2021 Long Course Nationals Recap

Frankly, going into this meet, I had just about zero expectations. Barring the ~12 long course practices I swam over the summer, I don't train long course as a general matter of principle. I also rarely race it, with a whopping total of 5 masters LCM meets under my belt prior to this meet, two in 2012, one in 2014, and two in 2015. Compared to SCY meets, where I've normally clocked 8-12 meets per season over the past 11 years, I might as well never race LCM!

All of that is just to say I didn't have any expectations going into the meet, and decided to treat it mostly as just another in-season meet, what with being in the middle of October and in the middle of heavy training. As a result, I didn't shave my body, I didn't taper (heck, I even did a double the day before my travel day, and did a practice the morning of my travel day!), and I wore an old suit. I'm very much a ritualistic shave/taper swimmer and follow the same routine for every masters nationals, but I threw that out for this meet and pretty much treated it just like any random in-season meet, barring shaving my beard.

I swam a handful of events: in order--50 free, 100 free, 50 back, 50 breast, 50 fly, and 200 IM. With the exception of the 200 IM, none of those are focus events for me in SCY, either, so I threw them out there as totally throwaway events. My focus was primarily on getting to see my family, enjoying the break from reality that is a travel meet, and getting a second meet under my belt in the last 20 months.

Friday

This was a super light day, with just the 50 free on the docket.

50 free:

This was the sloppiest of my races by far, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! I somehow managed to go shallow on my start (seriously, I *never* go shallow on my starts, I have no clue how I managed to pull that off) and only got 3 butterfly kicks in before my breakout, compared to my normal 6-7. I'd planned for it to be a 3 breath 50, then inhaled water on my 2nd breath, which turned it into a 4 breath 50. All in all, it didn't turn out as badly as I feared after the inauspicious start! I went a 29.48, which was a new masters PR by .28. It's a full 1.5 seconds off my lifetime PR as a teenager, but still quite acceptable. My LCM times tend to be 15-20% slower than the equivalent SCY times, and with having gone a 24.95 in SCY in my latest 50 free from back in 2018, that puts me at around a 18% differential, which is right in that range. I'll take it!

Here's the video. My race is at about the 52:15 mark in the video, I'm in lane 1 at the bottom of the screen.

Saturday

This was a slightly heavier day than Friday, with the 100 free and 50 back, but still quite an easy workload.

100 free: 

Having gotten my first race jitters out with the 50 free the day before, I was pumped up and ready and raring to go for the 100. I'd done the LCM 100 free all of once as a masters swimmer prior to this race, back at nationals in 2015, and my age group times in the USAS database only show one swim there, too (99.99% sure I swam it more than just once as an age grouper, but the database is pretty spotty with results from back then), so I had even fewer results to compare to than in the 50.

I had a much better start than in the 50, but did have a goggle malfunction. One of the eyepieces filled up when I hit the water and the other slowly filled up over the course of the first lap. I could only vaguely see where the wall was at the turn and flipped just a bit too far away from the wall, so pretty much just my toes made contact with the wall and I got very little push off the turn. Coming into the finish, it was a similar story, I thought the wall was closer than it was and glided a bit at the finish. Still, my splits were solid! 30.70 going out, 33.62 coming back for a 1:04.32! That was 1.78 seconds faster than my 2015 swim and .91 faster than the lone age group swim in the USAS database, so it counts as both a new masters and lifetime PR! I do think I had a 1:03 in me if not for the goggle-induced wall issues, but I have absolutely nothing to complain about with this swim. Even better, I'm now officially less than 20 seconds slower than Caeleb Dressel in the 100! :-D

Having gone a 56.02 at SCY nats in July, my 1:04.32 is just under 15% slower, so well within the SCY-LCM delta. Even going against my SCY masters best of a 54.65, that still comes out to 17% and change, so that's an excellent sign!

Here's the video. My race is at about the 55:15 mark, I'm at lane 7, 3rd from the top of the screen. Side note--while I'd LOVE to claim the :54 as shown on the video, all of the lanes were off by 1 on the graphic.

50 back: 

I didn't really have any expectations for this race. I've been doing a lot of free in practice and have noticed dramatic improvements in my freestyle over the past two years in training, but I've spent very little time working on my backstroke over that same period. I haven't worked on backstroke speed, or backstroke endurance, or even just backstroke technique. I just haven't worked on back, period. I still conceptually consider myself at least somewhat a backstroker, but I haven't been putting the work in. All that said, my backstroke hasn't felt bad, per se, I just haven't worked on it.

I'd had a series of utterly abysmal backstroke starts in warmup using the wedge, so I went back to the tried and true gutter start for the race itself, and it went off mostly without a hitch--the start itself was fine, but I came up after 13 butterfly kicks instead of my normal 14, so apparently a touch shallower than normal. The rest of the race seemed like a good, clean race. I've done the LCM 50 back 5 times before as a Masters swimmer, with my latest time being a 34.83 from nationals in 2015. This time, I went a 34.58! The only time I've got recorded that was faster than that (34.40) was from pool that's flagged as unmeasured in the USMS database, so I'm gonna go ahead and asterisk this swim as my new masters and lifetime PR. :-)

My latest SCY 50 back was a 30.06 from 2019, which puts this swim's delta right at 15%. Even from my recent-ish best time from 2018 of a 28.65, that puts the delta at around 20%, which is still in the ballpark.

Here's the video: My race is at about the 39:30 mark, I'm in lane 2, 2nd from the bottom. Again, the graphic is jacked up as far as times go.

Sunday

This was my heavy day, with the 50 breast, 50 fly, and 200 IM.

50 breast:

Ooh boy, me and sprint breaststroke really do not mix, especially me and LCM sprint breaststroke, since the only reason I'm halfway competitive in SCY breast is because I have relatively great underwaters. I'd never done the LCM 50 breast before, either age group or masters, so the only thing I had to go off of was a 1:31 100 breast from back in 2012 at the same unmeasured pool I mentioned earlier. I pulled off a 38.16, which, given the lack of a measuring stick, feels like a pretty good time!

My most recent SCY 50 breast was a 32.52 from 2019, which would put this swim's delta at about 18%. My masters best SCY 50 breast is a 31.49, which would give a delta of about 21%, so I'm pretty happy with how it went. Felt like a clean race throughout, minus a bit of a sloppy breakout stroke.

Here's the race video. My race is at about the 2:27:30 mark in the video, I'm in lane 6 towards the top of the screen. Times on the screen are still jacked up.

50 fly:

We've been doing a lot more fly in practice lately than I'm used to (I swim with the senior group 3 days a week now and they do a lot more fly than I'm used to doing with the senior prep group) and it's been paying off! I'd done the LCM 50 fly four times prior to this swim and the three previous swims were plateaued at a 32.0--32.02, 32.05, and 32.06. I couldn't get my turnover going like it should for a 50, and felt like my arms were pacing for a 100 fly, but I finally broke 32 with a 31.91! It felt like I maintained my tempo and technique well through the 45m mark and only tightened up a bit on the no-breath finish. Given some of the struggles I've had in the past finishing out some of my SCY 50s fly, I'll take it.

My most recent SCY 50 fly was a 27.32 from 2020 right before everything shut down, which puts the delta for this swim at right around 17%, which is good enough for me!

Here's the race video. My race is at about 43:20 in the video, I'm at the bottom of the screen.

200 IM:

When I'm untapered, and especially when I'm in heavy training, I swim tired. This was the first of my races where I swam tired, and I swam tired from the first stroke all the way through the last stroke. For all the 50s, swimming untapered doesn't really impact me too much, and I had enough adrenaline in the 100 free to not be too affected by it, but this race was like swimming with a piano on my back the whole time.

I'd only swum this once before as a Masters swimmer, back in 2012, and went a 2:51.68. That was pretty much my only yardstick, and I beat it with a 2:47.48! It's a far cry off my lifetime/age group best of a 2:35, but for where I'm at in my training cycle and swimming career, I'll take it. I'd like to think I'd have been closer to a 2:42 or so if I was shaved and tapered right now, but I'm happy with just having beat my 2012 time.

I went a 2:22.45 in the SCY 200 IM in July, which would put the delta for this race at around 18%, right in my target zone. My masters best of 2:14.87 from 2019, on the other hand, would put this at about a 24% delta, which sounds about right.

Here's the race video. My race (well, what little you can see of it) is at about the 1:39:15 mark and I'm 2nd from the top of the screen.

