We had Zones this past weekend at George Mason, the first time it's been back there since 2019. I entered the same individual event lineup I'll do at Nats, plus a full slate of relays.
I'd been out of the water for most of the three weeks prior to Zones--work travel, then spring break, so I had all of three swims under my belt in that timeframe going into the meet. Rested, sure, but also the normal rustiness you get anytime you're out of the water for that amount of time.
Saturday events
200 medley relay (50 BK)
29.6 leading this off, which was my first time dipping back below 30 since 2018. Not a bad time to kick off my meet! I went deeper than I wanted to on the start and couldn't get into the right gear for the first 25, but the second 25 was right on the money. I've had issues the past few seasons finding the "sprint" gear, so it was nice seeing it come together here even if it took me half the race to hit it. Prior to this race, my fastest this season was a 30.4 from January, which was the only time I'd dipped below 31 since 2022.
200 back
2:22.9, my fastest since 2024 and just a bit off my shaved/tapered/suited 2:22.5 from Zones that year. I definitely left a few seconds in the pool in this race--I didn't push it nearly hard enough until the last 50 and probably easily left at least 2 seconds there. I've swum this event a LOT over the years and when my conditioning is where it is right now, I know exactly how much the 3rd and 4th 50s should hurt, and I didn't hit close to that on this swim. The 4th 50 hurt, sure, but nowhere near as much as it should. I need to spend time in practice over the next two weeks before I head to Nats dialing in what actually is that pace I should hit in the middle of the 200. I've been training to hit 36 in practice, and hit 36 on the final three 50s exactly as planned, but given how much I had left in the tank at the end, I'm thinking I need to aim for 35s or maybe even 34s on the ambitious end. Work to do in practice!
50 back
29.7 on this one. I'd gone into this hoping to go faster than I went leading off the relay...but had the opposite problem I did in the relay--I pushed too hard on the first 25 and wasted time spinning. I got into the right rhythm on the second 25, but it wasn't enough to counteract my fruitless spinning on the first 25. Oh well, two 50s BK around the same time, both comfortably under 30, is nothing to scoff at with where I'm at right now!
Sunday events
Saturday was a pretty light lineup, while Sunday went to the opposite extreme. This was 100% on me, since I'm the one who created all the relays, but I ended up being last person needed to swim a particular relay, so I overloaded on relays instead of having our team swim fewer relays...and paid the price.
100 IM
My triceps were super tight from Saturday, but besides that I felt pretty good going into this. 1:02.9, a season best by 2 seconds and my fastest since Nats in 2023 where I went a 1:02.7! I had an awful start where I pretty much went straight down off the edge of the block and got zero air time, but the rest felt good. I think I could've pushed the FL a bit harder, but the other three strokes all felt right how I wanted them to. Honestly, I was just hoping to break 1:04, so going a 1:02.9 was great!
400 medley relay (100 BK)
I think I had about 15 minutes or so between the 100 IM and this one, which wasn't enough for a full recovery. 1:05.7, which was a season best by .8. Probably had another second in me if I hadn't swum the 100 IM before this, but beyond not being at 100%, this was a solid race start to finish.
200 free relay (50 FR)
Roughly 10 minutes between the medley relay and this one, and I was toast. BK kills my legs and swimming this right after a 100 BK plus not having enough time to recover from either it or the IM...I was on the struggle bus. I split a grand 27.2 and my breathing pattern went out of the window. I mean, not *awful* in the grand scheme of things, but I should've been able to break 26 with an ideal setup.
800 free relay (200 FR)
Boy, if I thought I was on the struggle bus going into the last relay, it was even worse for this one! Another ~10 minutes between the relays but I was completely gassed. My legs were gone, my upper body was gone, and I was feeling lightheaded just getting onto the block. I ended up squeaking out a 2:19 and change, which is slower than 200s I've done from a push in practice and only a couple seconds faster than 200s pull that I've done in practice...and a WHOLE 3 seconds faster than my 200 back from the day before. My conditioning at this point is demonstrably better than it's been in at least the last 3 years, but I definitely found the limits of it here. Even my worst 200 FLs over the years have been less painful than this 200 FR, which is certainly something I did not expect to say before starting this session. Like I said earlier, though, this was 100% on me since I was the dumbass who put our relays together and thought that swimming 4 events back to back would be fine and wouldn't backfire spectacularly. 😂
400 free relay (100 FR)
Thankfully, I had about 1.5 hours to recover and refuel after the morning debacle before this race. I definitely wasn't back to 100%, but I wasn't running on fumes anymore. Charitably, I'd say I was running at about 75% for this one, though my triceps and hips were now both super tight. I went a 58.6, which is a season best by .4 and my fastest since 2024. I'd like to think a 56 would've been in the cards if I swam this fresh, but shoulda coulda woulda...
