Zooooooooooones!!

Ok, I might have overreacted a little bit with this blog post title...

This past weekend was the Zone Championship swim meet.  If this were the past two years, it'd be my local untapered champ meet, with Nationals following several weeks later.  Alas, work conspired against me and this became my sole championship meet of the short course season.  On top of that, I hurt my left knee three weeks ago, so I went into the meet with rather low expectations.  The cherry on top of my crap sundae going into the meet was that not only did I have low expectations (I planned to only swim at ~90% effort), but due to the knee issue and wanting to not destroy it, I had to scratch the 200 fly, 200 back, and 100 IM.  The doc said no breast at all, and since turns are where my knee hurts the most, I didn't want to put the stress of 7 turns of the most dolphin kick intensive strokes on my knee.

Anyhoo, here's how my meet went down.

Saturday

Mixed 400 free relay

Not too bad!  This was my first event of the meet and I actually felt pretty good.  I kept it at about 90% effort and tried to not put too much torque on my knee, with limited success--slightly twisted it on the last turn and it hurt doing the few dolphin kicks before I switched to flutter kick.  With a relay start, I was a 57.79.  If I'd gone all out, probably would have been a 56 and change.  Not great, but I'm decidedly not a sprint freestyler, so I'll take it!

Mixed 200 medley relay

I was the fly leg on this relay and wanted to play it safe.  My knee still felt a bit wonky after tweaking it on the previous relay, so I only swam at about 85% effort...and still managed to further tweak it on the turn when my left foot twisted a bit on the bulkhead.  Go figure.  With fly kick hurting for the next 10 yards or so, I went a 27.82.  Meh.  That's about 1.75 seconds off where I should be right now when I'm at 100%.  When I'm fully in shape and at 100%, I should be able to split a mid/high 25 with a relay start, but for now 100% would be a low 26.

100 back

Ugh.  This one hurt--I over extended my knee on the start, and then further tweaked it on the second and third turns.  By the third turn, it hurt enough to make me drop from my normal 5-9 dolphin kicks off the wall to 2 dolphin kicks before switching to flutter kick.  Given that the overwhelming majority of my speed in back comes from the underwater dolphin kicks (usually 14 off the start, 11 off the first turn, 9 off the second, and 7 or so off the third turn), having to cut them down takes a lot of my speed away.  I went a 1:05.15.  Could have been worse, but could have been much better, too.  Oh well.  In my current shape (without knee issues), 100% would probably have been around a 1:03 low.  After this swim I took a handful of ibuprofen, which helped for the remainder of the day.

50 fly

I was hurting by this point.  I had no turnover with my arms and my knee hurt off the block, though it was fine for the rest of the race.  28.91, which is by far the slowest I've been this season.  Yuck.  Just a bad swim all around.

Men's 800 free relay

Bizarrely enough, this was actually one of my better swims of the Saturday session!  Not in time, but how it felt and how pain-free it was.  When I swam this relay at Zones last year, I had an epic melt down and went from taking it out in a 59, if I recall correctly, to bringing it back in a 1:12.  This time around, we put together a less competitive relay (only one of us was capable of a sub 2:00 swim, whereas last year I was the only one who wasn't capable of it).  I didn't feel the pressure I did last time to swim hard, so I took it out at about 80% effort and just cruised till the last 50, when I saw a guy two lanes over who had half a body length lead on me and tried to run him down.  I failed in running him down, but at least he didn't lengthen his lead!  My splits this time around were out in a 1:05 and back in a 1:10.  Better yet, I didn't fall apart and had no knee pain!

Men's 400 medley relay

This was two heats after the 800 free relay...and I was running on fumes.  Although my 200 free hadn't been near 100% effort, it still took a lot out of me, so I was only running on about 40% energy by this point.  Tried to get the arm spin going on the first 25 and failed miserably (plus, I had no legs at this point), so I decided to switch tactics and go for a slower turnover with maximum power per pull.  Well, that's what I tried to do, anyways...  I just flat out didn't have any steam for this swim, and the 1:08.35 I went aptly illustrates that point.  I had been hoping for around a 1:06, so this was understandable, but still kinda disappointing.

Men's 200 free relay

I wasn't supposed to swim on this relay, but while I was dog tired after my 100 back on the 400 medley relay (which was just about 5 minutes before the 200 free relay), I very bizarrely felt pumped up to swim a 50 free.  I swapped out with the anchor of our relay and swam in his place.  I had what felt like a really good start and felt fantastic for the first 25, but at the turn I couldn't see anyone (we were in lane 1 and everyone but lane 2 at least a full 25 ahead of us by the time I went), so I pulled it back a bit but still gave it enough gas to beat lane 2.  Went a 26.73, which, honestly, is substantially faster than I thought I could go at that point.

Sunday

Mixed 800 free relay

In warmup, my back was all knotted up and sore, and free was the only thing that didn't hurt.  Given that, and also given my surprisingly not sucky (relatively speaking) free performances on Saturday, I decided to see what I could do on the relay by actually trying...or at least trying more than I did the day before.  I had a fantastic start and took it out markedly faster than I did the day before, but took it down a notch at the 100 and then held it through the finish.  Went a 2:10, going out in a 1:02 and coming back in a 1:08.  While that time is absolutely nothing to write home about, it actually felt really good, all things considered.  I still only swam it at about 90% effort, so I'd like to think I might have had a 2:05 in me if I'd really pushed it.  Honestly, it is quite surprising for me!  I don't train for free in the slightest, don't care about it, don't like swimming it in practice, but apparently can sorta race it (that is, "race" it by my loooooow standards).  Very peculiar.

Mixed 400 medley relay

I had enough time to do a 200 easy in the warmdown pool after the previous relay before we were up for this one.  For whatever reason, I was the freestyler on this relay, which NEVER happens.  I can't even remember the last time I swam free on a medley relay prior to this.  Anyhoo, my lats and triceps were completely locked up from my 200 free, so it's a good thing I wasn't doing fly or back, since those kill my triceps and lats on a good day!  I had an ok start (slow reaction time and went too deep, but had good distance in the air), but the 200 hit me at about the 35 yard mark.  I faded pretty darn hard but managed to scrape out 59.88.  With how much I was hurting going into the swim, I had considered it a good race if I broke a minute, so there's that.

Mixed 200 free relay

I wanted to see how I'd do in this when I was actually swimming it for real, unlike on the 200 free relay on Saturday.  Except for a really slow start (I was going off someone I've never gone off before and didn't know her stroke count, and thus left at least .5 on the block) and a slightly too long turn, it was a fantastic race.  Great distance through the air, entered at the right angle, and got up and moving after a good amount of dolphin kicks.  It felt really, really good, even better than my swim on the 200 free relay at Nationals last year, and that's with me not doing a very big flutter kick in an attempt to not put too much strain on my knee.  I went a 25.53, which is my best non-Indy Nats time.  With a faster start and bigger/stronger flutter kick, I'd like to think I'd have been sub-25.  I don't know where the hell this swim came from, because although in the grand scheme of sprint freestyle, it's a pokey time, it's my second fastest Masters 50 free time, with my fastest being with me shaved down, in shape, uninjured, and wearing a much better suit.  I'll definitely take it, but I don't know where it came from!

50 back

I was a deck seed for this event--long story short, my registration for this event got messed up and I was entered with a NT instead as a deck entry.  This was right after the 200 free relay--I literally had managed to walk from our relay's lane to the bleachers where we were sitting, not even to the warmdown pool, just to the bleachers...and then got called back for the 50 back.  From the 800 free relay to this point, probably only 15 minutes had elapsed, with me only having done about a total of a 250 warmdown between the four events.  I got stuck in heat 1 with the septuagenarians and octogenarians.  My legs were gone, I was still out of breath, my upper body was nonexistent, and I felt like I was running on about 10% energy.  I had a very weak start, good underwater...and then completely ran out of gas once on the surface.  Went a 32.82, which is surprisingly not godawful, but definitely wasn't a good time for me.  Without the back to back to back relays right before this swim, I would have liked to have been around a 30 flat.  On a good note, my knee didn't hurt on any of these first four swims!

100 fly

I was completely spent by this point!  I felt very sluggish while warming up for this race (it was about 2 hours after the 50 back) and had a hard time getting my arms out of the water--my back and shoulders were very tight and sore, and everything just felt incredibly weak.  I had a good dive and felt good for the first, oh, 15 yards of the race.  I could already feel myself tightening up at the 25, and my breakout on the second lap hurt.  It just went downhill from there, with the 4th 25 feeling about the same as the last 25 of the 200 fly.  Not a good feeling at all, but I managed to scrape by with a not completely abysmal 1:06.18.  Honestly, I'm pretty happy with that time, all things considered.  Last year at Zones I'd gone a 1:04 and change, if memory serves, and I was in much better shape then, and without a bum knee.

