Introduction: I'm Tim. I swam year round from when I was 5 or so until I was 18, took off for college and grad school, then started swimming competitively again in 2011, after a multi year hiatus. To date I've been competing for 25+ years. This is a blog to document my journies in the wonderful, wonderful world of swimming as a Masters swimmer!
Having now had a day to think about the meet yesterday, I'm lightly revising my initial impression of it.
Specifically, I'm actually happier with both events than I was yesterday, though that doesn't change the fact that both were slow.
100 back
BLUF: Decent time, awful race execution.
The pool at UMBC is only a bit over 3.5' deep at the start end, which is not ideal for my type of starts--I typically go deep on both my dive and back starts, usually probably somewhere around 5' deep, so the shallow depth put a crimp on my start. I briefly touched the bottom with my first kick off the start and then had a bit of trouble getting up to the surface since my angle of attack was not the normal one. I've been working on surfacing at 10 butterfly kicks, but in the race I came up at 14.
That extra few kicks had downstream impacts--I think it directly contributed to my screwed up stroke count on the first turn, and had oxygen debt issues towards the back end of the race, compounded by my other issues.
On the first turn, I flipped almost a full stroke too far out from the wall and touched with my legs, while not completely straight, substantially straighter than ideal and just made contact with the balls of my feet. In an attempt to make up for the lacking turn, I added 3 additional kicks (I did 9 kicks vs my target of 6) before surfacing and did those kicks harder than normal to try and make up for the weak push.
On the second turn, I just plain screwed up my stroke count. It wasn't like the first turn where I was just in the wrong place for my stroke count, I just flat out flipped a stroke too early. Same thing happened with that turn as happened with the first turn--straight legs, weak push, extra kicks (though only 6 kicks vs my target of 5 for the turn), and harder kicks.
The third turn was right on--nailed my stroke count and flipped at the right time, which let me hit the wall right where I wanted and get a good push. On the other hand, the oxygen debt from the botched start and botched first two turns hit me with a vengeance then. I only did 4 kicks vs my target 5, and was sucking wind from the breakout. Legs died within a few strokes and then arms died shortly thereafter.
Thinking about it, I think that shutdown was caused more by oxygen debt than just poor stamina on my part. Stamina was definitely a part of it, but an extra 8, harder than normal, underwater kicks is roughly equivalent to another 10-12 yards underwater with the shape I'm in right now, which isn't negligible!
I'm also someone who tends to have a significant difference in how I swim back with a tech suit vs a practice speedo. The tech suit changes my hip and body alignment, typically allowing me to get 3-5 feet further underwater given the same amount of kicks, and the quad compression makes a huge difference on the feeling of my quads falling apart at the end of a 100.
If I'd swum a smart race and nailed my start and turns, I think my 1:07 probably would've been a 1:06 or 1:05 purely from not going into serious oxygen debt and shutting down at the end. Add a tech suit in there as I've worn for every other 100 back I've raced, and that probably would've been good for another second, down in the 1:04/1:05 range.
Looking at my 20+ 100 back races over the past decade or so and comparing states of training, this swim correlates most closely with my usual early season races in the October/November timeframe. Looking at my most recent early season 100 back, from October 2019, the last season I trained for back, I was a 1:04 at that meet, which tracks pretty well with what I did yesterday, adjusted for all the poor choices on my part.
100 breast
I'm not going to go into anywhere remotely as much detail on this one. The 1:18 I went was just darn slow, but while I was swimming it it felt like I was swimming a solid first 100 of a 200. Not a great pullout off the dive due to the shallowness there, but besides that it was solid all around. My stroke felt strong, smooth, and in control, and my other three pullouts were solid.
I just didn't have any of the top end speed I need for a 100. Comparing this swim to other early season swims, the most comparable early season 100 was probably from all the way back in 2015 (I started training specifically for the 100 and 200 breast in the 2016-2017 season, so since I'm not doing any breast training, I'm looking at my last pre-breast focus season), where I went a 1:12. Even throwing a tech suit on, I'd be surprised if I'd have gone faster than a 1:16 yesterday, which just means my breast is darn slow right now.