Conclusions

I came out of this meet with 4 lifetime bests! Admittedly, three of those four lifetime bests were for stroke 50s that I most likely hadn't done after the age of 12 as an age grouper, but still. Gotta set lifetime bests at some point! :-D

I'm really happy with how I swam overall. I'm a HUGE shave/taper swimmer and only rarely swim the same times or slower shaved/tapered as I do in-season, and that's pretty much only in the 200 fly. Usually I make pretty significant time drops in-season to tapered, like dropping 5 seconds in the 200 IM, or 4 seconds in the 100 breast, or 4.5 seconds in the 200 free, and so on. For me to go quite solid times at this point in my training cycle, that's a fantastic sign. Barring injuries between now and then that might throw me off my training, I'm expecting to throw down some excellent times come short course nationals at San Antonio at the end of April!

For next year's long course nationals in Richmond, I'm planning to redo the 100 free and 200 IM, though the rest of my event lineup is up in the air right now. Again with the caveat that this is predicated on injuries not derailing my training again, I'm guesstimating a 1:02 high in the 100 free and a 2:40 in the 200 IM with a shave and taper for that meet.

2021 Short Course Nationals Recap

I swam at short course Nats last week and it was definitely a mixed bag!

Like for most folks, this was a weird training cycle, though for me it wasn't just the covid related pool closures. I've had off and on shoulder issues for the past 4-5 years, initially with my right shoulder and for the past 2 years, my left shoulder. It's been diagnosed as micro-tears in the labrum on both sides and, while pretty constant on the left side, got really bad in the January/February timeframe.

I had been training heavily up to that point, hitting 6 practices per week or so, but dropped down to just 2-3 per week, then tapered off to 1-2 per week with some weeks not getting in the water at all. I went to the doctor and got a prescription for rest and PT exercises, so I effectively twiddled my thumbs for several months, not starting to really "train" train again till May.

Even when I started hitting it again in late May, I still eased into it and never got back to the heavy training intensity I had pre-break. 

Anyways, that's all just to say that my training wasn't the same this cycle as it normally is and my conditioning wasn't remotely in the same ballpark it usually is going into Nats. Usually I train heavy from September-April and then taper into Nats in late April/early May, while knocking out 8-10 meets throughout the season before Nats. This time around I had nothing more than a couple intrasquad practice meets and effectively started tapering in February and held the taper through July, which, uh, didn't go as well as you might think. 😁

That aside, here's the recap of the meet!

Friday Events

100 IM

From a technique standpoint, this was a trash race. I had had major issues nailing my breakouts in warmup, I presume due to just being rusty racing and going off the blocks, and started my breakout too far underwater. Besides that, it was great through the flags heading into the back-breast turn. I flat out had a complete brainfart and had no idea what race I was swimming, whether I was swimming a backstroke race, in the middle of the backstroke leg in the 200 IM, or if I was heading into the back-breast turn in the 100 IM. I effectively lost all speed there for a couple seconds as I frantically figured out what I was doing, but thankfully figured it out! After that dumpster fire of a turn, the rest of the race went well.

Honestly, given the poor breakout and atrocious back-breast turn, this was actually quite a respectable swim. I went a 1:02.10, which is my 5th fastest Masters time. I went a 1:00.59 at 2018 Nats, but besides that time my best is a 1:01.42. If I'd had a better breakout and hadn't pissed away so much time at the back-breast turn, I think I probably could have hit a low 1:01/high 1:00. My splits were 29.13 and 32.97. Comparatively speaking, in that 1:00.59 swim, my splits were 27.71 and 32.88. I probably left at least a second in the first 50 with the breakout and back-breast turn. I'd have loved to get my 25 splits to see how they compared!

There's the race video. I'm in lane 1 at the top of the screen. If it doesn't start at the right timestamp, my race is at 18:00. The slowdown going into the back-breast turn is *slightly* noticeable... 😬

100 Free

Like in the 100 IM, I blew the breakout and started my first stroke way too deep. Besides that, it felt like a pretty good race through the 75 and then I just totally shut down on the last lap. I definitely don't think I took it out too fast, which has caused plenty of meltdowns for me in the past, but I had spent most of Thursday on my feet at the zoo and science center with Alaina and Rhys, so I'm sure that was some sort of factor.

My splits were 26.19 and 29.83 for a 56.02. That is my 4th fastest Masters time, with my fastest being a 54.65 (with splits of 26.05 and 28.60) from 2017 Zones. I did the 100 free at one of our intrasquad practice meets earlier in the season and was a 56.59, so it's slightly disappointing to have only dropped half a second from what was effectively a random Saturday practice to Nats.

There's the race video. I'm in lane 6. If it doesn't start at the right timestamp, my race is at 2:05.30. Huh, the video doesn't look as bad as it felt!

Saturday Events

100 Fly

This was one of my worst 100 flys from a technique/performance standpoint, though the time wasn't too atrocious at my 10th fastest out of 23 Masters swims.

I actually hit my breakouts this time, but went too deep off the start and first turn, which resultingly took me one extra kick to get to the surface off both. I felt easy and cruised through the 65y mark or so, then started tightening up going into the 75 turn and utterly imploded on the last 15y or so. Shoulders and legs died and I went vertical, but at least I kept my breathing pattern! The last time I'd swum the 100 fly prior to this was at a meet in December 2019 and I felt much better in that race despite having swum it about 7 minutes after swimming the 200 free.

I went a 28.50 and 34.55 for a 1:03.05. Comparatively, my splits were 28.80 and 34.15 in that December 2019 swim. My last "good" Masters time before that was from March 2017 and I was 27.96 and 32.85 for a 1:00.81. Given how my splits were better in 2019 right after a 200 free, and I fluctuate taking my 100 fly out in anywhere from a 27.5 to a 28.7, I'm gonna chalk this one up to just a lack of conditioning vs pacing the race wrong.

Here's the race video, I'm in lane 6. It starts at 11:38 if the video doesn't take you there automatically.

200 IM

This was the first race I was happy about. I had a series of technique issues throughout, but finally nailed the start and breakout, after botching them on my previous 3 races. I had a whole slew of water inhalation issues on the backstroke leg that led me to losing speed on both the back and breast legs, but my pacing was solid (albeit slow across the board) and I didn't crash and burn like I'd done on the 100 free and 100 fly.

My splits were 30.03, 35.77, 42.59, and 34.06 for a 2:22.45. The overall time is dirt slow as my 13th fastest out of 18 Masters 200 IM swims, including a 2:21.39 at one of the intrasquad practice meets this season, but I didn't die! Compared to my 200 IM at 2019 Nats, my splits then were 28.05, 34.57, 40.03, and 32.22 for a 2:14.87. Absolutely nothing to write home about, but at least it was not a meltdown.

Here's the race video, I'm in lane 6. It starts at 1:23.40 if the video doesn't take you there automatically.

Sunday Events

200 Free

Timewise, this wasn't a great swim, but I was quite happy with it! From a pacing standpoint, I just about nailed it--no shenanigans with crashing and burning, no real technique failures despite some wake water inhalation midway through the race.

My splits were 28.69, 31.49, 32.78, 32.85 for 2:05.81. That time isn't all that bad! It's my 5th fastest out of 12 Masters races, with my 2:01.72 at 2019 Nats being the only swim under 2:03, and with one 2:03 and two 2:04s also faster than my time just now. Looking at my 2:01 from 2019 Nats, my splits then were 27.44, 30.35, 31.87, 32.06 for 2:01.72. Looking at the 2:03 I went in December 2019 (the 200 that was just a few minutes before the aforementioned 100 fly), my splits then were 28.52, 30.93, 31.71, 32.04. At least I'm in the ballpark this time around, with the slowdown being pretty consistent across the 50s.

Here's the race video, I'm in lane 8 at the top of the screen. It starts at 17:10 if the video doesn't take you there automatically.

100 Breast

I'd originally planned to pace this one appropriately, but while waiting behind the blocks due to a starting snafu a few heats ahead of mine, I decided to say eff it and just take it out fast and try to hold on as best as I could. I haven't done any real breaststroke training this cycle, either before or after the shoulder break, so I had no real expectations for how this would go. I'd gone a 1:12.53 at one of the intrasquad practice meets, but besides that hadn't raced one since early 2019, at which point I'd been a 1:09.92.

Oh, I totally crashed and burned at the end, as to be expected for taking it out in a sprint, but the time was decent! I split 32.22 and 38.88 for a 1:11.10, which isn't *that* bad of a time for me. It was my 7th fastest out of 21 Masters swims. Looking at that 2019 swim, my splits were 32.27 and 37.65. Looking at my lifetime PR from 2017, my splits then were 32.32 and 35.67, so my opening speed is good right now, but I don't have the back end, which is pretty much to be expected given my comparative lack of conditioning this cycle.

Here's the race video, I'm in lane 8 at the top of the screen. It starts at 1:10.00 if the video doesn't take you there automatically.