*************************

All things considered, it was an ok meet.  I think freestyle was actually my best stroke of the meet, which is not usual at all!  My 50 free on Sunday's 200 free relay, especially, was the highlight of the meet for me.  I'm not in a rush to go start training for free instead of fly and back, but I'm going to think about maybe entering the free events more often at meets.  With my knee feeling as bad as it did on Saturday, I think I swam fairly well.  In conclusion, not too bad of a meet, but not the best I've had by a long shot.

Thoughts and ruminations on the DC Auto Show - 1/25

First off, this post has absolutely nothing to do with swimming or working out.  It's focused solely on cars, and more to the point, the cars I saw at the DC Auto Show on 1/25.

I'm getting a new car this summer.  Since turning my Kia Sorento back in to the dealership in July 2012 as a lemon (the dealership couldn't get a part it needed, so they had it for almost a month and a half and wouldn't give me a loaner or help pay for a rental, which resulted in me cutting my losses and turning in the keys as a lemon), I've been renting cars and sharing Mabel (a 1998 Corolla) with my sister, Meggie.  Mabel is getting on in years and miles and needs some pretty substantial (ie, expensive) repairs to get her ship-shape.  Pretty much the entire suspension needs to be replaced, the AC compressor needs to be replaced, and there are various other odds and ends that need to be replaced/fixed. 

Since leasing the Sorento in 2012 (I leased it from March-July, although I only had it in my possession from March through the beginning of June), my income has gone up a good amount, primarily due to coaching, and my expenses have gone down a large amount as various bills and lines of credit have been paid off.  Getting to the point, I have approximately 1.75 times the potential budget for car shopping that I did two years ago.

I've long had the goal of getting a compact/mid size SUV.  My dream SUV is the Audi Q5, but that was out of my price range in 2012, so I settled for the Sorento, which I thought was the best of the rest.  My original plan was to get the Q5 this summer/fall, but I've decided to hold off on that for a couple of years.  Audi is supposed to redesign the Q5 for the 2016 model year (should be out in the summer of 2015), so I'm intrigued to see what the redesign will look like.  I understand it is going to lose a substantial amount of weight, so since I'm primarily interested in the diesel model, I want to see what the more svelte version of the Q5 will be like.  So, since it's not being redesigned for another year, and it's switching to a new factory at the same time, I've decided to wait at least till the 2017 or 2018 model years to let them work out any manufacturing kinks due to a new design and new factory.

Thus, I'm looking for a car to tide me over till then.  Enter the DC auto show.  I used it to take a look at, and tried to sit in, the various cars that I'd researched.  As far as what type of vehicle I'd researched, I'm interested primarily in sedans this time around, although I'm open to an SUV.  Here are the main criteria I am looking for in a car, in no particular order:

• The car cannot feel "cheap."  It makes zero difference to me if it is inexpensive, but I will not get a car that feels cheap.  Inexpensive = good.  Cheap = bad.
• There must be suitable room for 4 adults.  We carpool a fair amount to local meets, concerts, and the like, so I'd like to be able to drive from time to time without having to rent a car as I do now.
• Tying in with the first criteria, I want a car that feels premium.  There are inexpensive cars that do this well and there are expensive cars that do not--as far as I can tell, price really doesn't have anything to do with the premium feel.
• The seats must be comfortable.
• The car must have a good level of amenities: leather (or high quality pleather), nav, upgraded sound system, etc.
• The upgraded sound system must be high quality.  I listen to a loooot of music, and I demand good quality.
• It must not feel tiny.  I drove a friend's early 2000s Jetta from time to time in Charleston and it felt like a clown car.
• There must be good visibility all around, but especially to the rear half of the field of view.
• There must be good cargo space.
• If possible, it needs to have a sunroof.
• When driving, road and wind noise need to be subdued.  Mabel has practically zero insulation, so both abound.  Ixnay on that in a new car.
• The ride quality needs to be composed--I'm fine if it's firm or soft, I just don't want it to be all over the place like Mabel's terrible ride quality.
• Engine performance is key--I don't need to be able to go 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, but it needs to take less than a minute and a half to get to 60.  And it needs to be able to do that with decent fuel economy.  Around here, driving is about 60-70% city, 30-40% highway.  Mabel has only been getting an average of about 25 mpg, and the engine does not have the oomph to be reassuring when accelerating.
• Ingress and egress has to be easy--the driver's seat in Mabel is really low to the ground and I nearly always jam my leg into the steering wheel when climbing in, so I want a car that doesn't involve me experimenting with contortionism to get in and out.

With all that in mind, I've done extensive research online and went to the car show with a list of cars to check out.  I've listed the cars I looked at below, along with my thoughts on them.  Of course, I couldn't assess the driving dynamics (sound insulation, engine performance, and ride quality), but I was able to assess most of everything else.  The cars range from budget hatchbacks to premium sedans and SUVs.  I didn't limit my search to any one body style or price bracket, keeping an open mind.

Hatchbacks

• Kia Forte5: I liked it a lot. It's the Kia version of the Elantra GT, and I prefer the Forte5. Nice quality interior with a fair amount of front and back seat room. Comfy seats and nice level of amenities when loaded up. Decent sized cargo area, although it didn't overwhelm me. Good visibility out the sides and with the side mirrors, but the rear window isn't very tall. I'd have to see how the rear visibility is while driving. Comfy seats, too. Fully loaded it's about $25k. I'd give it a solid A.
• Hyundai Elantra GT: I was kind of disappointed. They only had the bare bones version on display, so I didn't get a chance to see what it's like after this year's redesign--one of the people in my complex has a fully loaded version from a year or two ago and I quite like how it looks, but the base version of the new model is just meh. It didn't feel cheap or anything, just so-so. The seats felt flat in both the front and back, but I believe the higher trim models have different seats; plenty of room front and back. Good visibility out the sides and with the mirrors, but the rear window is a shade smaller than I'd like. Decent sized storage space (seems like it has a bit more than the Forte5). Fully loaded it runs about $24k. I'd give the model I saw a B-. With a higher level of amenities, that will probably improve to an A.
• Mazda 3: I looked at both the sedan and the hatchback. I think the hatchback is gorgeous looking inside and out, while the sedan has a matching interior but only ok exterior.  The interior quite impressed me--comfy seats, nice level of amenities, and satisfactory room front and back.  It has an ok amount of storage space, but nothing to write home about; didn't get a chance to check out the sedan's trunk.  Visibility is good to the side and front, although rear visibility is merely ok out the back; the sedan has slightly better rear visibility in my opinion.  A fully loaded hatchback runs around $29k and I believe the sedan runs about $2000 cheaper.  I'd give the hatchback a solid A and the sedan an A- due to the exterior styling.

Sedans

• Kia Cadenza: Very nice car. It's a fairly large sedan, but didn't feel gargantuan. Fantastic interior--I liked it a shade more than the Hyundai Azera--feels a touch higher quality, but the layout is a bit better in the Azera, in my opinion. Very high quality in fit and finish, and didn't feel cheap in the slightest. Good visibility all the way around, and excellent visibility with the side mirrors. Decent sized trunk, too.  With how I'd option it up, it's at the top of my completely arbitrary price range of $37k.  I'd give it an A+.
• Kia Optima: I thought it looked fantastic. I've driven Optimas several times as rentals, but those were bare bones models. They had a fully loaded top of the line model on display, and it was substantially nicer. Excellent interior and amenities, with plenty of room front and back; comfy seats all around. Good side visibility through the windows, but I couldn't check the side mirrors--they were tilted down and I couldn't change them. The rear window is small, though, and the rear view mirror doesn't show a whole heck of a lot. Fully loaded, it goes for about $33k. I'd give it a solid A.
• Hyundai Azera: This is Hyundai's version of the Cadenza. Tons of interior space--it felt like a somewhat bigger car than the Cadenza (haven't looked up its stats to tell if it is in fact longer, but it felt longer) and very comfy seats. I really like Hyundai's dashboard layout, but it felt a small rung below the Cadenza in terms of quality and fit and finish. Nothing to complain about at all, but the Cadenza did feel a touch higher quality inside. Good visibility out the sides and rear, but I could only check the passenger mirror, as the driver mirror wouldn't move and was aimed at the ground. Largeish trunk. It is cheaper than the Cadenza, at about $33.5k. I'd have to test drive it, since it is a pretty big car, and I don't need that much passenger space. I'd give it an A+.
• Mazda 6: Like the Elantra GT, they only had bare bones models on display. I wasn't terribly impressed. Phenomenal looking exterior and enormous trunk (seriously, I could probably lay down lengthwise in it and only have to curl my legs at the knees), but the interior just looked and felt meh; looked and felt nicer in the 3, in my opinion.  I was also very disappointed in the seats--the sport bolstering was very narrow at the top of the shoulders and dug in about 1.5 inches in on either side into my shoulder blades. I had to curl my shoulders forward just to get my spine to touch the seat back. I don't know if that would be ameliorated by moving up to a higher trim level, but I would absolutely not be comfortable in those particular seats over an extended period of time. Besides that, though, the seat cushions were comfy and there was plenty of room. Decent visibility all around, too. A fully loaded one goes for about $29.5k. I'd give it a B-, primarily because of the seat bolstering. A higher trim might bump that up to a solid B, but that's as high as it's going to get with that seat bolstering and interior.
• Audi A3: I was very, very impressed with this one, and thought it was the best of the lot. It felt very high quality all around, higher quality that all the other cars on the list, although it wasn't quite as opulent looking as the Cadenza. Excellent dashboard layout and front room, and still plenty of room in the back. The sport seats the demo model had were very comfy, and I didn't have any issues like I did with the Mazda 6. It felt sporty, even more than the Mazda 3, which is probably the "sportiest" car of the bunch. Good sized trunk. Visibility was excellent all around, though people kept opening the trunk when I was in the driver's seat, so I couldn't get a good look out the rear view mirror. A fully loaded, top of the line model runs about $44k. They offer the same model with a smaller engine that runs about $41k. With the discount I get through Deloitte, though, that drops down to about $37k. With a regular sized down payment, I'm under $35k. I'd give this one an A+.

