I'm actually pretty surprised about my fly split--while it *should* have been around the 28 flat from 2019, it felt far slower than it actually was due to being gimpy. The back split looks about as slow as it felt--I dropped 2 butterfly kicks off both walls to baby my knee and it felt pretty wonky the entire 50. The breast split actually wasn't terrible! My 2017-2018 heyday of being able to actually sprint breast seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, but stripping out that 2017 split shockingly leaves this as my 2nd fastest one. I think I just muscled through the free and it surprisingly wasn't terrible, at my 3rd fastest closing split.
100 free
I was a man seeking redemption for this race! Ever since warm down after the 200 IM debacle, my right knee had been peachy keen and back to normal with no signs of weakness. I felt pumped up and ready to rumble!
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 6:25:00 mark on the video. I'm in lane 3 towards the bottom of the heat.
This was my 3rd fastest Masters time after a 54.65 in 2017 and a 54.80 in 2019. I think I'd have had a great shot at taking down at least the 2019 swim here, but my feet slipped on the 3rd turn and I ended up going deep on that underwater and needing to surface at a sharp angle, which then resulted in my stroke count for the finish being about half a stroke off.
Honestly, though, I have nothing really to complain about with this race. I split it well, I nailed my race strategy, and with the exception of that slip on the last turn, everything went exactly how I wanted it to. The only and only race at this meet where that was the case! :-D
Here's the split comparison with my other shaved and tapered 100s. The key difference between this one and my two faster swims was the first 50, and that I think was a key indicator of my wilful lack of sprint training this season. Looking back at my 200 free from day 1, I took that out in a 27.06 vs this 26.35, yet I hammered it a hell of a lot harder on this first 50 than I did on that one. I struggled all season to be able to find that top gear, and I can see that here. Given how much harder I swam this first 50 than taking out my 200, I'd have liked to be a 26.0 or maybe even a high 25. I'm happy with how I closed, though! Minus the kerfuffle on the 3rd turn and longish finish, I likely could have dipped under 2019's 28.57. I didn't have a set goal time for this race, since my top end speed was better in both 2017 and 2019, but I'd wanted to get back into the 54s. So close!
Again, nothing really to complain about with this race, I'm quite happy with how it turned out!
200 breast
Yikes! I've never had a 200 breast that's just completely fallen apart on me like this... 😬
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 7:49:15 mark on the video. I'm in lane 8 towards the bottom of the heat.
I honestly have no idea what happened with this one. I felt great through the 125, felt calm and controlled, and then my lungs pretty much spontaneously combusted on the underwater off the 125 turn and the wheels just fell off from there. The last 50 was the most painful last 50 I can recall ever swimming in a 200 breast. I dunno if it was mental fatigue from a series of not-great swims, the lack of quality sleep catching up to me all of a sudden, my breaststroke suddenly not being there, something else, or a combination of any or all of the above. 🤷
The splits aren't pretty and the split comparison isn't pretty, either. This swim has the distinction of having both the slowest opening 100 and slowest closing 100 out of any of my shaved and tapered swims, even dating back to 2016 when I was in much worse swimming shape and wasn't able to hit the breast times in practice that I've been able to consistently hit this season. Given how much slower I took it out than normal, I definitely don't think this was a case of me going out too fast and then crashing and burning, so I dunno what was the problem with this race. Given what I was putting up in practice, I'd thought I had a legit shot at hitting a 2:30.
Overall thoughts
Ya know, this definitely wasn't the Nats that I'd hoped for or expected, but all in all I'm fairly pleased with it. I had a few standout swims, and even the suboptimal swims...except for the 200 breast...gave me solid feedback on things to work on. Again, except for the 200 breast, I turned out solid times across the board. Only one PR, but the other 4 swims were all respectable.
One thing I definitely didn't like about this pool, since they renovated it at some point between when we last swam here in 2015 and this year, is the wall surfacing. It is stainless steel and whatever coating they have on it does nothing to prevent it from being as slick as uncoated stainless steel. My feet moved around on every single turn at the far end of the pool, and while I didn't outright lose traction and have my feet slip out from the right position on every turn, it is disconcerting to feel some slipping back and forth every single time they make contact with that wall. Given that's a world class pool, it boggles my mind that that is the wall coating they went with, and slipping on the turn end was a constant theme of conversation between people I knew at the meet and people I overheard warming up and cooling down. I've swum in other Myrtha pools and none of them are anywhere near as slick as this one, so it just mystifies me that this one is so slippery.
Long course Nats and next short course season
Now that short course Nats is over and done with, it's time to start thinking about long course Nats in Richmond in August! I don't know what my exact event lineup will be, but I'm planning on no IMs and no breast. 50 fly is a go, 100 and 200 frees are a go, 100 and 200 back are a go, and maybe even the 400 free. Depending on what my speed training looks like this summer, I might do the 50s again like I did last year, or I might just stick with the 100+ for free and back. I think I'm going to take a break from breast for a season or two, since I've been swimming it regularly since 2017. My back felt pretty good this season on the irregular occasions I swam it, so I think it might be time to put the work back in to get it up to par, since it's been quite a while since I focused on it.
For short course next year, while I'm definitely in the hypothetical range right now since the summer is going to play a big part in informing what I do in the fall and spring, I'm contemplating taking more of a speed focus and working on the 50/100/200 free, the 50/100 fly, and 50/100 (and maybe the 200) back. The 50s will require that I find that elusive top gear that I couldn't find at all this season, so I'll need to somehow get that sorted out if I want to swim satisfactory 50s next year.