Overall Thoughts

I knew going into this meet that it wasn't going to be as good as my Nats usually are, what with the shoulder issues and comparative lack of conditioning, but I was surprised at how variably my events were affected. 100 IM was theoretically right in the ballpark, 200 free was close, 100 breast was close-ish, but the 200 IM, 100 free, and 100 fly were all off. I was also just rusty! Having not done a real meet in 17 months was quite apparent--breakout issues galore, just general rustiness overall in racing, my starts were pretty pitiful for the first few races (though I was happy with them on both the 200 free and 100 breast), etc.

I'm satisfied with how it went overall, though. Sure, none of the times were what I'd really hoped for, but I love racing and it was great to be back at a real meet.

Looking forward, I've got long course Nats coming up in October in Ohio, then there should be at least a few local meets before short course Nats in the spring in San Antonio, so hopefully getting back in the swing of regular racing, not to mention hopefully no more shoulder malarkey, will set me up well for San Antonio!

2019 USMS Spring Nationals--New best meet of my career?

Ok, I'm trying to decide whether this was the best meet of my career or if last year's Nats was the best of my career. Last year I had 3 lifetime PRs, 1 Masters PR, and 4 Masters 2nd best times. This meet resulted in 1 LPR, 2 MPRs, 2 Masters 2nd best times, and 1 Masters 3rd best time.

Meh, I think it's tied with last year for best meet ever, all things considered!

I swam a total of 6 races over 3 days of competition:

Friday: 200 breast, 100 free, 200 fly
Saturday: 200 back, 200 IM
Sunday: 200 free

Friday was rough! It was between 95-100 degrees most of the day, and I spent most of the 9 hours we were at the pool outside, though thankfully in the shade. That heat seriously saps your energy even if you stay well hydrated, which bit me in the butt by the time I got to the 200 fly. Saturday and Sunday I spent most of the day in the air conditioned gym, and my energy level was correspondingly much better.

Friday events

200 Breast

I went a 2:30.75, a new PR by .25 (last year's 2:31.00 was my previous LPR). From a technique standpoint, I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out, but the heat didn't have me at full energy. I'd been hoping to go sub-2:30, so while I *did* go a LPR, it wasn't quite as fast as I was hoping.

100 Free

That's me at the bottom of the screen...can't see much of the race, but you do get to see my AMAZING first turn! :-D

I went a 54.80, .15 off my MPR of 54.65 from 2017, so while the time is great I think it would have been well under that 54.65 if I'd had a clean race. Off the start, my goggle strap slipped down to the top of my ears and both lenses filled with water. While I've got my stroke count nailed down for most of my freestyle pacing, I had no idea what my stroke count would be for the first lap. Unable to see, I took a breath when I thought I had at least 3 strokes left to take before needing to flip, and saw the wall right *there* as I was rotating to breathe. I did a really sloppy, jammed, turn from that breath stroke, but then was able to do the rest of the race based off my stroke count. Managed to nail the stroke counts! Couldn't see anything clearly, but nailed all the turns.

200 Fly

Ok, by this point, I'd been outside for 8.5+ hours and the heat was really enervating. I was feeling substantially more tired pre-race than just being on my third event of the day would account for. I nailed my pacing for the first 100 and felt calm and in control...then just flat out ran out of steam. Normally, when I swim the 200 fly, I almost invariably take it out too fast and start to lock up around the 150 mark, then run out of energy. Not this time! Completely ran out of gas on the 125 lap, but physically felt fine besides that. Didn't start to tighten up until around the 165 mark, and still managed to pull out a last 50 split that's not far off my best masters last 50 split, and a full 1.5 seconds faster than the debacle of a last 50 I did at Greensboro in 2016, which was a race where I definitely took it out too fast and paid the price for it in return.

On the plus side, there were two good things that came out of this race--dropping my underwater kicks from 6 to 5 for the 200 worked quite well, energy draining heat aside, and I seem to have figured out how to have an upkick again when I swim fly! Looking at videos of my 200 fly from the past few years, my feet haven't broken the surface on my upkick, and often you can't even see any splash back there. Feet and splash were visible the whole race this time!

It was my 2nd fastest Masters performance (2:23.33) and just .6 off my MPR, with splits of 30.63, 35.60, 37.60, and 39.50.

Saturday events

200 Back

Ugh. As far as I'm concerned, there was only one good thing about this race--I stayed nice and straight in the lane, no ping ponging from one side to the other.

Everything just felt off. I had zero feel for the water and actually felt like there was a bubble surrounding me. Even from the start, I couldn't get my underwater kick count right during the whole race, and correspondingly my stroke count was never settled. Adding on to the crap sandwich that was this "race," my tempo never once got to where I wanted it to be.

All that aside, it was my 3rd fastest Masters time (2:17.75) with splits of 31.47, 34.61, 35.96, and 35.71. Not a *terrible* race, per se, just bad in terms of what it could have been. I'd gone into this race hoping for a 2:15 or faster and thought I had a legit shot at it...

200 IM

Not a clean race, but a new MPR by about .4!

Off the start my goggle strap slid over my left ear, leading to the eye piece being half over my left eye after the first turn (you can see it over my ear for most of the race in the video). Since I sight the lane rope out of my left eye on backstroke, and correspondingly couldn't see out of my left eye, I swerved towards the lane rope a bit on the 2nd 25 of backstroke. I also messed up my underwater kick count off the backstroke turn...that is, I had a brain fart and lost count of how many kicks I'd done...so I was one stroke too far out to do the back-breast crossover turn...grr!

Breast was inexplicably slow, 1.3 seconds slower than my breast split on my former MPR race from 2017. I would've expected the free leg to also be slow, but it was right at my 2017 split. Don't know what was going on with breast, since it didn't feel like it was a bad swim--I know the open turn vs the crossover turn was probably .3-.5 of that, but I don't know about the rest.

Splits of 28.05, 34.57, 40.03, and 32.22 for a MPR of 2:14.87, down from 2017's 29.34, 35.01, 38.75, and 32.17 for a 2:15.27. Again, beside that errant breaststroke split, I'm quite happy with how that turned out!

Side note, I don't think you can hear them in the video, but the timers in my line were hilarious! In the butterfly races, they'd be screaming at the swimmers in their lane, stuff like "spread your wings, you're a majestic butterfly!"

Sunday

200 Free

Last event of the meet and I was hurting going into it! After warmup that morning, my lower back and my hamstrings had been killing me, so I had a 20 minute massage focusing on just those two areas. Lower back felt fine for this race but my hamstrings were only marginally better.

They completely gave out coming off the 100 turn and I couldn't feel if I was kicking at all for the rest of the race. Turns out, looking at the video, that I actually kept a decent kick going the whole time, which is news to me! :-)

I was gassed on this race and you can tell everything hit me around that 100 mark--tempo goes down, kick decreased, I started breathing more, and even double breathed into a few turns, which is something I've actually almost entirely eliminated from practice, let alone racing! :-/

Still, I toughed it out and blasted my old MPR in the process, going a 2:01.72, a new MPR by 2.8 seconds! Splits were 27.44, 30.35, 31.87, and 32.06. You can definitely tell that I was carrying a piano with me on the second 100, but I'm still quite happy with the time! I'd come into this meet hoping for a 2:02.82 or faster, so goal definitively achieved.

Overall thoughts

This meet definitely had its ups and downs, but overall it was an outstanding success. Even my "bad" race, the 200 back, was still my 3rd fastest Masters time...

The heat was a real factor and something I hadn't really taken into account before the meet--I'd like to think I'd have been better in all three events on Friday (especially the 200 fly!) if I'd stayed indoors like I did Saturday and Sunday.

As a result of this meet, I'm actually throwing out my original training plan for the 2019-2020 season. The original plan had me training for and racing the 1000, 500, 400 IM, 200 free, and 200 IM at Nationals next year in San Antonio. I want a redo in some of my races from this meet, though, so I'm planning to train for and race the 200 fly, 200 IM, 200 free, 200 breast, 100 IM, and either the 100 fly or 100 breast. I'll do another blog post in a week or two on my training plan for next season, but as of now that's what I plan to do.

Nationals in a few days...all about pacing and them splits

All right, in two days I'll be on the plane to Arizona for USMS Spring Nationals!

One of the key themes this season in the NCAP senior prep practices that I go to has been pacing, primarily 200 pacing with some 500 pacing thrown in there. The idea is that you figure out what that pacing feels like in practice, so you can then turn around and swim that pace in a meet, rather than just showing up to race and having no idea what pace you’ll go.