SUV

• Hyundai Sante Fe Sport: I was very pleasantly surprised with this one. I've seen pictures of the car and have seen a few on the streets, but haven't really had a chance to look at it in depth. Excellent interior, very comfy seats, plenty of room front and back, and a good sized cargo area. Good visibility all around. I think the interior looks and feels high class, which is something I couldn't say for the previous Sante Fe (I test drove it in 2009). Fully loaded, it runs about $33k. I'd give it an A+.

Prognosis and general thoughts

 

My extended driving experience (not counting weekend rentals) to date has been large sedans (my first car, a Toyota Avalon, and multiple extended rentals of Ford Tauri and Chrysler 300s), compact sedans (Corollas, primarily), and SUVs (the Sorento).  I've got a soft spot for large sedans, since my first car was the approximately aircraft carrier sized Avalon.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've been driving Mabel for almost two years now, and don't feel as badly pinched as I first did. 

 

That being said, while I do have a soft spot for large sedans, and have enjoyed the nine Ford Tauri I've rented over the last two years, I don't *need* a full size sedan.  The Cadenza and Azera, while very nice, are more than I need.  None of the cars I looked at are too small for my tastes.  On a side note, I find it quite interesting how much larger the compact cars of today (Forte, Elanta, 3, and A3) are than the compact cars (Mabel and the aforementioned Jetta) of 10+ years ago.  I didn't have any problems with the sizing of said cars at the auto show.  Compact cars today are approximately the size of yesterday's mid size car, and today's mid size car is approximately the size of yesterday's full size car, and so on and so forth.

 

With all that said, my top cars of the auto show were the Cadenza, Azera, Optima, A3, Forte5, and 3 hatchback.  I really liked the Sante Fe Sport, but I think I'll stick with a sedan for now.

 

Of those 5 cars, I'm primarily interested in the Audi A3.  I was beyond impressed with it and it has high marks on all my non-driving criteria.  The Cadenza and Azera, while very, very nice, are probably too much car for my purposes.  Driving in DC is bad enough with a small car, and I'm not a fan of driving around here with a big sedan; if I was still in South Carolina, or even just 30 miles down I-95, that would be a different matter.  The 3 hatchback and Forte5 are likewise very nice, but can't match the level of refinement of the A3.  Same with the Optima, although it is the sedan closest to the A3 in size on my short list.  I will test drive all six cars over the next few months, but pending the test drives, my money's on the Audi.  I've test driven several other (older) Audis, and had a 2014 A4 rental over Thanksgiving and was quite impressed with the lot of them.

 

So, in the order that I will test drive and seriously think about the cars as of now:

1. Audi A3
2. Mazda 3 hatchback
3. Kia Forte5
4. Kia Optima
5. Kia Cadenza
6. Hyundai Azera

I'm going to be researching cars through April/May, then plan to buy or lease one at any point after that.  All six are within my budget, so it just comes down to the test drives and my gut feel.

 

Should be a fun few months! :-D

 

Tropical Splash, baby!

We had the Tropical Splash meet this past Sunday--that's the meet my team hosts every year.

When I've done this meet the past few years, I've done mostly short events like the 50 back and 100 IM.  This year I decided to go for the longer events--I did the 200 back, 200 fly, and 200 breast, in that order.  I'm going to swim the 100/200 back, 100/200 fly, and 400 IM at Nationals in May, so I figured I should probably start competing in the longer events... :-)

200 back

I felt decent while warming up, but had noted that my legs didn't feel 100%.  I know, I know, walking around all day the day before at the auto show wasn't a great idea, but whatever.  I thought I'd be able to muscle through it without too many problems.

Nope.

I took it out at what I thought was a decent pace (I wanted to take it out faster than last weekend, since I'd been too slow on the front half then), but then crashed and burned at the 125.  My legs completely disappeared, I couldn't breathe at all, and I dropped from doing my normal 6 dolphin kicks off of each wall to 3, and then 2 off the last two turns.  On top of that, my lats were on fire.  The last 50 was my own private hell, and I watched the girl in the lane next to me, who I had at least a 1.5 bodylength lead on at the 100, inexorably eat up the space in between us.  I did end up beating her, but not by more than a second or so. 

My splits: 32:30, 34.80 (1:07.10), 37.05 (1:44.15), 38.41 (2:22.56).  Terrible, simply terrible.  The first 100 wasn't too bad, but I'd have liked to have been under 1:07.  I don't know what happened on the back half.  While my overall time was about a second faster than last weekend, and my first 100 was about 3 seconds faster, this was a horrible race.  I completely fell apart and felt way worse than I did a week before.  I think it was mainly a combination of two factors--being on my feet all day Saturday and allergies (I got really bad allergies on Wednesday and am pretty sure I literally coughed up a lung at Saturday's practice).

On a side note, my splits last year prior to Nationals were usually in the region of 32, 35, 35, 35.  I was right there for the first 100 this time...and then just a wee bit off for the second 100...

200 fly

Man, during the last 75 of that 200 back, I was sure that I'd actually die if I tried to do a 200 fly!  I've done almost zero physical training for the 200 fly.  I'd done maybe a total of 500 yards of fly over the last month or so, but had psyched myself up enough to think I could do it without absolutely killing myself...

And I was right!

Sure, it was slooow, and I went into survival butterfly in the last 50 or so (3-4 kicks per pull), but I made it without stopping and am pretty sure I could have kept going indefinitely.

My splits were 34.73, 41.02 (1:15.75), 44.47 (2:00.22), 46.19 (2:46.41).  Just looking at the spread without paying attention to the actual times, the spread wasn't too bad.  A 5 second difference between the 2nd and 4th 50s is fine by me.  However, the overall speed wasn't there.  That was also fine by me--I knew I would require the services of a lifeguard if I actually tried to race a 200 fly without training for it, so I made my main goal to just finish and swim a legal 200.

Honestly, it hurt far less than my 200 back.  I still had legs, I still had arms, the only part that really hurt was my upper back.  I was about 13.5 seconds off of my time from 2 years ago, when I'd actually spent 3 months preparing for the 200 fly.  I'll take it!  I figure if I spend the next three months training for the 200 fly, I should be in good shape for swimming it at Nats.

200 breast

This is the event I'll do once a year, at the Tropical Splash.  I don't train breast in practice and don't particularly like the stroke to begin with.  That being said, I felt really good for the first 125 of the race.  This wasn't too long after the 200 fly...and it hit me like a dump truck full of bricks at the 125.  I went from feeling efficient and smooth to having no energy or ability to move in a coordinated movement.  I went a 2:48.71, with splits of 37.04, 42.52 (1:19.56), 45.20 (2:04.76), 43.95 (2:48.71).  I was exactly 1.1 seconds off my time from the same meet last year.  There were three big differences between the two races:
1) Last year, I'd actually trained for breaststroke--this year, I'd done even less breast than fly in practice
2) Last year, I'd swum it in order to really race--this year, I just swam it
3) I wasn't coming off the 200 fly last year

All that said, I was quite surprised.  Discounting the 200 fly hitting me at the 125, I felt really, really good in the water.  It almost felt like I could swim breaststroke!  I had enough fun with it to briefly consider swimming it more often, then realized that I'd have to drop a TON of time in order to make the Nats cut in it.  Not gonna happen...

First meet of 2014...hahahahahahahaha!

Had the first meet of 2014 this past Sunday in Annapolis.

Overall, not as terrible as I thought it'd be.  I've only been swimming regularly for the past few weeks, so I figured I'd have an awful meet with slow times and lots of crashing and burning.  I swam three events, the 50 fly, 100 back, and 200 back, in that order.

50 fly

Sigh.  This could have been so much better.  My back foot slipped a bit on the start and I didn't enter the water at the right angle, causing my goggles to flood as soon as I hit the water.  I almost would have preferred them to have fallen off, since I would have been able to see when breathing, at least.  Anyhoo, I couldn't see crap with them filled, and when I came close to the wall for the turn, the refraction in the water made me think I was at the wall.  I dove forward thinking I would touch the wall momentarily...and had to kick for a second or two since I had to be at least 1-1.5 strokes away from the wall.  Oops.  Lost at least a second on the turn and couldn't make up for it in the second half.  I could see the vague shapes of the other people in the heat when I pushed off the wall and I think I would have been in the lead if I hadn't boffed the turn.  Sigh.  I went a 27.9.  On the plus side, this is the first time in over a year that I've felt like I've been able to sprint fly.  I didn't have any problems with establishing a body rhythm, which has been my big problem with the 50 fly for a long time.  If I'd nailed the turn, I probably would have been a mid/high 26.