At least it means the 100 breast is decidedly not on the table for Nats! 😁
This has been an odd season for training. Heck, my training has been off ever since last April when Alaina and I went to Puerto Rico. A combination of taking a break a few weeks before Nats in San Antonio last April, then being mentally burned out and barely swimming over the summer, then still being burned out in the fall, plus getting the chest tattoo and the requisite time out of the water for it to heal after each session, plus still dealing with the lingering after effects of burnout (for me those effects were total lack of motivation in the water, disinterest in getting up for AM practice, desire to just take it easy instead of pushing it in practice, and total lack of guilt for skipping practice for a week or more)...
The long and short of it is that I didn't start "training" training till February! Sure, I was swimming before then, but it was generally just a couple of times a week, if that, and I didn't really push it that hard in practice.
Anyways, since late last month I've been swimming regularly and am on track to get back to 6-8 practices per week starting next week, with this week being my first week of hitting all 5 weekday AM practices. I'm no longer dealing with burnout, I'm motivated in the water, and I'm pumped to be training again! I think I can realistically maintain this training velocity through Nats at the end of April.
On the plus side, with a few weeks of legit training under my belt, I'm pretty happy with my endurance in the water. Despite how much time I've been out of the water since last April, my endurance is tracking pretty closely to where I'd typically be at this point of the season. My speed, on the other hand...hasn't been great. That said, there have been flickers of actual speed here and there!
Yesterday we did a two person 500 backstroke relay, trading off by 50. I went :32, :33, :34, :34, and :34. Till yesterday, a :34 has been the fastest single 50 back I've hit in practice, so for me to have two that were faster than that, plus holding that pace for three consecutive 50s, all on less than :40r between 50s, is a great sign of progress being made in the right direction. Ideally, if I were to do that set again in mid/late April, I'd want to shave off :1-2 from each of those 50s, but for right now it's great.
My main set this morning was a long pull set. 300, 4x25 fast, 250, 4x25, 200, 4x25, 150, 4x25, 100, 4x25, 50, and 4x25. The 25s were all on :30, while the rest was just leaving on the next :30/:00, with the 300>50 being descend. I did paddles for the longer stuff, no paddles for the 25s. In my descend, I got the 100 down to a 1:11 and the 50 down to a :33. I'm pretty sure that 50 is just :1 off my best paddles pull time, and that 100 is right there, too! Given that I'd also done 5x200 pull before the main set and my shoulders and lats were tight and sore, I'm quite happy with those times.
All of that is to say that there are glimmers of speed and that my current training is pushing me in the right direction, by all indications. I wouldn't want to go to Nats this weekend, or at least I wouldn't want to go this weekend and set my typically high standards for my swims, but I'm quite happy with my training velocity and direction right now.
Potential event lineups for Nats
Ooh boy, this is a bit tricky. I'd gone into the fall thinking I'd train for the 100/200 free, 50/100 fly, and 100/200 back. On the other hand, I also really like the 100 and 200 IM, and after the 200 IM debacle in San Antonio, I kinda want to try to redeem myself in that event. On top of that, my breast has felt surprisingly decent in practice--my BR times haven't been there, of course, but the stroke itself has felt surprisingly decent, so the 100 BR is potentially on the table. The problem is that all that adds up to 9 events, and you can only swim a maximum of 6 events. Given that nearly 1300 swimmers have already signed up for the meet with a month left to go before the entry deadline, I'm guessing there's a pretty good chance that people will only be allowed to swim 5 events instead of the normal 6. The 100 free, 200 free, and 100 back are the only events that I'm definitely doing, with the other events all vying for the final 2 or 3 slots.
I've got 3 meets, possibly 4, between now and the entry deadline, so my goal is to get through most of those potential events and see how I comparatively stack up in each one. I came into this season not planning to do any breast, but if it turns out it's actually legit this season and is comparatively better than another stroke/event on the list, then I'll just suck it up and swim it at Nats.
My first meet in this sprint to Nats is this weekend, where I'm doing the 100 back and 100 breast. I hadn't planned on doing any breast at meets this season, but with the order of events at that meet and my breast feeling decent lately, it's the only one that works out besides the 100 back, and I'm not going to a meet to only swim one event, so 100 breast it is.
