100 IM
Not a great start, to be honest. I nailed all my starts in warmup, but kinda bombed this one and went super shallow. Usually I aim for 7 butterfly kicks before the breakout, this time I awkwardly surfaced on my 4th kick. I didn't slip or anything like that on the dive, just for whatever reason, I went very flat and shallow. 🤷
That messed up my stroke count on the first 25 and, despite adding an extra stroke that I thought would be enough, I stupidly initiated the turn a full stroke too far away from the wall.
Besides that snafu, the rest of the race felt great! The fly felt good, start and turn aside, and the other three strokes also felt good.
I went a 1:04.99, my 2nd fastest in-season time since 2020 pre-shutdown, and just barely off my fastest in-season time since 2020 of 1:04.97 in 2022. I think I would've comfortably cleared 1:04.97 with a better start and fly leg, and likely would've been pushing a low/mid 1:04. I'll take it, though!
50 free
This was simultaneously an great and awful race... 🤣
My goggles broke on the start (the knot had been slipping on the nosepiece for the past week, and despite retying it a couple times, it decided to give up the ghost here) and I swam the race blind. I could blurrily see the line on the bottom, so I was able to swim straight, but I couldn't see the wall at all. I tried to guess where the wall was at the turn based on my stroke count and almost completely whiffed. I hit fully straight legged with just the tips of my toes lightly grazing the wall, and got almost nothing out of the turn, doing my butterfly kicks from basically a dead stop.
It wasn't fully intentional, since I was kinda in panic mode over swimming it without goggles, but I took zero breaths down and just one back, which was my first time ever doing that as a masters swimmer, and possibly ever doing that even going back to my age group days. Prior to this season I usually took one down and two back, so it's a noticeable change.
Even with that atrocious turn (thankfully I guessed appropriately for the finish!), I went a 26.4, significantly faster than the 27.5 I went in my last in-season 50 in December 2024. I think I might've been able to break 26 with a clean turn, but that's a shoulda, coulda, woulda. The last time I went faster than a 26.4 in-season was all the way back in 2017, so I definitely will take it!
200 IM
I only had about 10 minutes between the 50 free and this race, enough time to grab my backup goggles, swim a 200 cool down, and stretch behind the blocks. I hadn't swum this race in season since 2023, so I felt rusty. Fly felt good and appropriately paced, but my pacing was way too slow on the back and breast, then I got back in the swing of things on free. That's on me with a poor race strategy, not really a lack of conditioning. Besides that, it was a clean race start to finish--good start, hit all my turns, my strokes felt fine, etc.
I went a 2:27 and change, thankfully faster than the 2:31 I went in 2023, but sloooow overall. If I'd swum the middle 100 correctly, I probably could've chopped 3-4 seconds off that time, but it is what it is.
I haven't trained for the 200 IM in a few years, so while this was a far cry from my old in-season range of ~2:18-2:23 when I actually trained for this event and raced it regularly, it wasn't awful, per se. Swimming it properly probably would've gotten me to right around the upper end of that range, so I'll chalk this up to me being rusty for this particular event.
Overall thoughts
In no particular order:
1) It was nice wearing a legitimate tech suit again! My last one was a legit tech suit when I got it, but after wearing it so often and losing so much weight, it wasn't doing much for me anymore. This new one, a Speedo LZR Pro 2.0, is good. Not great, as befits it's positioning as a mid tier tech suit, but quite sufficient for in-season purposes.
2) I was most surprised by the 50 free today. I've been struggling with top end speed for the past couple of seasons, so while no one will ever mistake me for an actual sprinter, a 26.4 is actually a pretty good in-season time for me. I only have 5 in-season times that have been faster than that, with 4 coming from 2012/2013 and 1 from 2017. With a better turn, this probably would've been one of my fastest in season times.
3) Bookends of the first 25 aside, I was quite happy with the 100 IM. I don't have *that* many in-season times that have been faster, though to be fair, most of the ones that have been faster were in the 1:02 range, so a noticeable gap. I plan to do this at least once more before the Nats entry deadline, so (presuming I fix the snafus I had in this particular race) I'm interested to see what I get to for a time.
4) I keep talking about in-season times. I think I've covered this before, but I'm a shave and taper animal and usually swim markedly faster at whatever my championship meet is than I do in-season. Take the 100 IM, for example. I went that 1:04.97 in-season in 2022, then went a 1:01.90 at Nats that season. Historically, that's been the case for most events I swim--I drop a significant chunk from my in-season times to my Nats/Zones time. I expect that trend will continue this season, but I'm not 100% sure. In seasons past, I hadn't effectively taken 2 years off like I did the past 2 seasons, I wasn't lifting like I have been this season, and I trained differently in the pool. This is a rebuilding year and I don't expect to see the full benefits of it until next season, so I'm just happy with whatever progress I make this season. Will I be able to take my 1:04.99 in the 100 IM from today down to a 1:01 at Nats in 2 months? I don't know, but historically that's certainly in the range of what I can expect.
5) For Nats, the only two events that I know for sure I will swim are the 100 back and 100 IM. I have cuts in the 100 back and 200 back (the only two cuts I have right now), but I haven't swum the 200 back yet this season to see how it goes. That event is on my docket for one of the meets that's in two weeks. I haven't decided for sure what else I'll swim at the double header of meets that weekend, but there are quite a few other events I haven't swum yet this season that I want to knock out in the 4 remaining meets I'll swim before Nats. I expect I'll likely only end up with ~4 events at Nats instead of my usual full 6 event lineup.
6) All in all, I'm feeling quite motivated by my swims at this meet. Lots and lots of errors to be sure, forced and otherwise, but I'm making noticeable progress both timewise and in getting back into racing form. I'm feeling more natural on the blocks and swimming an event, my times are coming down, and I'm picking up the racing muscle memory again.
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