100 back

This was only about 10 minutes after the 50 fly, so I wasn't very rested going into the event.  I was in the lane next to Dan, so my only concern was beating him.  Had an only so-so start and he beat me into the water.  Caught up to him underwater, but he pulled a little ahead of me on the surface.  Pulled ahead again underwater off the first turn and then extended my lead from there, although I reallllllly stretched out the second turn (had a brain fart and only took one stroke inside the flags instead of two).  Legs gave out at about the 85 yard mark, but went a 1:03.9 and beat Dan by about 1.5 seconds.

200 back

Wow, this was a pretty hilariously terrible race.  I had a ridiculously hilariously awful start--my left wrist locked when I was positioning myself (sometimes my wrist will lock into one, usually painful, position and I can't apply any weight to it without it hurting) and then my left foot slipped off the pad right before the start, so I just flopped back into the water and had zero push off the wall.  On top of that, I psyched myself out and had convinced myself that if I took it out too fast I'd burn out, given my lack of conditioning at this point in the season.  Took it out too slow (around a 1:10, versus the 1:07 or so I should have been) and ended up dying at about the 125.  On top of that, I choked on water at the 150 turn, so I almost went into full panic mode trying to get to the surface.  Came back in a 1:13 for a 2:23.  Should have been around a 2:18.  I almost wish I'd had Dan video tape this race, cuz it would go perfectly with a laugh track!

*****************

Overall, this could have been a much, much worse meet.  I've only been swimming regularly for about 3 weeks now.  With the exception of the 200 back, my times weren't that far off of where I was at this point last year with a much higher training and conditioning base.  I've got what should be a pretty stable next three months at work, so my schedule should allow me to get in the pool much more than I did in the fall, so I hope to maintain my current training through Nationals in May.

Zones!!

This past weekend (April 19-21) was the Colonies Zone Championship Meet at George Mason University.  Friday was the distance day (1000 and 1650), so I just swam on Saturday and Sunday.

And when I say I swam on Saturday and Sunday, I don't mean I swam a couple of events each day, I mean I swam a LOT!

On Saturday, in order, I swam the 100 free, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay (back), 200 IM, 100 back, 50 fly, 800 free relay, and 200 free relay.
On Sunday, in order, I swam the 200 free, 400 medley relay (fly), 100 breast, 50 free, 100 fly, 400 free relay, and 200 medley relay (breast).

Here's the synopsis of my swims:

Saturday

100 free: I'll just start off by saying that I don't do freestyle.  Sure, I swim it in practice, but I don't train for it in any distance, sprint or long distance.  When I swim it in practice, I swim it just to get it over with and move on to the next thing.  

This was the first time I'd swum the 100 free since last summer/early fall.  I was pumped up and ready to go, and was doing fine till the 50 turn.  I hit the wall too high and shoved the pad up, which made me go straight down off the wall.  Lost a lot of ground and speed there, and it was pretty dang demoralizing, too!  I was even with the front of the pack going into the turn and came out towards the back of the pack, and I couldn't pick up that ground in the second half of the swim.  Not exactly how I wanted my first event of the meet to go!

Overall, I never felt great, even before The Turn.  While I felt *fine*, I felt stuck in a lower gear and couldn't get up and moving like I should in a 100.  And after The Turn, it went downhill from there.

I ended up with splits of 26.78 and 29.95 for a 56.73.  Just terrible!

400 free relay: I was still pretty bummed about my 100 free. I had a good relay start, but that was about it.  None of my turns were on the mark, and I couldn't get my turnover up.  Felt like I was stuck in a middle gear the entire time, and my second 50 just dragged.  I had splits of 26.76 and 30.22 for a 56.98.  Not a good swim.

200 medley relay (back): This was a better race, despite being right after the 400 free relay!  I had a pretty terrible start (horrible reaction time and my right hand got caught on the pad) and a long turn, but I actually felt fast in the water!  My time itself was just decent, 29.45, but that's in the ballpark with where I've been all season (besides the previous weekend's 28.98).  I'll take it, especially since I hadn't already swum two events before I swam my 50 back at any of the other meets this season!

200 IM: I was already starting to feel sluggish at this point.  I made the mistake of not eating any food until I got to the meet, and my energy reserves weren't there--having already swum three events that morning just compounded the issue.

I had a fairly good first half, leading the heat/holding pace with the fastest guy.  The burn in my shoulders kicked in with a vengeance a bit before the 125 mark, and the last 50 was terrible.  I had splits of 29.28, 34.66, 42.06, and 34.25 for a time of 2:20.25.  While that's my fastest time this season by about 2 seconds, it's still about .75 off my best from last year, set at Zones (when I believe that was my first event of the day, sans beard).  Comparing the performances, my fly was about 1.5 seconds faster last year, but the rest of my splits this year were a few tenths faster than last time.  I REALLY need to figure out how to swim the back half of an IM again!  To compare, I found my splits from the last time I swam the 200 in high school: 27.64, 32.10, 39.11, and 31.02 for a 2:09.87.  I don't remember if that was my fastest 200 IM ever, but the difference between then and now is pretty striking.  I can get my fly down there (last year I was only .2 off my 18 year old pace), but my back is 2 seconds off and my breast/free are both 3 seconds off.  Not good!

100 back: This was the event I most wanted to do well in at Zones, and I merely did decent in it.  Unfortunately, after the four events I'd already swum that morning, I was only running at what felt like about 75% energy.  Technically, I had a good  race, besides popping the pad again like I did in the 100 free, although thankfully not as badly this time around.  However, I lost circulation in my legs at around the 75 mark and just was running low on energy.  I had splits of 30.03 and 32.60 for a 1:02.63.  That's .3 off my best time, but again, with everything I had already done that day, not to mention the suit problem, I'll take it!

50 fly: This was an unmitigated disaster!  I was beat by this point in the day.  The 100 back is the most leg draining event I swim (it's worse than the 200 back, in my opinion, because the tempo is substantially faster for me), and I was seriously hurting in my legs and everywhere else.  I had a sloppy start, then couldn't move my arms at all.  Well, I could move them, just not with any semblance of speed.  On the plus side, I didn't feel nearly as flat in the water as the last few times I've swum fly, and didn't have any excessive problems with my arms dragging through the water.

Umm, that's about all the positive stuff I can say about this race.  I had a long turn and an abominable finish.  I blanked out going into the finish and totally lost my sense of where I was in the pool.  Lifted my head to take a breath so I could see where the wall was...and found out I was about a foot away from it.  I flailed my arms forward in an attempt to keep from faceplanting in the wall, and I'm honestly surprised that the resulting arm movement was even remotely legal for butterfly.  I went a 27.44, which is a full second off the last time I swam it and 1.5 seconds off my Nationals time from last year.  Yep, it was a disaster.

800 free relay: ...Speaking of disasters...this was a hilariously awful race for me!  It was right after the 50 fly (like maybe 10 minutes), and I was a completely drained mess at this point of the day.  I anchored the relay, and swam against some quite fast guys--our head coach had entered us as a 7:39 (why, I have no idea, since only 2 of us on the relay could reasonably have been expected to go sub 2:00) and we were in a heat with a bunch of relays that actually went that time.  I crashed and burned, and the result most likely would have had me in stitches on the floor if I'd been watching it unstead of swimming it.  I took it out in a mid 28, which wasn't bad, but then I D.I.E.D.  As in splits of 32, 35, and 35 for the remaining 50s, for a 2:11 overall.

200 free relay: Seriously, at this time of the day, what was the point?  I had no legs, no arms, no shoulders, no back, and no energy.  I split a 25.61...which honestly wasn't as terrible as I expected.  Still, my relay split at the Tropical Splash in January was a 25.0, and my time from Nats last year was a 24.9.

Sunday

200 free: I was rather sore and tired from Saturday.  I swam about a 1200 in warmup, but still felt sluggish and not up to speed.  Behind the blocks, I felt like I was only running at about 80% energy.  Diving in, I felt fine for the first 50, started to peter out a bit at the 75, and by the 100 I was done.  I just felt bad in the water and didn't have any oomph.  My legs just wern't there, and I was having a hell of a time getting air (not a problem in the middle of the pool, but going into the turns, that's why I was double and triple breathing...which totally kills my turnover, I know).  I went a 2:07.75, with splits of 28.54, 32.06, 33.57, and 33.58.  That's particularly bad, given that I've been able to hold 32 repeats from a push in practice...