So, all that said, here are my potential lineups at Nats, depending on which events I decide to do. I'm keeping myself to no more than 2 events per day, so that also complicates things given the order of events at Nats. Day 3 is locked in, it's the event lineups for Day 1 and 2 that have several potential variations.
Day 1 potential lineups
Option 1: 200 IM, 100 free
Option 2: 200 back, 100 free
Option 3: 100 breast, 100 free
Day 2 potential lineups
Option 1: 100 fly, 100 IM
Option 2: 100 fly, 50 back
Option 3: 100 IM, 50 back
Day 3 lineup
100 back, 200 free
Frankly, beside the 100 back and 100/200 free, I haven't a clue what the rest of my event lineup will be. I threw the 50 back in there as an option just because of the :32 I went in practice yesterday, but unless I magically turn into a sprint backstroker over the next month, I doubt it's really going to make the short list. The 100 back on Sunday will indicate how I'm doing in it, obviously, but will also serve as a somewhat indicative proxy for the 200 back and 50 back as options. 'Nuff said about the 100 breast.
Across the potential 4 meets before the entry deadline, I could theoretically knock out every single potential event and pick my 2-3 extra events besides the 100/200 free and 100 back from those swims based on meet results.
Honestly, regardless how it all shakes out, I'm just happy to be consistently back in the water, training hard, and finally motivated again!
(Oops, I meant to post this last month, but inadvertently just saved it as a draft instead.)
I signed up for the first local meet of the season this past weekend at the beginning of December on a whim.
I've been pretty much out of the water for the past 9 weeks getting a new tattoo that took 5 sessions, so while I'd been able to get in once or twice every two weeks, I wasn't remotely close to legitimately training. Usually by this point of the season I'd be in pretty heavy training, but I'm effectively starting my season 2.5 months later than normal. I hadn't initially planned on swimming this meet, since I literally finished up with all the tattoo stuff the week of the meet and only got two full practices under my belt last week prior to the meet, but figured I'd go ahead and enter it just to see where I'm at.
Anyways, I signed up for a total of 5 events--100 IM, 50 fly, 200 free relay, 50 back, and 200 medley relay. I'd initially planned to wear a meet suit, but as a game time decision, decided to just race wearing my denim print speedo instead. :-D
100 IM
Honestly, this was a better race than I expected! I went a 1:04.97, which, funnily enough, is half a second faster than when I swam it while suited at my first meet last season. I'd been in heavy training at the time, but was in much better swimming shape than I am right now.
Anyways, this wasn't a terrible race. I didn't have a top gear for any of the strokes, but I felt pretty technically proficient throughout, which is a plus. Fly felt great, back felt great though I was about half a stroke too long on the back-breast crossover turn, breast felt ok, and free felt good despite slightly misjudging the breakout stroke and breaking the surface about a half stroke too early. I didn't have the speed I'd have liked, but the strokes themselves felt pretty good overall.
For being out of shape and wearing just a practice suit, 1:04.97 was a good time! If I were suited and had nailed my back-breast turn, I'd have likely been closer to a 1:03, but I'd just wanted to be sub-1:06, so I'll take it! I still have 5 100 IM times on the books that are slower than this one, so not a bad way to go.
50 fly
This one was SLOW. I went a 29.09 and had zero speed. I felt technically proficient and didn't die, I just had no speed. Besides, you know, swimming faster, the only thing I'd have changed would've been taking a second breath on the way back. I had intended to do one down, two back, but ended up doing one down, one back and that likely slowed me down a bit going into the finish.
29.09 isn't my slowest time on record, thankfully, though it is my second slowest. I'd like to think that with a suit and a second breath on the way back, I could've been in the low/mid 28 range, but oh well.
200 free relay
This was about 20 minutes after my 50 fly. Similar to the 50 fly, it was slow in general, but thankfully wasn't as comparably slow as the fly. I led off our relay with 26.61, which is just my 3rd slowest swim.