100 back
1:04.7, a season best by 1.8 and my fastest since the shaved/tapered 2024 Zones. For being ~15 minutes after the 400 free relay, I honestly did better than I expected. I crashed and burned on the last 25, which tells me I actually swam it hard enough, but hit everything else pretty much exactly as planned. In an alternate universe where this wasn't event #6 of the day, I'd like to think a 1:03 or maybe even a high 1:02 could've been in the cards, but I really have nothing to complain about with this time, especially in light of my ridiculous 100% self-imposed event lineup.
50 free
My final event of the day and the meet, I went a 25.7. I had plenty of time to recover and refuel after the 100 back and felt better than I expected going into it. I'd resolved the hip tightness issue, but the tricep tightness had spread to my shoulders and upper back. 25.7 is a season best by .7 and my fastest since all the way back in 2018. Like the 50 back leading off the 200 medley relay, I had some trouble getting into the right gear on the first 25, but nailed it on the second 25. Unlike the 50 on the 200 free relay earlier in the session, I hit my 0-1 breathing pattern, too, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Overall thoughts about Zones
Being mostly out of the water for 3 weeks prior to the meet is not exactly ideal, but overall I swam better than I expected given that. The 4 back to back event epic meltdown on Sunday aside, I don't think there's a single event I'm unhappy with. My conditioning is in a far better state than it's been since at least the 2023 season, maybe even the 2022 season. I still think my top end speed isn't quite back to what it used to be across the board, but I can confidently say I shouldn't have any issues with energy, endurance, or conditioning in general when it comes to my event lineup at Nats. The standouts were the 100 IM and 200 back. I was legitimately surprised with my time in the 100 IM, I thought that would be more of a Nats time. For the 200 back, the time was pretty good in the grand scheme of things, but I was thrilled with how much I had left in the tank while going that time. Sure, it means I didn't push it hard enough in this particular race, but the last time I went around that time in 2024, it was a much tougher race than this one was.
Looking ahead to Nats
I'm swimming the same individual event lineup (50, 100, 200 BK, 100 IM, and 50 FR), but it'll be spread over three days instead of two, and there aren't nearly as many relays, plus the time between events is way longer than it was at Zones (~2000 swimmers vs ~350 swimmers), so I don't anticipate any epic meltdowns as long as I stay smart with refueling and recovering.
There are three key things I'm going to work on in practice over the next two weeks before I drive down for Nats:
- Working on 200 BK pacing. As I mentioned earlier, I've been training to hit :36 and nailed that at Zones, but had too much left in the tank. I'm going to work to get that pace in practice down to :35 and maybe even try for :34. In short, gotta stop being a wuss and embrace the pain!
- Play around with my front half of the 100 IM. As I mentioned earlier, I probably could've pushed the fly leg a bit more on the 100 IM, and I want to play around with the number of dolphin kicks I do on back. To hit the timing for the back-breast crossover turn (I can technically do the crossover turn on either side, but I'm way more comfortable doing it with my right hand), I have to do an even number of dolphin kicks. I did 8 the last two times I swam the 100 IM this season, and will play around in practice with bumping that up to 10 to see if I can do it successfully without paying for it later. My dolphin kicks are faster than my swim, so it's a balancing act of maximizing the underwater work while ameliorating the amount of oxygen debt it puts me in for the BR pullout.
- Figuring out the right armspeed for the first 25 of the 50 BK and 50 FR. I struggled with that this meet, going either too fast or too slow, so I gotta see if I can dial it in so I'm not vacillating between the two extremes at Nats.