Sure, you can have two swimmers who go a 2:00 in the 200 free, for example, but they might split their races very differently. In practice, Swimmer A would figure out how they’d need to pace their race and what their splits should be for each 50. Ditto for Swimmer B. Let’s say Swimmer A splits his 2:00 200 free as 28.0, 29.5, 31.0, 31.5. In practice, se should know what that 28.0 feels like, what the 29.5 feels like, and so on. And not only know what it feels like, but be able to consistently swim that time in practice when he’s supposed to be swimming that pace. Before his race at a meet, he knows exactly how he’s going to swim the race; during the race, he knows approximately how it’s going as he’s swimming it, since he knows what his desired splits feel like.

That’s the whole idea behind the pace work we’ve been doing all season and it’s a concept I wholeheartedly support both as a swimmer and as a coach!

Like I mentioned earlier, we’ve been working on pacing a lot in practice, and I’m mostly pretty happy with how I’ve done with 200 pacing for the various strokes. Here’s how I’m hoping to split my races by 50, in order, at Nationals barring any injuries or meltdowns. These are all ballpark target times, so if I've got a 37.5 listed, for example, but actually go a 37.1 or a 37.9, I won't mind. If I go a 38.5, on the other hand...

200 Breast

33.0, 37.5, 38.5, 40.5 for a target time of 2:29.5. As points of reference, here are my two most recent fast 200 breast splits:

• 2018 Spring Nationals: 32.7, 37.4, 39.5, 41.3 for a 2:31.0
• March 2019 meet: 33.5, 37.9, 40.3, 41.4 for a 2:33.3 

I’ve been working on my middle 100 pacing for this and last Thursday I did two of ‘em (I did 2 x (1 x 100 at pace and a 50 easy, together on 3:00) and was 1:19 on the first one and 1:18 on the second one. Given that I’m aiming for a 1:16 on the middle 100, a 1:18 in practice is right there, given that I’ll be shaved, suited, and amped up during the race itself compared to practice.

I also think I’ll be able to swim it smarter than I have in the past—I get my speed in breaststroke from the underwater pullout, but up until the past few weeks, I consistently stayed underwater too long in the 200, which brought up lots of oxygen deprivation issues on the back half of the race. I’ve been working the past few weeks on shortening my pullout a bit for the 200, which has paid off in not dying as bad in practice.

100 Free

25.8, 28.5 for a target time of 54.3. As a point of comparison, the last time I did this shaved and tapered was back in 2017, I split 26.0 and 28.6 for a 54.6. As another point of comparison, my real* lifetime PR is a 54.4 from when I was an age grouper. My official lifetime PR is a 52.8 as an age grouper, but I’m pretty sure that was a timing glitch since I never broke 54.4 before or after that errant 52.8.

I haven’t been doing any real 100 free training this season, I only entered this event because Nathan Adrian had said he was going to swim at USMS Nationals prior to his cancer diagnosis and I wanted to “race” him. I also haven’t been doing any 100 pace training during my taper and don’t plan to over these last few days before I swim it on Friday, so who knows how I’ll actually split it! 😊

200 Fly

30.7, 36.0, 36.5, 36.5 for a 2:19.7. As a point of comparison, my Masters PR, and the last time I actually raced the 200 fly, was from 2017 (noticeably, not a shaved and tapered meet with splits of 31.4, 36.0, 37.4, 37.7 for a 2:22.6.

I’ve actually been having issues in practice during my taper so far with going too fast on my fly pace work. Last Thursday I did 3 pace 50s fly and then the same 100 pace/50 easy set I did for breast. I was :35, :34, :35 for the 50s, then 1:13 on both 100s. I would love to be able to hold those paces at the meet, but since I haven’t really done any 200 fly training until the last month or so, I don’t know if I have the aerobic base to do that without having one of my more epic meltdowns on the last 50. I did two more pace 50s on Saturday at the end of practice and way waaaay too fast on the first one with a :32, but managed to slow it down to a :35 on the second one. Frankly, it feels like I'm holding way too far back to go a :35, so I really don't know what to really expect at the meet.

200 Back

31.2, 34.2, 34.5, 34.5 for a 2:14.6. As a point of comparison, my 200 back from Nationals last year had splits of 31.4, 34.6, 35.0, 35.4 for a 2:16.6.

My backstroke is a big question mark right now. The stroke feels pretty good in the water, but my times aren’t there. I’ve been holding anywhere from :34-:36 on pace 50s during my taper, and my pace 100s have been from 1:09-1:12. Unlike with any of my other strokes, I haven’t been able to nail down a consistent pace. I’m hoping it’ll iron itself out over the last few practices of my taper, but so far, meh.

200 IM

29.0, 34.2, 38.7, 32.1 for a 1:14.0. As a point of reference, my last shaved and tapered 200 IM was in 2017 with splits of 29.3, 35.0, 38.7, 32.1 for a 2:15.2.

I haven’t done any 200 IM pacing per se during my taper, but we did some great 200 IM sets a couple months ago. My big problem has historically been primarily that I go too slow on the backstroke leg. The 200 IM set we did a few times was a number of 150 IMs, dropping the fly, with the goal of swimming around the same time as the equivalent 150 split in your meet 200 IM. For me, my best meet split is a 1:46 for the back-breast-free portion. During the set, I was holding 1:43s and 1:44s, so I *should* be able to actually swim faster than my target splits listed above if I can get it through my head to hammer the backstroke leg instead of hold back a bit like I habitually do.

200 Free

27.5, 30.0, 31.0, 31.5 for a 2:00.0. As a point of comparison, my last shaved and tapered 200 free was in 2017 and I had splits of 28.5, 31.0, 32.0, 32.8 for a 2:04.5.

Ok, this one is pretty ambitious, especially for being the last of 6 events at the meet, but *should* be theoretically feasible. My problem in the past with this race has been holding back too much on the front half. I did the same set of 50s and 100s in practice on Thursday and was holding :30s and :31s on the 50s, and a 1:02 and 1:03 on the 100s.

Even more ambitious, looking up my results from back in the day, my lifetime PR is a 2:00.3. I know I generally swim much smarter these days than I did as an age grouper, but I’ll be pretty amused if I set a lifetime PR in freestyle, of all strokes, in my 30s! :-D

2019 Zones recap--last meet before Nationals!

I swam at the local Masters championship meet this past weekend, the 2019 Colonies Zone SCY Championship at George Mason University.

Since I've been doing my focus events (all the 200s) at meets throughout the season, I only signed up to race non-focus events at this meet to change it up and help me not set unrealistic standards a few weeks out from Nats. I've done that before, when I used to swim the same lineup at Zones that I was going to do at Nationals a few weeks later, and had some performances that got in my head when I didn't swim as well as I wanted, so by not doing *any* of the same events at both meets, I nicely side stepped that issue entirely!

I'll get into the event recaps next, but first I want to go over the major fiasco of the meet, the tech suit situation.

For some context, every year before Nationals (except for this one), I've ordered a bunch of different tech suits, tried 'em all on, then kept the one that fit the best to wear for Nats and returned the rest. Last year, out of the 8 I tried on, I really liked how two of them fit, so I kept both, wore one for Nats, and decided to save the other one to wear for Zones this year and next year. In case anyone is interested, the two suits I kept last year were the A3 Performance VICI and the Finis Rival. I wore the VICI at Nats last year and it was my in-season suit this year, and I broke out the Rival for this meet.

For the first time in 8+ years, I've been consistently lifting in the weight room for the past 5 months or so, and as a result, I've put on a noticeable amount of muscle mass in my legs. That came back to bit me in the heinie, more on that below...

I also didn't taper at all besides dropping a 50 here and there my last practice before the meet, and still kept with heavy workouts in the weight room on Monday and Wednesday. I've been swimming pretty tired and heavy in the water lately, which is right where I want to be before starting my 1.5 week taper for Nats, but I wasn't sure how that'd affect me for the meet.

Friday

1000 Free

I swam the 1000 on Friday. I'd swam it for the first time as a Masters swimmer in 2017, when Zones was my shave/taper meet. I'd gone a 12:10 then and wanted to be around that time now. In warmup, I'd noticed that the Rival was pretty tight on my legs, especially the bottom 4" or so above my knees, but didn't think much of it because I don't drive a hard kick during the 1000. The race started off pretty well, but I felt pretty low in the water. Bizzarely, around the halfway point of the race, my eyes went out of focus, with one eye feeling like it was focusing on an entirely different focal point than the other. It was super disconcerting and quickly became nausea inducing with both eyes open, so for the rest of the race I alternated between half a lap with only one eye open, then half a lap with the other eye open. At that point, I decided to not worry about my time, and only worry about finishing the race without hurling. I managed to finish without puking, but was seriously dizzy with a pretty pounding headache by the end of the race and didn't swim fast at all.

