Thoughts on the season so far and path forward to Nats in June

My first three meets of the season are under my belt--a meet in mid December, Tropical Splash a week ago, and I swam an event at a NCAP meet yesterday. Mixed results overall, but some definite positive signs, too!

December Meet

• 100 breast - 1:16.1
• Outside of doing IM work, I hadn't (and still haven't) trained any breaststroke since 2022 Nats at San Antonio. Pacing was off, stroke felt off, and there was no top end speed, but for a throwaway race with zero specific training to back it up, it wasn't half bad.
• 50 free on the 200 free relay - :26.7
• Slow, slow, slow. Tweaked my lower back on the start and had ZERO turnover. Pretty much felt like the easy speed I aim for in the first 50 of the 200 free...and was a whopping .4 faster than my typical Nats opening split in the 200... 😬
• 50 fly - 29.6
• Abysmally slow, couldn't get into anything resembling a good body rhythm till about a 25 and a half into the "race" and my pull and kick were out of sync for the whole swim. Didn't die or even fade at all, just didn't swim fast.
• 100 IM - 1:07.5
• I was gassed by this point of the meet. I hadn't eaten enough and the meet was running an hour over by that point, so my tank was just about empty. With the exception of a shallow breakout on free, though, it was a clean swim, just no speed.

December Meet - Overall Thoughts

I didn't start training in earnest this season till a few weeks before this meet. I hadn't, and still haven't, ramped up to a full training regimen at that point (a full regimen is a consistent 5-7 practices per week), but I'd been getting in 2-3 good practices for a few weeks going into the meet. All in all, it was a decent starting point after not racing since April, and beyond just the total lack of top end speed, gave me some things to focus on in practice. Another big plus is that with the exception of tweaking my back on the one start, all of my dives felt fantastic--good reaction times, great power off the block, and clean entries.

Tropical Splash

• 100 back - 1:08.1
• Utterly atrocious walls on the start, first turn, and third turn. Utterly mediocre start due to having to use the bar instead of my normal gutter start, feet slid sideways and I ran straight into the rope on my first turn bent at a 45 degree angle, and my feet slipped again on the third turn. I think those issues realistically probably cost me easily 1-2 seconds. I felt good underwater...when I wasn't getting up close and personal with the lane rope...and felt good on the surface, so it wasn't a total loss of a race.
• 50 breast on 200 medley relay - 34.0
• Honestly, given that me and sprinting don't mix in general, and me and breaststroke sprinting especially don't mix, not to mention my current lack of speed, this was a solid time. I was noticeably slow getting off the blocks, but this was my fastest 50 breast since 2019. Over a second slower than 2019, sure, but surprisingly the fastest I've been in 4 years, so I'll take it.
• 50 free on 200 free relay - 26.4
• .3 faster than the December meet with a slower start (not sure why, but my relay starts at this meet were noticeably slower than in December--clean starts both times, just horrendous reaction times that were slow enough that multiple teammates commented on them... 😬). Felt a touch less like swimming in molasses than in December, so I'll take it. Probably would've been in the 25s if I hadn't decided to take a nap before diving! :-D
• 50 back - 31.3
• Same issue on the start as in the 100 and I slipped a bit on the turn, too, but overall a cleaner race than the 100. Historically, when I've trained for backstroke, a 29 high/30 low has been a good in season suited time. With where I'm at in my training right now, an unsuited 31 low is promising. Fastest in season time since a suited swim in 2022 and my second fastest in season time since 2019, so nothing to complain about!
• 100 fly - 1:10.4
• I did not *race* this swim. My shoulder issues on fly have been flaring up off and on in practice, so I decided to just swim this to physically complete 100 yards of fly, something I have yet to do this season sans fins. I cruised it till the last 10-15 yards when I finally pushed it, but I was able to successfully complete the 100 while keeping my underwater kick counts, my breathing pattern, and maintaining a good body rhythm...and even better, no shoulder pain!

Tropical Splash - Overall Thoughts

Ya know, besides the slooooow relay starts and the walls debacle in the 100 back, this was a good meet. Quite promising signs in both the 50 and 100 back, I made progress in the 50 free in comparison to a month prior, successfully checked off the 100 fly, and shockingly swam a decent 50 breast. On the non-swimming part of the equation, I made sure to keep myself well fueled going into and during the meet and it paid off. Unlike in December, I didn't run out of gas, so that was good! The 50 free on the relay was mildly intriguing--historically, when I've swum the individual 50 free at this point of the Nats training cycle in the past, I've been a suited 25.8 or so, dipping to a 24.9 or so at Nats, with my relay splits following a similar trajectory. My 50 free here, correcting for the abysmally slow start, honestly would probably be right in that ballpark.