400 medley relay (fly): I actually felt much better going into this event than going into the 200 free.  For whatever reason, I felt more relaxed and had more energy.  Given everything else I had to swim on Sunday, I didn't try hard on the swim, keeping it long and relaxed.  I had a phenomenal start (almost thought I false started, since I could see the starts judge start writing when I was in midair and thought he was writing about me, but we didn't get DQed) and kept it very relaxed and smooth for the whole 100.  Splits of 29.47 and 35.08 for a 1:04.55.  Don't think I put out more than 85% effort.  I felt good!  I had no problems with my kick or dragging my arms or any issues with body movement.  That was the best I've felt swimming fly in several months, including practice.  Given my effort level, I was right where I wanted to be time-wise.

100 breast: This was by far my standout race of the meet.  I don't train for breaststroke at all--the only time I swim it is when I'm doing an IM set in practice, and then I only swim it to get through with it, not to focus on it and work on technique/speed/power.  This was the most throwaway of all my non-core events at the meet, and the one I cared the least about.  Behind the blocks, I didn't care what I went, just wanted to relax, swim it, and not kill myself.  I had a good start and felt very good in the water for the first 75.  I felt clean and smooth, and kept it at about 85-90% effort.  My technique started to fall apart a bit on the last 25, but that's to be expected, since I don't even remember the last time I swam more than a 75 breast in practice.  I had splits of 33.71 and 38.03 for a 1:11.74.  That's a full 2.5 seconds faster than when I swam it in February!

I noticed one big thing both during the race and watching the video afterwards: I've got a hell of a lot better pullout than the people I swim against.  They can generally trounce me on the surface, but underwater...whoever I'm racing is usually my bitch! :-D

50 free: This wasn't a terrible swim, but my left shoulder started locking up when I was warming up for this race.  Any time I was at full extension with my left arm, the shoulder would freeze and I'd have to exert a lot of pressure for it to unlock.  It stayed that way through the race, too.  And, by this point in the day, I was running low on energy--the accumulation of the day before and what I'd already swum on Sunday was wearing me down, so I felt like I was running at about 75% energy.  With a long turn and that shoulder issue, I went a 25.44.  That's my fastest outside of Nationals last year, but I think it probably would have been around a 25 flat sans 15 bazillion previous events/long turn/shoulder thingy.

100 fly: Oh man, this was terrible.  I was pretty exhausted by this point in the day and got a massive left hip cramp when I bent down for the start, so my dive was pretty much a one-legged dive, and my turns were all pretty awkward/painful.  I tried to dial it up and swim this hard...and it completely fell apart.  My back/shoulders locked up and I died big time on the second 50.  My splits were 29.67 and 35.04, for a 1:04.71.  That's .16 seconds slower than my much easier paced 100 fly on the relay earlier that day.  It was horrible!

400 free relay: This was only about 5 minutes after my 100 fly, and I felt awful.  I didn't have time to warmdown, so I was still *enjoying* all the lactic acid that had built up in the fly and was scraping rock bottom for my energy level.  My left hip was still cramping, too.  I couldn't generate any turnover and had no legs.  I went splits of 27.35 and 31.32 for a 58.67.  Not a good swim at all!  At least I was under 1:00, haha!

200 medley relay (breast): Finally, my last event of the meet! I was totally dead at this point.  I had a good start and good pullout, but then my left hip cramped on every kick.  I tried to substantially up the tempo over what I did in the 100, but it didn't work out too well for me.  My breast technique falls apart and feels really sloppy when I try to drive my arms/legs faster than normal.  It felt like a very sloppy swim--I didn't get much glide one each stroke, and it all felt disjointed.  I went a 33.36, which wasn't terrible.  However, it was only .35 faster than the first 50 of my 100, when I didn't have the benefit of a relay start and kept it much calmer and more relaxed.  On top of that, it was actually .02 slower than when I swam the individual 50 at the beginning of March.  Not my best performance, but still proportionally much faster than my free on the 400 free relay!

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Overall thoughts

This was an exhausting meet, the most exhausting meet I've swum since I did the Iron Man meet in highschool (400 IM, all the 200s in order, and then the 500, all in the same session).  I don't put enough yards in in the pool anymore to be able to keep up this level of racing and not die horribly.  All that said, I had a total blast!  I've outlined my specific focus areas from the meet below:

Fly: I've got two weeks to figure out how to sprint fly again.  I did just fine when I kept the 100 fly on the medley relay nice and long, but had horrible 50/100 individual swims.  I need to figure out how to move from 3rd to 5th gear without completely falling apart.  That said, my stroke has felt better than it has in quite a while--my arms aren't dragging too much in the water and I have good body motion.  On top of that, it felt like I finally had a kick again, something that has been missing all season in fly.

Back: No real concerns here--everything felt in order, although my kick started to die off at the end of the 100.  Given the suit/loss of circulation issue, I don't know if that's something directly attributable to my backstroke or if that will be resolved with the new suit.

Breast: This was my biggest surprise.  Dropping my 100 down to a time I haven't gone in 9 years, especially with me not having trained for it at all, was an eye opener.  On top of that, I am only a bit over a second off Katie's 100 breast time now, and she's the fastest regularly competing breaststroker on the team.  Over the summer and fall, I think I'll actually train for breast, not just improving my technique like I played around with with Katie last summer.  On the other hand, my breast in the IM is pretty shitty.  I need to figure out how to maintain my form/speed from the individual event into the IM.  This will no doubt be a long work in progress over the next 6+ months.  If I can get my IM breast up to speed, that will provide a significant boost to my 100/200/400 IMs!

Free: Wow, I don't know what happened last weekend.  That was the worst my free has been all season.  One way or another, I need to relearn how to sprint...and how to hold pace for longer than a 50...and how to not completely fall apart in an IM.  Lots of work to do on this!

************************************

Issues for Nationals

Nationals starts for me in two weeks, on 5/10.  I've got the 50/100/200 back, 50/100 fly, and 100 IM on tap, along with at least one each of the 200 free/medley relays (we've got 4 guys and 2 girls, so we'll be swimming both a men and mixed of both relays, I just don't know who's going to be on the mixed relays).  Over the next 10 days of training (I fly to Indy on 5/8), here's what I'm going to focus on:

Fly: I'm not really focusing on speedwork too much this next week, but will focus on that during Monday-Wednesday of Nats week.  Next week I'm just focusing on putting in fly yards.  My fly meltdowns were atrocious last weekend, so I'm going to try to put enough fly yards on my body that I won't meltdown during either event at Nats.  On the Monday-Wednesday of Nats week, I'll focus on getting that tempo up without destroying my rhythm.

Back: I'm focusing almost entirely on my kick, and spending a little bit of time focusing on staying underwater as long as I can without losing speed.  Staying underwater won't be an issue for the 50, but will be an issue at the 75 in the 100, and for about the last 125 of the 200.

Breast: I'm working solely on keeping my tempo up going from back-breast in the 100 IM.  There is a marked tempo drop from back-breast now, even accounting for the inherently slower tempo of the breaststroke stroke, so I'm focusing on keeping that tempo up.  Come Monday-Wednesday of Nats week, I'm going to work on experimenting with keeping a longer glide/more relaxed stroke vs a short/high turnover stroke for the 200 medley relay, since I'm swimming breast.  At this point, I don't know which one is faster for me, but I do know that right now the short stroke feels awfully sloppy.

Free: I'm working at being able to swim at speed.  That's it!

Turns: I'm going to work on a faster flip speed.  Watching my videos, except for a couple races in particular, my flip speed isn't terrible.  That said, it can always be faster, so I'm going to work on throwing my legs over faster on back and free.  As far as open turns go, I'm going to focus on snapping my legs forward under me faster.  And I'm going to keep working on the back-breast crossover turn.  The last three times I've swum an IM in a meet, I've had the stroke timing down perfectly, so I've been able to do the turn without having to make it choppy or glide in a really long way.  I'm going to work on finetuning the timing/positioning so that if I hit it right on the 100 IM, I'll have a faster flip on it than I do now.

Kick: I'm going to do some long kick sets on my own, focusing on a mix of high speed and high intensity (fairly high speed, extended distances compared to sprint kick) sets.  Mostly free/back, with some fly thrown in there.  I'm also going to throw in some vertical kick sessions, something I haven't done at all in the last 3 months or so.  That should help my fly kick, for sure.

Back to back meets on 2/9-2/10...meh...

I swam at back to back meets on 2/9 and 2/10.  The meet on the 9th was an evening meet outside of Annapolis, and the meet on the 10th was in the morning in Richmond.  The Richmond meet was actually a 2 day meet, but I wanted to swim at the Annapolis one on Saturday instead.  That was probably a bad idea.  The Annapolis meet was supposed to start at 5:30, but got pushed back to 6:30, and I didn't finish swimming till about 9:30...and didn't hit the road for the drive down to Richmond till about 9:45!

I'd swum at the Richmond meet last year, so I was familiar with the pool, but this was my first time at this Annapolis pool, and I was decidedly not impressed.  It was small, the shallow end was really shallow, and the touch pads were not fixed at the bottom, so they bowed out from the wall (when you'd do a turn, you'd have to push the pad back into the wall before you could push off the wall, which is really sucky).