I ended up going a 12:26, 16 seconds slower than in 2017. All that said, it could have been much worse. From a purely physical standpoint, I still felt pretty fresh at the end of the swim. Well, relatively speaking--I was still feeling tired and heavy in general, but compared to how I felt before starting the 1000, I felt pretty fresh.

It ended up taking another 8-10 minutes for my eyes to go back to being in focus after I finished the 1000. I was still alternating which eye was open during my cooldown, then they just switched back to normal, and the headache faded away after another 30 minutes or so. This is the first time this has ever happened to me, so I don't know if it's something I should be worried about in the future, or if it was just some fluke. It didn't happen again the rest of the meet.

Saturday

I started to think something might be amiss with the Rival suit during warmup. My thighs felt quite fatigued and they didn't get any better over the course of my ~35 minute warmup, which usually isn't an issue. I also noticed while doing some fast kicking during the warmup that the band at the bottom of the leg right above the knee was almost painfully tight, and the few inches above that were also abnormally tight.

Mixed 400 Free Relay

I anchored our mixed 400 free relay and it was rough. First 50 felt pretty good, though my legs felt really fatigued, and everything just hurt on the 2nd 50, along with me feeling more like I was finishing a 200 than finishing a 100, and felt like a lead balloon, to boot. My time was actually quite good, though, with a 55.22 split. As a point of reference, last year at Zones I was a 56.64 on the same relay, and looking back over the past few years, I'm usually between a high 55 and high 56 in this relay. Getting out of the pool after the relay, my legs really freaking hurt, though.

Mixed 200 Medley Relay

This was about 5 minutes after the 400 free relay, with one heat of the 200 medley between the two relays. I led off with backstroke and not only had a bad start and way too long turn, but I was gassed--I went a 30.69 and really had nothing in the tank that soon after the 400 free relay. On top of that, my legs were excruciating coming off the turn and I don't know if I had any legs at all on the second lap. Looks like I was even slower last year, though, with a 31.39, but was much faster in 2017, with a 28.83.

50 Fly

I'd warmed down for a solid 500 after the two relays but my legs were still painful. Getting up on the blocks for this race was a slow and painful process. I went a 27.67, which is a bit better than the 27.79 I went at this meet last year, but a far cry from the mid 26 I regularly went when I actually trained for sprint fly several years ago. After both my quads cramped up while climbing out of the pool, I decided I had to ditch the suit.

500 Free

I scratched this race. I was scheduled to swim about 45 minutes after the 50 fly, but even after taking the suit off and using the roller on my legs for a solid 10 minutes, I was still cramping and didn't want to potentially make things worse if there was actually something wrong with my legs beyond the suit issues.

50 Back

By this point, I'd been out of the Rival for about an hour and a half and had swum around a 450 in the warmup pool in a borrowed speedo and my drag suit. Still felt tired and heavy in the water, but my legs weren't nearly as painful as they'd been earlier.

I had a much better start than I did on the relay and ended up with a 30.06. I'd been a 29.64 at Zones last year, but that was with me wearing an actual tech suit, so I figure a .4 deficit with a drag suit on isn't too shabby!

Going off on a bit of a tangent here...notwithstanding the too-tight issue, there's a definite difference between wearing a tech suit and a brief (or drag suit in my case). With a properly fitted tech suit, the jammer's compression locks your muscles into place, provides a bit of buoyancy, and helps lift your legs into a more optimal position, along with varying degrees of water impermeability from one tech suit to the next. With a brief/drag suit, you have none of that and it's a very clear difference going from one to the other. Throw in the amount of extra drag a drag suit provides and it's a night and day difference between the two types of suits.

Men's 200 Free Relay

I anchored our men's 200 free relay at the end of the day. I pulled a 25.23 out of my kiester, which I was quite happy with, all things considered. Even being fatigued and rocking a drag suit, that's faster than I usually am at Zones with a relay start--I'm normally in the mid-upper 25 range. I'd gone into the meet hoping to break 25, but I will definitely settle for this time with everything going on!

Sunday

I had a lighter lineup on paper than what I actually swam on Saturday, but it ended up being pretty much just as rough. During warmup I felt really, really tired and heavy in the water, but my legs felt no more fatigued than they should've been after two days of swimming, so at least the cramping/pain issues were resolved! I stayed with the drag suit for all my races on Sunday. I figured that since I was training through Zones, I'd *really* train through it and deprive myself of the benefits of a tech suit.

50 breast

Ugh, this was a sloppy race. I really can't figure out sprint breaststroke. Increasing my tempo to anything faster than my 100 pace makes it feel like everything is falling apart--my kick feels like both my feet and knees are getting all wonky, I feel like I'm losing water on my catch, and my body perpetually feels out of place since I'm not getting a good glide between strokes. On top of all that, my left hand was out of place on the turn and it slipped down the wall, making my turn off balance and jerky. I went a 32.52 which isn't a great time, especially compared to the 31.49 I went last month, but could've been worse. All things considered, I wasn't happy with the time, but also wasn't disappointed with it, just meh.

400 IM

Hey, I won my age group in this! :-D
As far as time is concerned, this was pretty bad. I went a 5:14, which is 14 seconds off my Masters best. With how everything was going, I decided I just wanted to make it through the event while hopefully not completely dying. First 50 of fly felt good, though I felt really, really low in the water, and my back locked up on the 4th lap of the fly, with that last lap feeling like the closing lap of some of my more painful 200 flys in memory; in addition, both goggles had almost completely filled up during the fly. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the swim. I couldn't really see anything on the backstroke leg except during the flip, when the water would move away from my eyes, so I did that 100 based solely on stroke count. Surprisingly, I nailed 3 of the backstroke walls going off stroke count with only the 150 turn being long! My legs were pretty long gone by the time I got through the breast and started on the free portion, and my back muscles had long since atrophied and turned into fossils, too, but I made it through the free with less pain than I've had other times I've swam the 400.
Also surprisingly, with the exception of the 2nd 50 fly, my splits were surprisingly consistent. Slooow but consistent. 32-39 for fly, 41-40 back, 43-43 breast, and 37-36 free. You can call me Eeyore!

Bonus points if you can figure out if the video is of my race or that chick's butt... 😂

Men's 400 Free Relay

I led off this relay, but was dragging by this point. First 50 felt great, my legs very quickly died after the 50 turn, and the rest of my body shut down after the 75 turn. I was a BLAZING 58.01...which is surprisingly only the 2nd slowest relay 100 free I can find, after an absolute stinker of a 1:03.4 I did at Zones in 2015. Fun fact, the dude leading off the relay in the lane to my right is Katie Ledecky's older brother. I can say I got to race Ledecky! :-D

Men's 200 Medley Relay

This was another 5 minute double, like the two relays Saturday morning. I did the breast leg this time and actually pulled out a 34.01, which really surprised me. Still dirt slow, but with a relay start that was pretty much me just exhaustedly falling off the block and little energy on the swim (side note--my tired tempo on this race felt much better than my too-quick tempo from the individual 50 breast, and I nailed the turn, to boot), I'm pretty happy with it. Back in 2013, which is the last time I can find me doing the 50 breast on a relay at Zones, I was a suited 33.36. It's not really an apples to apples comparison, though, since my breaststroke all around was markedly worse in 2013 than it is now (my best times then vs now for the 50, 100, and 200: 33.34-31.49, 1:11.74-1:07.99, and 2:47.61-2:31.00).

Overall thoughts

With everything taken into account, I'm pretty happy with how this meet turned out. Dizziness and suit induced leg issues aside, my times were surprisingly solid for racing in a drag suit. I touched on it earlier, but there is a HUGE difference in my opinion between swimming in a properly fitted tech suit and a drag suit. Even taking that into account, my times were surprisingly good (for me, anyways).

This week will be my last of heavy training before starting my taper for Nats--5 practices and 1 lifting workouts with medium weights (I'm stepping the weights down this week, up till now I've alternated between 2 and 3 lifting sessions per week and they've all been heavy), then I start tapering in the pool and I'm out of the weight room till after Nats.

I'm usually a big shave and taper swimmer, but this is the first time as a Masters swimmer that I've been lifting heading into the end of the season, so I'm hoping two weeks is enough for my body, especially my legs, to recover from lifting and put me in my normal tapered state ready for traveling to Arizona on April 24th for Nats!

Heading into 2019 Nationals on the right foot!

I've got the 2019 USMS Spring National Championship coming up in just over a month (April 25th-28th) in Mesa, AZ. After a long season of training and competing, I'm down to one final meet before Nats, the local Masters Zone championship April 5th-7th.