NCAP Meet

I swam the 200 back with the kids at a meet yesterday. I was there at 6:30 am to coach the 11-12s, then the 13+ kids started at 2:00, and I swam around 6:00 pm. Being on your feet for ~10 hours coaching before swimming a 200 back is...not ideal...but it turned out better than I expected!

I went a 2:26.3, which is about 3.5 seconds faster than when I swam it at roughly the same point of my training cycle last season. For a 2:26 and where I'm at right now, I split it fairly well! 33-36-38-38. I had one major snafu during the race, which was my goggles completely fogging up around the 75 mark. It is an exceptionally dark pool (ceiling lights are dim and at either end of the pool with no lights over the pool and limited underwater lighting in the pool itself), so with my mirrored swedes already being very dark in that pool before fogging up, I effectively swam a 125 of the 200 blind! I did have a bit of peripheral clarity in the goggles and could make out the blur of the lane rope, but that was it. Couldn't see the flags and could barely see the blur of the T on the wall.

I'd warmed up for about a 500 before swimming the 200 and I'm glad I got my stroke count then, cuz that was the only thing that got me through the race! I inadvertently jammed one blind turn and was close on two more blind turns, but the rest of the race was shockingly clean for swimming blind. Didn't play ping pong in the lane, didn't run into the lane rope, nailed my kick counts for all but one turn, and managed to not turn irredeemably too far out or too close to the wall from my stroke counts.

That 2:29 I swam at this approximate point last season turned into a 2:19 at Nats, so with Nats being pushed back two months this season, I'm hoping that extra time in the water will translate into the 2:26 turning into a 2:15 or so. 2:26 was my fastest in season time since 2019 and .2 off of being my fastest in season time since 2017. Back in 2019 I'd gone from a 2:26 in season to a 2:17 at Nats, and looking back at the seasons where I'd trained for the 200 back, there has consistently been a 7-10 second swing between swims at this point of the training cycle and my shaved/tapered time at Nats, so I'm cautiously optimistic about that ballpark 2:15 target time for Nats.

Funnily enough, I was only 1.7 seconds slower at the 100 split than my debacle of a 100 at the Tropical Splash a week prior. Typically that's a roughly 4-5 second gap! If I'd had the normal gap between the 100 and 100 split, the 1:08 would have likely been a 1:05/1:06, which lines up with my contemporary thoughts at TS.

Thoughts from these Meets

With these three meets under my belt, my key takeaways:

• My top end speed is nonexistent across all four strokes, but it *should* come back with targeted speed training in practice closer to Nats in June
• My backstroke is by far the highlight. Rusty, slow in the grand scheme of things, and I'd like to increase my kick count by 1-2 kicks off all the walls which means a lot of very sucky underwater training over the next few months, but it's the best feeling of the four strokes and comparatively the fastest across the board.
• Freestyle is an open question, as is my ability to actually *race* a 100 fly instead of cruise it

Looking Forward

My main focus in training over the remaining 5 months till Nats in Indy is going to be backstroke. The 2017-2018 season was the last time I trained backstroke as a primary stroke, so I'm intrigued to see how things have changed in the past 6 years. Beyond back, I want to train enough fly and free to be able to put up a solid 100 fly and 100/200 free, but my primary focus is going to be back.

Looking at the event lineup for Nats in June in Indy, there are four days of racing (for me, there are five days total including the 1000/1650 day...which I'm certainly not going to do). As of right now, the 50/100/200 back are the only events on my schedule for sure. Other potential events would be the 50/100/200 free, 100 fly, and 100/200 IM. Given the six event limitation for Nats, I'm obviously not going to be able to do them all, but those are my options right now.

Taking a look at the currently posted meets on the various meet calendars, there are three masters meets and one NCAP meet that I can race at between February-April, with likely one to two more masters meets being added to the list. Between those 4-6 meets, I want to swim all of my potential events at least once, with my likely event lineup at each meet being one of the backstroke events + one or two of the others so I can knock out the whole list and see where things stack up.

If there are any meets in April-June that aren't on the calendar yet, I want to try out the 200 fly and 400 IM. I'm definitely not going to swim either at Nats, but it's been several years since I swam either and I  just want to see where I'm at.

All in all, I'm pretty pumped right now! I'm making good progress in the pool, my backstroke is showing signs of life after being dormant for a few years, and I've got a solid ~5 months to train, iron out kinks, and do all that fun stuff before Nats.