Here's how it all went down.

Saturday

100 back

This was my first event of the meet.  I'd had a big problem during warmup with the pads bowing out from the wall and feeling really spongy, and that applied to the race, too.  There was no gutter to hold on to (and I can't do a non-back flop start from the block's bar), so the shitty hand position and shitty pad position really screwed up my start.  I went absurdly deep and used up almost all of my speed just trying to get back up to the surface.  The first 50, aside from the bad start and first breakout, was actually pretty good.  However, at the 50 turn, I lost a bit of momentum having to push the pad back to the wall.  Realllllllllllllllly not a fan of that pad setup!  The third 25 also felt fine, but I just couldn't bring it home at the end.  I was racing against a recurring competitor, Justin H, and he soundly whupped me on the last 25.  I took it out in a 30.17 and brought it back in a 32.46 for a 1:02.63.  Not a terrible race, just looking at the numbers (and only .3 off my best), but I *should* have been able to break a 1:02, and probably would have except for the start and 50 turn.  On a side note, this was a rematch for Justin and I--we raced next to each other a few weeks before and I beat him then, a 1:02.3 to his 1:03.0.  I think we'll have another rematch in March, so I hope to regain the crown then! :-D

50 breast

Ugh.  This was my race to lose, and I lost it.  I got third, and all that separated me from first was .18 (I went a 33.34).  Good start, good speed, everything felt great...and then I totally bombed the turn.  Had a brain fart at the wall, since there was no gutter for me to grab onto.  Lost at least a few tenths of a second there, and that was all that separated me from first!  I should have been able to just break 33.  Sigh.  Did I mention that I'm not a fan of this pool?

50 back

This was my best event of the meet, which is pretty sad.  I had another shitty start, although I didn't go as absurdly deep as I did on the 100.  Once I came up, everything felt fantastic...till I got to the turn.  Coming off the wall, I was a shade deeper than I usually am, and due to how shallow the pool is at that end, I kicked the bottom twice before I came up!  All that said, I went a 29.32, which is my best in season time and only .4 off last year's Nats time!  If I can come that close...with The Beard...with kicking the bottom...and not shaved/tapered...I think I'm doing pretty well for myself!

I didn't warm down after swimming the 50 back.  It was already after 9:30 at this point, so I just wanted to get the hell out of there.  I stopped to get dinner on the drive down to Richmond, and didn't get to the hotel and into the room until around 1:00.

Sunday

200 back

I overslept and didn't get up till 7:30, and didn't get to the pool till right about 8:00.  There were only two heats of the 200 back left before mine when I got to the pool, so I only had time to jump in for a quick 250 warmup.  Umm...in case you were wondering...a 250 isn't NEARLY enough to loosen up after not warming down the night before and getting ready for the 200 back...  I know, I know, it's my own fault, but man, I did not feel good in the water!
The race itself was pretty good, all things considered.  I went a 2:18.89, with splits of 32.59, 35.81, 35.30, and 35.19.  I didn't start to feel warmed up till about the 100 mark, as is evident by my decreasing splits.  That's about 2 seconds off what I manually timed my 200 back video from the Tropical Splash the week before, but only about half a second slower than my *official* TS time.  Given how poorly I felt in the water, I will absolutely take that time!
I figure with another month and a half or so of heavy training under my belt, and sans The Beard, I should be able to shave 1.5-2 seconds off each 50.  I'll be swimming it at all three meets in March, so I'll be able to see how my heavier training impacts the swim.

100 breast

This was a pretty bad swim.  I felt good for the first 50, started to tighten up on the 3rd 25, and completely locked up on the last 25.  The meet ran very quickly (start to finish was only 2.5 hours!), and since many events only had 2 heats (quite a few only had one heat), tops, I didn't have a whole lot of time between my 200 back and this race.  I attribute that to the pacing of the meet, me not training for the 100 breast, and me not being sufficiently warmed down/up.  Anyways, I split a 35.09 and 39.09 for a 1:14.18.  Not a downright awful swim, but I should have been closer to a 1:10-1:11, with splits around a low 34 going out, low 37 coming back.
On a side note, the guy in the lane next to me should have been DQed--on every pullout, he was doing a dolphin kick at the beginning and end of it, and then did a dolphin kick at the finish.

100 fly

I crashed and burned.  My legs were toast at this point and my upper body was quite tight and sore, and I totally died on the second 50.  I took it out in a 30.30 and brought it back in a 35.22 for a 1:05.52.  Horrible splits!  I had no speed taking it out--I should have been 2.5-3 seconds faster on the first 50, and at least 2-3 seconds faster on the second 50.  Besides the aforementioned factors affecting me at the meet that day, I need to really train for this event, since that was a pitiful performance!

Great Tropical Splash on Sunday!

My team hosted the Tropical Splash this past Sunday, and I had a blast!!  The meet itself was quite fun and it had a pretty lively atmosphere (well, for a meet, anyways).

I swam a pretty big lineup of events--in order, the 100 IM, 200 back, 50 free on the 200 free relay, 50 breast on the 200 medley relay, 200 IM, and 200 breast.

EDIT: videos have been added for the races in which I was filmed--everything but the medley relay.

100 IM

This race felt pretty good, with some exceptions.  My back foot slipped on the block and I thus went deep on the start.  Normally I stay under for about 8 dolphin kicks off the start on fly, and this time I was under for 10 before I made it to the surface.  And then on backstroke, I went too deep and completely misjudged where the surface of the water was, so I started my breakout stroke while I was still about a foot under the surface, so I had to take another three dolphin kicks before I finished the stroke.  Besides those problems, everything else felt pretty good!  I dropped about a second from my time at the last meet to go a 1:02.7, which is right at my time from Zones last year, which was my best non-Nats time.  Probably could have shaved off at least half a second to a full second by coming up to the surface faster on fly and back.  Still, with the lack of heavy duty training up to this point and with the significant drag my beard gives me underwater (I can definitely feel it, at least), I'm gonna say I should be under my 1:01.7 Nats time from last year by the end of the season.

EDIT: I watched the video twice and used my stopwatch to get my splits from the video.  I came up with around a 28.30 and 33.59 for a 1:01.89.  (First time I got my splits, I got a 28.26 and 33.65 for a 1:01.91). I don't know why there's a ~.75 difference between what I got and what the timers got!
If I did in fact go around a 1:01.89, I'm right where I want to be at this point in the season!

200 back

This was a much better swim than my 2:22.9 at the beginning of the season in September--I dropped down to a 2:18 mid.  That being said, my legs died at around the 125.  Again, I attribute that to my lack of heavy duty training at this point in the season.  I think I could have hit around a 2:15 if my legs hadn't died.  Anyways, the race felt pretty good--good start, good turnover, everything felt strong for the first 125 and then I started to fade over the next 75.

The Nats cut is a 2:12.94, so with me being less than 6 seconds off, I think this should most likely be a slam dunk by the end of March!

EDIT: I watched the video three times and used my stopwatch to get my splits.  All three times, my splits were within a few hundredths of each other, so here's a good approximation of them: 31.66, 34.38, 35.33, and 35.39, for a time of 2:16.76.  That's nearly two seconds faster than what the timers told me, so either they can't time worth crap or there's something fishy with the video...
If I did in fact go a 2:16, that puts me in even better position than I expected at this point in the season! That would put me less than 4 seconds off the Nats cut, which should be easily achievable!  In addition, my turns look much, much better than they did in September!  Still have work to do, but a significant improvement.  On the downside, my turnover rate is still substantially faster in my head than it is in actuality.  Hmm.

50 free (200 free relay)

Umm, this was a bad swim.  I had a fairly decent start--pokey reaction time, but the dive itself was good, and the first 25 felt really good...and then I bombed the turn.  I started the flip too far out, so I tried to lengthen the turn and ended up with just one long awkward mess.  And then nothing was in sync on the second 25.  My hips weren't rotating at the same time or angle as my shoulders, my kick felt off, and my two breaths made my stroke lopsided.  Sigh.  Don't know what my split was, but I'd be surprised if I broke a 26, what with how horrid it felt!

EDIT: I watched the video twice and got my split both times--24.91 and 24.98 (I'm the anchor in the middle lane).  Nowhere near as bad as I thought!

50 breast (200 medley relay)

This made up for the 50 free!  I was pokey coming off the block (I'm still getting used to having to go off someone swimming backstroke, since this is only the second meet in at least a decade in which I've done breast on a relay, and it's definitely a work in progress), but otherwise had a great start.  The rest of the race felt good, although I did take a half stroke on the finish instead of gliding in.  I split a 32.1, which is .3 faster than the relay two weeks ago.  Not too shabby!