I think I'm in the best shape I've been as a Masters swimmer right now! All season, I've been swimming with the senior prep group of the age group team I coach. I've been averaging 4-6 practices a week, usually most of 'em with the kids and one a week with my Masters team every now and then. It's definitely paying off--my aerobic base in practice is better than it's been in recent memory and I've been able to hold intervals I haven't hit since being a teenager. That's translated to meets this season, too, in that even when I've swum a race with a poor strategy and paid for it at the finish, I haven't been absolutely wrecked like has been all too common in the past few years (I'm looking at you, 200 fly and 200 breast).

So far this season, I've swum in 10 meets--5 age group and 5 Masters, with 2 Masters meets to go. Couldn't tell you the last time, if ever, that I swam 12 meets in a season! I came into the season with the goal to swim every event from the 1000 on down at least once. Through Zones in a couple weeks, I'll have doubled that and swum some of those events 3-4 times, to boot!

I'm a firm believer of the idea that the way to race better is to race more. I've had some absolutely atrocious races at various meets this season, but each one has been a learning moment and I'm happy to say that for the most part, I haven't repeated the errors that made the bad races so bad. Uh, I was informed in November that my approach to the wall in backstroke is too slow, thought I fixed it in practice, then was told by the same coach that, nope, my approach was still slow in February...but I fixed the other issues!

From a preparation standpoint, swimming at the age group meets has been fantastic. I generally swam on both Saturday and Sunday of those meets, and that's where I regularly had some of my worst races from a time standpoint. I discovered that being at the pool racing and coaching for 12 hours on Saturday completely wrecks me for doing that all over again on Sunday, but it's phenomenal preparation for being mentally ready to race through fatigue and pain. There were a couple times this season where I swam a particular event at an age group meet one weekend and put up an ok to middling time in the midst of being on deck for 20+ hours, then swam that same race the next weekend fresh at a Masters meet and dropped a substantial amount of time even if the race itself was sloppy or otherwise unoptimal.

****

All that background out of the way, I've got my heaviest event lineup yet in place for Nats. I'm doing all five 200s (200 fly, 200 back, 200 breast, 200 free, and 200 IM) and have the 100 free as my optional 6th event. I've swum all of 'em except the 200 back at least twice this season and am quite happy with where I'm at right now. I'm a big taper swimmer, so me being at in-season PRs in most of those events right now is hopefully a great sign of things to come!

Here's the list of where I'm currently at for each of those events, along with how they compare in the grand scheme of things and what my Nationals targets are for 'em.

Event	Best in-season time this season	Best in-season time last 3 seasons	Best tapered time last 3 seasons	Masters PR	Goal time at 2019 Nats
200 fly	2:30.42	2:22.68	2:23.94	2:22.68	2:22.50
200 back	2:26.20*	2:18.18	2:16.60	2:12.90	2:14.50
200 breast	2:33.34	2:38.60	2:31.00	2:31.00	2:29.50
200 free	2:06.03	2:07.17	2:04.36	2:04.36	2:02.50
200 IM	2:19.54	2:19.94	2:15.27	2:15.27	2:14.50
100 free	56.62	57.10	54.65	54.65	54.50

Here's my breakdown event by event, in the order I'll swim them at Nationals.

Friday, April 26th

200 breast

I think the key for me to break 2:30 in this race is to be strategic. I know my underwaters are by far my strongest suit in breaststroke, but every time I hammer the underwaters in the 200, I pay the price on the back half. After the first 50, I want to shorten the underwaters a bit and try to not get into oxygen deprivation. I've been training in practice this season to hit 7 strokes per lap, but for the next month I'm going to aim for 8 strokes with a shortened pullout.

Two other things that will help me hit my goal:

• Better outsweep on my kick: Due to somewhat limited lateral mobility in my knees and especially in my ankles (I'm definitely not a natural breaststroker), I've naturally got a narrow kick that doesn't give much propulsion. I've been working on it for the past month or so and think I can continue to improve it through Nationals. I've gone to two private lessons for my kick and have another lesson coming up this weekend working on it, so hopefully it'll pay off! Side note--the lessons have identified *what* I need to do to fix the kick, it's a matter of actually doing it while I swim, since it feels really weird and is something that goes against what I assume is 20+ years of bad habits as a competitive swimmer.
• Attacking it on the 2nd 50: In the past I've tended to ride the pullout too long on the 2nd 50 and have given up valuable speed. Gonna try tightening that up and get that 2nd 50 split down. I think if I can do that and keep myself out of the ox dep zone, I should hopefully keep the last 50 under :40.

100 free

Frankly, I don't train speed work for anything, especially not for free. This is going to be a crapshoot, but if I hit my turns, I should be able to go a Masters PR. 

200 fly

I haven't trained for the 200 fly for several seasons now, but since my aerobic base is much better than it was when I last trained for that race in the 2015-2016 season, I think I've got a real shot at hitting my goal time. I've swum the 200 twice this season, both times in the last month or so, and both times simply cruised through the 200 without a race strategy, just doing it as a morale booster. I have a complicated history with the 200 fly. I love the race in general, but as a Masters swimmer it's almost always had my number and treated me as its red headed stepchild...and I've had a tendency to really melt down on the last 50.

A few key focus areas for me:

• Technique: Up until this past summer, I had a tendency to have my hands enter too narrow, and correspondingly sweep my hands outward before pulling back. That's, uh, pretty inefficient and wastes time, and I've been working on it in practice this season. I still tend to do it in the 50 and sometimes in the 200, but I think I've eradicated that habit in the 200, so I'm hoping I can carry that through this race.
• Underwater kicks and stroke count: Like with breaststroke, I've historically tended to stay underwater too long and it's bit me in the booty with severe oxygen deprivation in the last 50-75 of the race. While I haven't been working on 200 fly training in practice, per se, I have been working on my kick and stroke count. Before, I was focused on 6 kicks and 7 strokes per lap, now I'm working on 5 kicks and 8 strokes per lap. I did that for both of the 200s I've done this season and didn't feel the piano until the last 5-10 yards of both swims, so I'm hoping that will carry through to Nationals when I actually *race* the 200.

Saturday, April 27th

200 back

Ok, I've only done this once so far this season, and just cruised it since I had the 200 fly coming up about 15 minutes later. I went the 2:26 listed in the above table, but I was barely even breathing hard at the end of the race--I've got a number of 2:23s and 2:24 in-season races in the past, and those were all ones where I hammered it to go those times, in comparison to now where I more or less loafed it and still came within a few seconds of those times. I've gone pretty decent in-season times in the 50 and 100, so I'm overall pretty optimistic for this race.

As is a common refrain with the underwater-heavy races, my key focus area is being more strategic with my underwaters in this race. In the past I've gone 14 kicks off the start (that gets me breaking out right at the 15m marker), 10-11 kicks off the first turn, 8-9 off the 2nd turn, 6-7 off the next few turns, then 4-5 kicks off the last turn, and have always run into major oxygen deprivation by the end of the race. The clearest example of that was the race at 2013 Nats where I went my Masters PR--I fully blacked out on the 2nd to last lap--I remember turning at the 150 and then coming out of the turn at the 175, no clue what happened in between those two turns.

I've been working in practice to hit 12 kicks off the start, 8 off the next turn, 7 off the next, then 6 kicks after that. There will inherently be ox dep in the 200 back, but if I can keep out of the worst of that zone, I should be all right.

200 IM

I've been a victim of self inflicted poor race strategy in this race, primarily around swimming too slow on the fly and back legs--I think I've always been subconsciously afraid of taking it out too fast and then having an epic crash and burn on the back half, but I've got the aerobic base now that unless I truly sprinted the fly and back, I'll be able to handle a back half pain train, so this is a mental issue rather than a physical limitation. 

We've done some great 200 IM pacing sets in the age group practices this season, so if I can actually carry those lessons learned through to this race, I should be able to knock it out of the park.

Side note--the 2:19 I did this season in January is .5 faster than my next fastest in-season time as a Masters swimmer (and is my 2nd fastest Masters time, to boot!), and I had the double whammy handicap of swimming the front half too slow and having my back foot slip off the block on the start and effectively just falling into the pool. Subtracting the start handicap, I should've been on track for a 2:17 high or 2:18 low, which would have been a phenomenal in-season time, since my fly split was about 1.25 seconds slower than it should have been and my back split was about .5 seconds slower than it should have been.

Sunday, April 28th

200 free

Almost verbatim, this is the same issue as the 200 IM. I swam it most recently at a Masters meet in January...and took it out noticeably too slow and had far too much left in the tank at the end of the race. If I can get over that subconscious hurdle of holding back on the front half, I should be able to throw down a (for me, anyways) great time.

