First real taper in a while!

I've got one practice left for my taper before heading to CA tomorrow evening. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure this is my first proper taper since 2019. No Nats in 2020, the ones in 2021 were pushed back and effectively midseason meets so I trained through them, and last spring we went on vacation just a couple weeks before the meet, so my schedule was thrown off. And then I didn't taper last summer, primarily because I wasn't really training.

So far in this taper I've been focusing on my 200s free and back, more so on the latter.

The last time I actually *trained* for backstroke was back in 2018, so I've been pretty rusty while doing back this season. That said, with Saturday's backstroke taper set and this morning's backstroke taper set, I'm getting pretty pumped for the 200 back! Saturday I did a lot of good underwater work and then a 100 trying to hit my target pace for the 2nd 100 of the 200. I hit a 1:11, which was faster than my target time of 1:13ish! Moving forward to today, I did 3x50 on 1:30 aiming for 2nd 50 of the 200 pace, followed by another 100 trying to hit 200 back half pace. I held :33 on the 50s and went 1:10 on the 100.

Looking at both of those practices, my backstroke times have consistently been a bit faster than I expected. Given that it's been 5 years since I actually trained backstroke, I hope it's a sign that my stroke is rounding back into form more than I expected and not that I can't figure out my pacing (e.g. thinking I'm going 200 pace but actually going 100 pace, etc).

Free has been much less of a focus for me, but I've been pretty happy with my times while doing similar sets. Unlike with back, they haven't been faster than I expected, but they've mostly been right on what I expected, so I'll take it. My free stroke doesn't feel as clean as my back, but it feels good enough.

Tomorrow I'll change gears and do some IM sprint work and transition turn work.

All in all, I'm happy to be doing a legit taper again and happy with how it's going!

Countdown to Nationals!

I'm in the last little bit before Nationals, with my flight being in 11 days.

I signed up for six events, the 100/200 back, 100/200 free, 100 IM, and 100 fly, with the 100 fly designated as my 6th event. Due to the size of the meet, they ended up dropping the 6th event, so I'm just sooooo heartbroken that I don't get to swim the 100 fly. Darn.

I did one last set of meets a couple weeks ago as a final pulse check. That weekend, on day 1 I swam a handful of SCY events: the 50 free on a 200 free relay, 50 fly, 100 fly, and 50 back on a 200 medley relay. On day 2 I swam two LCM events, the 50 fly and the 200 free. I swam all the events on both days wearing just a practice speedo instead of my normal tech suit.

SCY events:

1) 50 free: No clue what my split was. It felt good on the surface, but I slipped pretty badly on the turn and likely lost a significant chunk of time there.

2) 50 fly: I went a 29.1, which, while it felt like a great race, is sloooooow. I honestly have no idea what has happened to my in-season fly speed--as recently as just pre-pandemic I was regularly a 27 mid at in-season meets. I can't believe the speedo would reduce my speed that much compared to a tech suit for just a 50.

3) 100 fly: I went a 1:07.1, which was a bit better than I actually expected. I completely bombed the first two turns, but besides that it was a solid race. Honestly, it was a comparatively better time than my 50 fly time--in the recent pre-pandemic years I was typically a suited mid 1:03 in-season, so a non-suited time coming in less than 4 seconds off of that, with two utterly abysmal turns to boot, is better than I expected.

4) 50 back: Watch had me at a :31 and change, which is on the slower end but not terrible. I had a bad start and jammed turn, but all in all not as terrible as it could have been. I'd like to think I'd have been able to shave off about a second with a clean race, but not awful.

LCM races:

1) 50 fly: I went a 33.0, about a second off my shaved/tapered/suited time from last summer. With the exception of inhaling the wake from the much faster dude next to me about halfway down the pool, it was a clean swim. My technique didn't fall apart, I didn't die, I kept my breathing pattern, etc.

2) 200 free: I went a 2:34. The results haven't posted, so I don't know what my splits were, but for my first time swimming the LCM 200 free in close to 20 years, I thought it was a decent race. My pacing was wonky--felt too slow on the first 100 and still had gas in the tank at the finish despite trying to push it on the back half, but I'm satisfied with that time. Looking at my 100 free, which I've done in back to back SCY and LCM seasons, I typically have about a 19% time conversion from SCY to LCM, which would put my approximate SCY time around a 2:09ish. As recently as a couple years pre-pandemic I was typically going suited 2:06-2:08s in-season, so an approximate 2:09 equivalent was a great swim.

Beyond the meet performances, I've felt pretty good in practice. My kick is inching closer to where it typically is at this point in the season despite me effectively tossing away the first 5+ months of the season, my free is also in the ballpark, and my back, while admittedly slower than I'd like, feels good. My fly feels good (besides being inexplicably slow), but my breaststroke feels pretty terrible--since I'm only doing a 25 BR in the 100 IM, I'm fine with it feeling bad since I can BS it and rely on the other 3 strokes.

I'm beginning my taper on Friday (planning for a 5 practice taper before flying out to Irvine), but plan to hit it hard till then with 5 or 6 regular practices pre-taper.

I don't think I'll come all that close to setting PRs at Nats this time around, but I do think I'll be able to put up some solid times. My ballpark target times by day and event for the meet:

Friday: 

-200 back: 2:20.5

-100 free: :55.8

Saturday:

-100 IM: 1:03.5

Sunday:

-100 back: 1:04.5

-200 free: 2:04.5

None of those target times are close to PRs. I'll be thrilled if I hit those times or go faster than them, but on the flip side I won't be heartbroken if I go slower than them. The 200 back is *probably* the iffiest of those target times, but regardless, I'm going into this meet just to see where I'm at shaved (except for my head this time around, I save that for championship meets I'm fully trained for), tapered, and suited.

It's gonna be fun! 😀