200 IM

This was not a good race at all, not even close.  And that's solely due to my totally screwing up the pacing!  When I swam the 200 IM both times last spring, I had a pretty good first half and then crashed and burned spectacularly on the second half.  Not having swum the 200 since last April, I was a bit leery of repeating that, so I decided to hold back a little bit on the first 100, just enough to have gas left in the tank for the second 100.  Oops.  I took it out waaaaay too slow!  I took it out at 400 IM pace and didn't realize that till I was going into breaststroke, when I realized that I wasn't tired at all.  At that point, it was too late--I had too much ground to make up and couldn't swim that fast to make up the difference.  I finished with a mid 2:22, which is a full three seconds slower than my Zones time last year.  At Zones, I took it out in a low 1:03, vs taking it out in a high 1:07 this time.  On the plus side, I did swim the second half of the race almost 2 seconds faster than I did at Zones!

On a side note, I swam in the same heat as Katie.  I should have had about a bodylength lead on her going into breast, and then finished about even or a bodylength behind her.  She was ahead of me going into breast and just kept extending that lead over the back half, ending up with a 2:16.  If I'd paced the race properly, I should have been right there with her.  Sigh.  Till next time...

EDIT: Again, watched the video and got splits.  All three times I watched the video, the splits were all in the ballpark of 30.28, 35.74, 40.95, and 33.63 for a final time of 2:20.62.  That's a full two seconds faster than what the timers told me!
While the time is quite a bit better than what I was told, it still wasn't a great race.  The only bright spot was the breaststroke leg--it was about 1.5 seconds faster than the last time I swam it.

200 breast

This was the first time I'd swum the event since 2004 or 2005.  I had no race strategy except for making it to the end.  Good start and good first 100.  My biceps and lats started to tighten up at the 125 and completely locked up at the 150.  That turn was really darn slow, as was the turn at the 175.  And that whole last 50 was pure torture.  I finished with a 2:47, which was faster than my completely made up 2:50...but is way off from my 2:32 from a decade ago...

On the plus side, I beat my teammate who also swam it, Sara, by 2 seconds!  And she's a legit breaststroker!! :-D

EDIT: Video, splits, yada yada yada.  My time from the video was a 2:45.87...again about two seconds faster than what the timers told me...  I got a 36.30, 41.82, 43.72, and 44.03.  Not too horrific!

All in all, it was a pretty good meet!  Despite my bad swims and quite noticeable lack of heavy duty training (especially compared to this point last year), I swam pretty well, all things considered!

What to swim at Nationals?

I've got 5 meets, and a bit under 2.5 months, to figure out what I want to swim and submit my entry for Nationals.

So, I've gotta figure out what to swim.  As of right now, I only have a single cut, the 50 fly.  My 100 fly Nats time from last year is about .5 off the cut, but I should be able to hit that this by the entry deadline.  I'm about .6 off the 100 back cut, but should hit that in the next meet or two.  I'm a bit over 9.5 seconds off the 200 back cut, but have a pretty decent shot at that by the deadline.  That gives me four events.  I can pick two more events to swim at Nats, even if I don't have cuts in either of them.

With that in mind, here's the breakdown of all the possible events I could train for and swim at Nationals, and put up decent times in:

50 free: The Nats cut is a 24.31.  I went a 24.9 leading off the 200 free relay at Nats last year, but haven't broken 25.5 this year.  I just can't find that top gear in freestyle!  This is looking like a no-go.

100 free: The Nats cut is a 53.87.  I went a 57 at the end of our practice meet back in September, but haven't swum it since.  This should be *conceivably* within reach, but like with the 50, I can't find the top gear, so this is most likely a no-go.

50 back: The Nats cut is a 28.31.  I went a 28.96 at Nats last year, but haven't broken a 29.4 since then.  On top of that, I have consistently been taking the 100 back out in around a 30.0, which is way too close to my 50 time for my liking, even though the perceived level of exertion and effort is much less in the 100 than the 50.  For whatever reason, while I'm exerting a lot more energy and effort in the 50 back than taking out the 100 back, my 50 isn't finding the top gear.  With the amount of energy/effort difference between the two, I'd expect the 30.0 I take the 100 out in to correspond with a mid 28 in the 50, but that's not happening.  Ergo, unless I can figure out how to tap that top gear, the 50 is shaping up to be a no-go this season.

100 back: The Nats cut is a 1:01.71.  I went a 1:02.30 at last weekend's meet, having dropped nearly 4 seconds already this season, with five more meets to go.  This should be a slam dunk.

200 back: The Nats cut is a 2:12.94.  I've only swum this once so far this season, back in September, and it was a pretty poor swim even then--I went a 2:22.93.  I've broken a 2:30 from a push numerous times in practice, so this should be a fairly safe bet over the next five meets, especially if I get my 100 under a 1:02.  This should be a slam dunk.

50 fly: I've already got the Nats cut, having swum a 25.90 at Nats last year (the cut is a 26.83).  This will be a slam dunk.

100 fly: The Nats cut is a 59.06.  I swam a 59.53 at Nats last year.  I have only swum this event once this season, and I didn't try at all in it.  It will be a fixture at the next four or five meets and *should* be a slam dunk.

200 fly: The Nats cut is a 2:14.93.  I've only swum the 200 once as a Masters swimmer, and that was almost a year ago.  I can almost certainly drop about 10 seconds from the abysmal 2:32.90 I swam then, but I don't know if I have the full 18 second drop in me over the next 2.5 months.  This is probably going to be a no-go this season.

100 IM: The Nats cut is a 1:00.95.  I went a 1:01.77 at Nats last year, but haven't broken a 1:03 since then.  That being said, I've not been able to have a good race in it since Nats, either having it be a back to back event, or it being the last event of the day, or not having eaten enough food, etc.  I *should* be able to make the cut, but I'm just not sure if I'll be able to align the stars over the next 5 meets.  I think this is going to be a maybe this season.

200 IM: The Nats cut is a 2:14.93.  I went a 2:19.62 at Zones last year, and that was with a horrific back half of the race.  My breaststroke has vastly improved since then, and my free is better, too, so I'd like to think I could get to around a 2:15 pretty easily.  I'm swimming this at the first of the 5 remaining meets, so I'll see how it goes then.  Comparing my splits from Zones to Katie's 2:15 at Nats, I was almost 3.5 seconds ahead of her going into breast, and then we were dead even going into free.  I don't think my breast is nearly that much slower than hers anymore (more on that later), and I'd really like to think she doesn't have that much of a lead on me in free anymore, so a 2:15 should definitely be within reach.  I'm gonna say this one is a slam dunk.

400 IM: The Nats cut is a 4:50.13, and I went a 5:09.40 last weekend.  That 19 second gap is a lot smaller than it appears, since I most likely could have easily shaved off 10 seconds or so just from better race management.  And it *should* be fairly achievable to shave off the other 9 seconds by training for the race over the next 2.5 months.  All that said, it takes a lot of time to train for the 400 IM, and I'm already putting a lot of time in on other events, so I'll just call this one a maybe this season.

50 breast: The Nats cut is a 30.82.  If the split for the relay was correct, I went a low/mid 32.  Given how abominable my start was, and that I was laughing for the first 25, I might be able to pump out a high 31 right now, without any breast training.  That being said, I haven't swum the 50 in a meet yet, so I'll have to wait a meet or two to see what happens with it.  If I train for it, and have a race where I nail the turn, I could conceivably hit the cut this season.  Based on the IMers I've swum against this season, I've got a much stronger pullout than everyone I've swum against, even the ones who royally kick my behind once I'm up on the surface.  Stands to reason that I should be able to tweak my actual swim enough to carry over some of that speed to the surface.  I'll list this one as a maybe this season.

100 breast: The Nats cut is a 1:07.03.  Way back in the day, my fastest was a mid 1:08...but my 50 relay split is right at my all time fastest 50 ever...so it stands to reason that I *might* be faster now than I was back in highschool.  I'll have to swim it at a meet, though, to see where I'm at, since I haven't swum this event in ~8 years.  This'll be a maybe this year.

I'm trying to hit all of these events over the next two meets (2/3 and 2/9), so I can see where I'm at with each one and figure out what I need to focus on.

Should be interesting!!!

First meet in a while...

I had my first meet in a while on Sunday.  I haven't been training much at all since before the holidays, so I didn't have high hopes.  I was pleasantly surprised!  I swam three individual events, the 400 IM, 100 back, and 100 IM, and the 200 medley relay.