2018 USMS Spring Nationals...best Masters meet of my career!

Actually, on second thought, I think that might have been the best meet of my entire swimming career!

I came out of the meet with 3 lifetime best times, 1 Masters best time, and 4 Masters second best times. I can't recall any meet, either as a Masters swimmer or as an age grouper, where I swam so consistently well across that large a variety of events.

I swam 8 races over my 3 days of competition (the meet is 4 days long, but I didn't do the 1000 or the 1650 that were on the first day):

• Friday: 100 back, 50 free leading off our mixed 200 free relay
• Saturday: 200 breast, 100 IM, 50 back leading off our men's 200 medley relay
• Sunday: 100 breast, 50 free on our men's 200 free relay, 200 back

Side note--the video quality is pretty terrible, I have a defective camcorder that I'm sending in for a warranty repair/replacement.

Friday events

100 back

This was a pretty good race! I went a 1:01.19, my 2nd fastest Masters time and my fastest since 2013 Nationals, which was at IUPUI, too. My backstroke start wasn't terrible, but I definitely need to keep working on using the bars. My 50 and 75 turns were a bit long, but all things considered, I was very happy with the race! I haven't done any real backstroke speed work since the 2012-2013 season, when all I trained for was the 50/100/200 back, so this was a really good time. I'd gone into the race just hoping to break 1:02, so I'll take it! Side note--I've perfected the art of coming up right at the 15m mark off the start! :-)

Mixed 200 free relay

Another great race! I went a 24.95, just .03 off my Masters PR set at 2012 Nationals, and my fastest since then (my next fastest was a 25.44 from 2013). I had a bad turn...started the turn stroke almost a full stroke too far away from the wall, so I tried to salvage it by lengthening the turn. Looks like I managed it!

Saturday events

200 breast

Thankfully no video of this one... :-)

I set a new lifetime PR with a 2:31.00, which dropped my former PR of 2:32.50 that I set at Zones last year! That being said, technique-wise it was a sloppy race. I made the utterly boneheaded decision to try to pace the guy next to me for the first 75 after we were even at the first turn, which came back to bite me in the behind on the last 50--I'm pretty sure I looked like a little kid sprinting, taking 50 strokes, and barely making forward progress by that point (my stroke count for the 25-150 of the 200 is usually 7 strokes...I took 14 on the last lap...). I probably should have taken it out about .75 slower for the first 100, but it was still a new LPR, so I'll take it and count it as a lesson learned.

100 IM

This was my most ideal race of the whole meet! I went a 1:00.59, crushing my former lifetime PR of 1:01.42 from Zones last year. There was only one technical error, I was about a half stroke too close to the wall on my back-breast turn, so I lost some time and air trying to recover from it. Besides that, I can't think of anything else I'd have done differently!

Men's 200 medley relay

I led off the relay and went a 28.65, my 2nd fastest Masters time and fastest since 2013 Nationals. My start was again only ok, but hey, this meet was my first time using either the bars or the backstroke wedge, so I'm not complaining! Felt like I was spinning a bit, but the race as a whole was good, so no complaints from me!

Sunday events

100 breast

This one was a bit of a mixed bag. I went a 1:08.38, .4 off the lifetime PR I set at Zones last year, but my 50 split was a 31.47...which is a lifetime PR by .4! I just took this race out too fast and was hurting at the end, and also was really long on the 75 turn. Probably should have been out around a 31.8 or so, but it was all in all a decent swim. As a side note, it's really apparent in this video that I'm not a natural breaststroker. I've got a weak kick and my underwaters being better than most people I race is the only thing that keeps me from getting trounced by my competition.

Men's 200 free relay

Whoo boy! I went 2nd on the relay and went a new Masters relay split PR with a 24.63, despite a glacially slow relay start. Despite having never jumped and DQed a relay in my life, I've got a deep seated and utterly irrational fear of doing so, so I've got sloooooow relay starts. Conservatively, I'd say I probably left half a second on the block. Ya know, that means I'm like Caeleb Dressel! Both of our relay starts are only marginally faster, or no faster, than our flat starts! 'Course, the time difference in his is just because his flat start is that good, not because he's slow off the blocks on relays, but whatever... :-D

200 back

This was my last event of the meet and I was tired! I still went a 2:16.60, which is my 2nd fastest Masters time and fastest since 2013 Nationals. Frankly, I'm surprised I swam it that well. I've apparently forgotten how to swim back without a beard, since I had water washing into my mouth pretty much the entire time. I swam the race with 8 full breaths, the breath on the start and then the turn stroke breath at the end of each lap, every stinkin' single other breath I took resulted in at least a partial mouth full of water! I had to cut my underwater butterfly kicks down during the race--I've spent all season training to be able to hit 6 kicks consistently off every wall, but had to drop down to 5 and then 4 during this race. All that said, I'll take it!

Thoughts and path ahead

This was all in all a fantastic meet, very possibly the best meet I've had in my 20+ years of competing! I've had meets in the past where I've done better in a few events, but never had a meet that I can remember where I've done so consistently well across every event I swam.

Looking forward, I want to keep expanding my repertoire of events. Up till 2 years ago, I would not have expected to do anywhere near as well in the breast events as I've done over the past two seasons, setting lifetime PRs in all three distances. Over the next 5 years, I plan to spend at least one season focusing on each event from the 1000 on down (for example, this season I focused primarily on the 100 and 200 breast, with the 100 and 200 back as a very secondary focus...probably an 80/20 split between my breast and back training focus this season).

To help achieve those goals, I want to keep training with the NCAP senior prep group in the fall-spring season! I started swimming with them in late January/early February this year and it really paid off, so I plan to swim Monday/Tuesday/Thursday evenings with them again, starting at the beginning of the fall season this time instead of waiting till past the midway point of the season. I'll also aim to hit 1-3 Masters practices a week, possibly Thursday/Friday/Saturday mornings, or Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday mornings. On top of that, there is a free gym at my office, so I plan to start lifting twice a week over my lunch breaks this summer and maintain that moving forward. I'll focus primarily on legs and core, since that's where my strengths are as a swimmer and I'll want to capitalize on those strengths as much as possible, and then upper body for the rest, maybe a 75/25 split.

Most importantly, looking at my training plan moving forward, that is all actually reasonable! The NCAP practices are sandwiched between the practices I coach, so I don't have to add anything to my schedule to continue swimming with them. Same with weights, I'm already at the office and it doesn't add any time to my day, so those should be feasible. I've consistently been hitting 2-3 Masters morning practices each week since February, so I'd like to think I can maintain that moving forward, as well.

If I can maintain this kind of schedule starting from the beginning of the fall season in September, I think it will pay off much larger dividends than the abbreviated training schedule did this season, and I was quite happy with how this season turned out!

Zones last weekend...wow, what a meet!!!

At the age of 30, and about ~50 pounds heavier than I was at the peak of my swimming career in high school, I had my best meet ever last weekend!

I wasn't able to go to Nationals this spring, so Zones became my shave/taper meet of the season. Since January, I've averaged 6-7 practices a week (3-4 in the morning, 3 in the evenings on my own), which is a level of training I haven't hit since my first season on the team back in '11-'12. It's definitely paid off! I've been able to hit intervals in practice I haven't hit since high school, and my overall endurance and speed is way up from the past few years.

During the 7 meets I did this season before Zones, my swims were overall trending quite positive. I had a few less-than-satisfactory swims, but by and large, I was hitting typical shaved/tapered end-of-season times at random in season meets.

Going into Zones, I wanted to make sure I didn't do what I've tended to do in the past, which is overload myself with individual events and max out on relays. A perfect example of that was Zones a few years ago--over the course of Saturday and Sunday, I swam a total of 9 individual events and 8 relays, which was an epic disaster! This time around, I swam 7 individual events (counting the 1000 on Friday) and 7 relays. With the combination of spreading the event load over three days and my being in significantly better shape, I didn't crash and burn at all! I had a couple swims that weren't as stellar as I was hoping for, but this still stands as my best meet ever.

Friday

1000 free

I haven't done the 1000 since I was 16 or 17. Just to make it clear up front, I don't like distance. I *can* do distance, but I don't have the patience for it and it bores me, and I don't train for it in practice. That being said, this was a complete throwaway event. My three goals were to break 12:30 (that's a 1:15 pace per 100), not embarrass myself, and not kill myself for the rest of the meet. It was a surprisingly good swim! I stayed in cruise control till the last 50, only doing flutter kick off the walls and pretty much not kicking on the surface, and I finished the race without feeling tired in the slightest, feeling like I'd just finished a 1000 pull. I went a 12:10 and think I could easily shave off another 15-20 seconds, if not more, if I ever decide to swim it again.

Saturday

100 free

I'd set my flat start MPR of 56.51 in this event last spring, leading off the 400 free relay at Nationals. I usually only do the 100 free a couple times a season, and have usually been in the 56-57 range. Last month, I did the 100 at a short course meters meet and my time converted to a high 55. After that swim, I decided to see what I could do at Zones. I don't train for free in general, and definitely don't train for sprint free (or sprints of any stroke, for that matter), so I just wanted to see what I could go. It was great! I was about 6 inches too far from the wall on two of the three turns, but everything else was about as good as I can remember ever doing in the 100. I went a 54.65, which blows my previous MPR out of the record and puts me in contention with my lifetime PR of 54.4! I'm very happy with how my first "real" event of the meet turned out, and am considering adding it to my event rotation for next year.

200 mixed medley relay

I swam the fly leg on this relay. Remember what I said earlier about not training sprint free? Well, I hadn't done the 50 fly in well over a year and haven't done a lick of fly speed training in practice in probably 2 years. As soon as I started swimming, I could tell! Stroke tempo felt awful, I felt completely out of whack compared to the slower tempo I'm used to in the 100 and 200 fly. That being said, I split a 26.3, which is my 2nd fastest Masters time. I'll take it!

200 IM

IMs in general are another event I don't train for--I train for the individual strokes (well, fly, back, and breast, not so much when it comes to free). The 200 IM has been a bit of a nemesis over the past few years--I went a 2:19 at my first Zones in 2012, but didn't get back under 2:20 till January, when I went a 2:19.9. In fact, my most recent 200 IM prior to January was a 2:25 I did in January 2015. My one goal was to beat the 2:19 from 2012. I did it quite well! I went a 2:15.2, and almost all of the time improvement came on the back half. My breast and free were both a bit over 2 seconds faster than on both of my 2:19 performances, which is great, since that's historically where my IMs have fallen apart, even back in the day.

200 breast

This was the first of the two events I was most looking forward to at this meet. I've spent the past two years improving my breaststroke, putting lots of time and effort into it in practice to try and have it not be such a drag like it used to be back in the day. I had a great 200 breast last spring at Nationals and got to within 4 seconds of my LPR of 2:32.51, so my goal this time was to try and go sub-3:35. I blew that goal out of the water! I crashed and burned pretty bad on the last 35 yards or so, but I broke my LPR and went a 2:32.50! Only a .01 drop, but that's the first "real" LPR I've broken as a Masters swimmer! I broke my 50 fly LPR in 2012, but I don't really count that one, since I only swam the 50 fly a handful of times as a teenager, always at one of the first meets of the season, coming off the break after long course. I was ecstatic with how this turned out! My goal for next year is to aim for 2:30. I think if I can clean up that last 50, it's definitely within reach.

800 free relay

This was about 20-25 minutes after the 200 breast and I was still hurting. Energy level was low and my left bicep and pec were really tight from the 200 breast, so I didn't expect much going in. I still went a 2:04.5, which is only .2 off my flat start MPR from last Nationals. I'm now very interested to see what I can do in the 200 free without all the other stuff going on, and think I could hit a 2:02 or better. My LPR is a 2:00 and change, so I'm not that far off!

400 medley relay

This was about 10-15 minutes after the 800 free relay and I was dragging by this point. I wasn't in pain at all, but man, I was tired! I led off the relay and knew I wouldn't be able to throw down a great 100 time, so rather than crashing and burning, I decided to swim it like the first 100 of the 200 back. In that aspect, it wasn't bad at all--I went a 1:05.2, which is right at what I wanted to take the 200 out in.

Sunday

100 IM

My MPR going into this meet was a 1:01.5 from 2012 Nationals, and besides going a 1:01.7 at 2013 Nationals, I hadn't broken a 1:02.7 since then. Back in January, I went a 1:02.9, so my goal for this meet was just to break 1:02. I went a 1:01.42, a new MPR! My back to breast crossover turn was too long (I was about half a stroke too far out at the flags, so I had to lengthen my last couple of strokes to be able to execute it), but the rest was good. I'll take it!

400 mixed medley relay

I swam the fly leg on this relay. My goal was just to put up a respectable time, I still had two individual events and three relays to go after this one. I put up a 1:01.2, which isn't a bad time at all, in my top 5 Masters times. I cruised it and bungled the finish pretty badly (thought I was about a stroke closer to the wall than I actually was...which led the next swimmer to dive early, DQing us...oops).

200 mixed free relay

This was 5-10 minutes after the 400 medley relay, and I'd had all of a 75 to warm down. Wasn't feeling great, but threw down a 25.00 with a bad relay start and a slightly off-target turn. As a flat start, that would've put it as my second fastest Masters 50 (just behind my 24.9 from 2012 Nationals), and I think it's my fastest relay start, back to back with another relay, to boot!

100 breast

This was my other main focus event, besides Saturday's 200 breast. I really, really wanted to do well on it and see if my 1:09.1 relay split from a 400 medley relay in February was a fluke, since my fastest Masters flat start was a 1:11.3 (and my 5 fastest Masters times were all 1:11s!). I had some trouble on the first 50 getting my stroke rate up, but ironed it out for the second 50. I was utterly shocked when I saw the time! 1:07.99, nearly 3.5 seconds faster than my MPR, and almost .75 faster than my LPR of 1:08.6! I was completely flabbergasted, my highest hope had been to break 1:10 going into the meet! The biggest improvement came on the back half--while my first 50 was about a second faster than usual, the second 50 was almost 2.5 seconds faster than the norm. I'll absolutely take it!

200 back

This was my last individual event of the meet and one that I was totally unsure of how'd I'd do in. I haven't trained much back at all this year, and haven't really done so in 2 years. I'd thrown down a 2:19 in the 200 in January, which was my fastest in-season, non-2013-backstroke-season time, and threw down a 1:01 in the 100 back in March, which was my fastest in-season time, so I was just curious to see how I'd do. I paced the race poorly, started with too strong a kick and paid for it on the back half, but pulled out a 2:17.7, which is my 2nd fastest Masters time. All that said, my splits weren't terrible, out in a high 1:05, back in a high 1:11.

400 free relay

Despite being 20-30 minutes after the 200 back, my legs were still toast. I went second on the relay and gave it my best shot, but I didn't have much left to give right then. Still, I busted out a 55.8, which was still well under my previous MPR, so it wasn't a bad swim at all.

200 medley relay

Less than 10 minutes after the previous relay, I got back up to lead off our relay. I threw down a 28.8 in the 50 back, which is my 3rd fastest 50 back as a Masters swimmer, with the two faster times coming from Nationals in 2013 and 2016, when I hadn't swum 13 events in the previous 48 hours. I'll take it, I thought I would've been lucky to crack 29.5 with how I was feeling!

Overall

All in all, this was a phenomenal meet! While I wish some swims had been even better than they were, I didn't have a single bad event, and managed to take down two LPRs that I hadn't thought were even close to within reach this year, one of which I hadn't thought was in reach at all. Definitely the best meet I've ever had, either as an age group swimmer or as an adult.

Looking forward to next season

Looking forward to next year, I really want to hammer the breaststroke training! I'm in uncharted territory now, and know I still have plenty to work on in breast. Who knows where I will finally top out, but my next goals are 31.5/1:06.5/2:30. I also want to get back to working on backstroke--it's still my favorite stroke, but I've neglected it the past few years to focus on fly and, to a much lesser extent, breast. I'd like to get back down to the 2:12 I went in the 200 in 2013. For fly, I'm not going to focus exclusively on the 200 anymore. I've swum it 13 times in the past few years and have topped out at a 2:22. I'll continue to swim it at meets from time to time, but I'm going to be spending too much time on other strokes in training to really devote myself to that event. I'd also like to actually add the 50/100/200 into my event lineup rotations at meets. I'm quite pleased with how I did in them this season and think I could get down to my LPRs if I spend more time working on them at practice. I will be doing the 200 free at a meet in May to see what I can do when I'm rested, and would love to hit a 2:02. Beyond that, I'd like to hit 24.5/54.0/2:00.

Beyond all of that, I want to continue training the amount I am. I don't want to go through this cycle any more where I get in shape for Nationals, then stop swimming more than 1-2 times per week during the summer and fall and pack on the pounds, then cut (most of) the weight in the spring. I cut down from 211 to 188 as of last week, and want to stay in the 180-190 range. And I really want to keep the time in the pool. During the summer, sure, I'll cut down a bit, but my goal is 4 practices a week. Once we go back indoors in the fall, I want to kick it back up to the 6-7 practices per week from the start, and really put the work in to have next season capitalize on this season's many successes.