400 IM

It's been a loooooong time since I'd swum this in a meet--spring of 2005.  Back then it was one of my go-to events, along with the 200 back and 200 fly.  I've only swum it a handful of times in practice in the last year and a half, and have done absolutely no training for this event at all.  Given how little rest I'd gotten the entire weekend (coaching and going out with friends), I had even lower expectations at the meet itself.  On top of that, I had eaten very little food that day.  I'd entered myself as a 5:30, and with how I was feeling behind the blocks, would have been happy to hit that.
I took the fly out at about 75% effort.  I'd hurt my right shoulder last week, and hadn't been able to do more than a 50 of fly straight without it hurting in practice, so I was kinda leery about the 100 fly to kick it off.  No worries!  While I was deliberately going slow, my fly felt great.  Smooth, pain free, and felt like I could've gone for the 200 fly instead.  Unfortunately, my left goggle fogged up at the first turn and my right goggle filled up at the turn, as well.  Dan was in the lane next to me, so I was gauging where I was in the pool by his outline (he was about half a bodylength ahead of me on the fly), since I couldn't really see forward or down.  Switching over to backstroke, I still held back and kept it at about 75% speed.  My back felt great, though!  Did something I haven't done in ages, and fixed my goggles during the swim at the 125 mark.  After that, I could see again, and the rest of the race was less problematic.  On top of that, I pulled about a bodylength and a half ahead of Dan!  Going into breaststroke, I hammered the swim, and let the walls just serve as a quick oxygenation point, not focusing on fast walls.  That's the best my breast has ever felt, at least as much as I can remember.  It felt powerful and fast, and didn't feel near as uncoordinated as it normally does.  I think I pulled to about 2-2.5 bodylengths ahead of Dan on the breast, but then died, like always, on the free.  I don't think it was quite an epic meltdown, but Dan made up a LOT of ground on me on the free.  I finished with a 5:09.40 (time on the board after the swim was a 5:09.23, so I'm not sure what's up with the extra .17 they sent out in the results) and beat Dan by about 3 seconds.  Hell of a lot better swim than I expected!  Just through better race management, I probably could have cut that down to around 5:00.  I'm considering actually training for this event, since the Nats cut is only a 4:50.  I've still got about 2 months to go to get my cuts for Nats, and have 5 more meets to swim between now and then, so I'll see how it goes.

100 back

I was starting to feel the effects of inadequate fuel intake during the day, but still had a good swim.  Didn't have all that great of a start, but felt fantastic once I started swimming.  Established an early lead and maintained it throughout.  I've been working almost exclusively on back so far this season, and I can notice a big difference from last spring!  Faded a bit on the last 25, but still won with a 1:02.30, dropping about half a second from my previous best.  I figure my beard is at least a second's worth of drag with how much time I spend underwater, so that puts me down around a 1:01... ;-)
On a side note, I'm kinda disappointed with my top end speed.  I just can't crank it out in the 50!  I only barely broke a 29 at Nats last spring, and my normal 50 time is a mid 29.  I was a 30 point at the 50 in my 100 back on Sunday--I'm swimming the 50 back at the next meet, I think, and I'll bet I'm less than a second faster than my 50 split from the 100.  For whatever reason, I just don't have that top gear when it comes to backstroke!

100 IM

Not that great of a swim.  I was really feeling the lack of fuel at this point and just couldn't get my turnover up on back and free.  Fly felt good, back felt slow but good, breast felt good, and free felt pretty bad--kept inhaling water, so I was double and triple breathing.  Botched the back-breast turn (stroke count was off, so I had to do an open turn instead of the crossover turn, which is much faster turn than an open turn).  I went a 1:03.7, which is right about what I did at the last meet, but is 2 seconds off what I did at Nats.

200 medley relay

This was the last event of the day for us.  We put up a men's relay, and for a change, I swam breast!  I honestly can't remember the last time I swam breast on a relay.  Given that we had Adam and then Craig on my club team since I was 12, I think it might be 13+ years since the last time I was the breaststroker on a relay!  I almost got us DQd on my start--the guy swimming back, Chad, ended up kicking in instead of taking the final stroke into the wall.  I start my windup on the second to last stroke, so I was expecting him to touch right as I started the dive.  Nope.  Since he was kicking in, he was still about a foot and a half off the wall as I started to lean forward.  I tried to jerk back enough so that I didn't blatantly pull a Dan (reference to our 200 medley relay at Zones), almost fell off the block instead, and then did a very flat dive with no windup and no forward momentum when he finally did touch.  I was laughing during the entire first 25!  I believe my split was a 32 something, so even with a hilariously awful start, I'm right there with the fastest competing breaststroker on the team, Katie!  I might have to swim some more breast events in the next few meets.

Overall, it was a pretty good meet!  The 100 IM was disappointing, but at least I didn't add any time from the last meet!  Over the last six months or so, I've apparently managed to turn my breaststroke from a liability to an asset, so I'm very happy about that!  My backstroke is feeling very solid, and my butterfly surprisingly felt good, although I haven't trained for it at all.

Gameplan for Nationals

Now that we're in 2013, I am starting to train for Nationals in earnest.  I can swim three events without making any cuts, and can swim up to six (individual) events if I make three cuts.

I've already got the cut in the 50 fly, and my Nats time is about .75 off the cut in the 100 fly.  I'm about half a second off the 100 back cut (1:01.71), and should be within reach of the 200 back cut (2:12.94), too, although I'm currently about 9.5 seconds off.  I could conceivably make the 400 IM cut (4:50).  The 200 and 100 IMs might be a stretch, though, but I'll see what I can do with them over the next two months worth of meets.

I think the 200 fly and all the breast events are out of reach.  I'm not going to bother really training for them this year, although I'll really go after them next year.  As of now, my plan is to have the cuts for the 100 back and 50 fly for sure.  I would really like to get the 100 fly cut, too, so that way I can then pick my three freebie events.  If I get the three cuts, my Nats lineup will be the 100/200 back, 50/100 fly, and 100/200 IM.

There are five meets left to qualify for Nationals.  I'm really going to hammer those events at the meets, and really focus on training for them in practice.  I'm in a much better position now than I was at this time last year!!

I've got a LOT to be thankful for!

This is going to be a pretty reflective/sappyish post, so if that doesn't do it for you, just keep on moving along...  ;-)

You know, sometimes you look back on your life and pick out the really bright spots.  I do it once in a blue moon, and today was one of those days, first time in ages.  Some of those bright spots for me have been single events, like when I got The Ring, or when I graduated from El Cid.  Others are periods in my life, like pretty much the entire four years of high school for me, or knob and senior years at El Cid.

I'm in one of those periods right now.  When I moved up here last year, I was miserable.  I hated how expensive it was, I hated losing all my Charleston friends, I hated the commute into work each day, I hated not being in Charleston, I hated being the youngest in the office by a long shot, etc.  I still hate how expensive it is and am not the biggest fan of the commute, but everything else is pretty peachy keen!

1) I've made a fantastic new group of friends!  Over the past year, I've made a number of friends, almost exclusively from swimming/coaching.  And on top of that wide circle of good friends (well, it's a "wide" circle of friends for me), I've made three great best friends--Dan, Katie, and Kyra.  We've had great times together in and out of the pool, whether it was at Nationals last spring, or joining together for an insanely over the top dinner party, or going to a concert, or hitting up the bar scene around town, or any of numerous other activities we've done.  I tried to think about what life'd be like right now if they weren't in it and frankly depressed myself just thinking about that.  They, and all the others, have really brightened up my life, and I'm truly thankful for them!

2) As you can *probably* tell by now, I rediscovered my love of the water.  Swimming, coaching, absolutely love 'em both!  It gives me an outlet away from the general humdrummery of the office and really gives me something to do that I truly enjoy.  I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it for a long time--if I could quit my day job and be able to support myself at or close to my current pay level on a coaching salary, I'd do it in the blink of an eye.  On deck or in the water, I would love to spend the greater portion of my day there rather than in the office.  Kids and adults, love 'em both.

3) How far I've evolved as a person from the skinny little knob at El Cid in 2005.  I'm guessing it had something, ok, a lot, to do with being homeschooled since second grade, but I wasn't the most social person coming out of high school.  I was downright awkward around girls (not sure if that was from the home schooling or from being raised so closely with my three older sisters and not being able to relate to non-sibling females) and was rather introverted around guys outside of my close circle of friends.  Over the course of the four years at that great hell hole in Charleston, I really started to open up.  I still wasn't entirely comfortable around women, but I wasn't even close to as spastic as I'd been back in the day.  Over the last few years, and especially since I joined Alexandria Masters, I've finally broken those last barriers.  I've gone from being a fairly extreme introvert to having a friend say she thinks I'm an extrovert.  From being really, really not a fan of parties or big group gatherings, I'm now the one who organizes us going to see a concert or going out to bars every now and then.  Two of my best friends are women, and it hasn't fazed me in the slightest.  I don't even have the lingering awkwardness around them that I had the last few years in Charleston post-El Cid.  I don't think it's exactly a ringing endorsement that it took me 25 years to finally blossom, but hey, I'll take it!  I'm completely comfortable hanging out with Katie or Kyra, even just one on one, and the bar scene/concerts/group gatherings don't even make me blink an eye.  If someone had told me I'd be like this seven years ago, I'd have laughed them out of the room.  Even just a year and a half ago, I was still a loner at heart and was perfectly comfortable staying in in the evenings and on the weekend and not going out to meet people or hang out with friends.  Now, while it is nice to have me-time every now and then, I need that people interaction on a regular basis.  Sure, a good deal of that need for interaction comes from spending so much time with little kids while I'm coaching them and needing to have an adult conversation, but still. 

To put it simply, I love my friends.  I love my jobs (well, coaching is substantially closer to the "love" end of the scale than my day job is, but I don't dislike my day job).  I love being in the water again.  I love being a social being.  All in all, I love my life right now and wouldn't trade it for anything!