I don't think there was anything I can point at to say it slowed me down--I hit my race strategy pretty much right on the money, I just didn't have any top end speed. Sure, I might've been closer to a 26 flat suited, but I don't think a suit would've made too much of a difference here.
50 back
Well, this was an interesting race. Apparently, with the shape I'm in and with not wearing a meet suit, my stroke count for the turn and finish is a full stroke off. I had to substantially stretch out both my turn and my finish because I initiated them both about a full stroke further out than I'd anticipated. As a result, I went a 31.50. I've got 4 swims under my belt that are slower than that, so it wasn't as much of a debacle as it could've been.
This pool has the high pad on the start end, so you have to use the bars to do a backstroke start, there's no way to do a gutter start. I, uh, am not great with bar starts... At least I didn't do a back flop like I did multiple times in warmup, but yeah, I did not have a great start. That was easily probably half a second there from the botched entry to the non-ideal depth of the entry.
200 medley relay
I led it off, too, and swam it much better than my individual 50 back! Still a mediocre start, but I nailed the depth for the kicks underwater, nailed the stroke count on the turn, and was a bit closer on the finish, though still longer than I'd have liked, than I was on the individual 50. I went a 31.03, which was much closer to what I'd been hoping to go at this meet. Suited and with a gutter start, I'd like to think this would've been closer to a 30.5, but I'll definitely take it in comparison to the individual 50!
Overall thoughts
Ya know, while quite a slow meet overall, I'm pretty happy with it! I knew going into the meet that my times would be slow, I just wanted to see *how* slow they'd be. The 50 fly was the only one that I was disappointed in given that expectation, as a 29 is substantially slower than I expected given how that race felt in the water.
One big plus is that my dives surprisingly felt great! My backstroke starts were rubbish, of course, but my dives all felt much better than I expected. I didn't quite have the explosiveness that I'll look for by the end of the season, but I had good reaction times, good jumps, and clean entries.
Now that I'm back in the water full time, I'm ready for my next meet (likely in February) and looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. Starting swimming in earnest again during the painful months of December and January isn't exactly ideal...but I have no one to blame but myself for scheduling the tattoo work at this time of the year.
Totally unrelated, it looks like this is my 101st blog post about my swimming since I started back up again in 2011. Coolio!
We had the 2022 USMS Long Course Nationals in Richmond this past weekend. Being a relatively local meet (~2 hour drive from home), we took a crew of 16 swimmers to the meet, including Alaina at her first Nats since 2016!
I took an extended break after Spring Nats and really didn't train much at all in the leadup to this meet. After 10+ years of training with nary but a covid shutdown break in 2020, I was a bit mentally burned out. I trained well last season, just needed some mental R&R to get ready to get back to the grind this fall. Beyond that, we traveled a fair amount this summer, so swimming took a back seat to life in general. As a result, from May-this past weekend, I only swam maybe 10 times or so, just enough to keep my feel for the water and not turn into a beached whale.
I went into the meet not expecting any good times, just wanting to put together some decent relay swims and have fun with our first large turnout at Nats since 2016 when I took ~20 swimmers to that meet. I didn't shave my head, only used a trimmer vs a razor on my body, and didn't clip my toenails before the meet (yes, it's weird, but that is the final thing on my checklist for getting meet ready).
Thursday
This was my first day of the meet and it had the 3 events I've trained the least for this summer, even given how little I trained at all in comparison. I had the individual 100 back and 50 fly, then the 50 breast on our men's 200 medley relay. After San Antonio in the spring, I decided that I'm going to take at least a full year off breast training after 4 years of focusing on it and instead switch to back and fly. As a result, I didn't do any breast training at all this summer and only swam it on the relay cuz there was no other feasible option.
100 back
(If the video doesn't load at the right mark, my race starts at 6:58:38, I'm in lane 8 at the top of the screen)
This was a surprisingly excellent race! Going back to the spring, my backstroke has felt strong in practice, but I didn't train it then or this summer, so I had no clue what to expect. My start was a bit iffy (I only do gutter starts, so when racing at pools like this that don't have a gutter, it throws off my start technique), but the rest felt excellent. My underwaters off both walls felt great, my stroke felt strong and smooth, my kick felt steady, and I didn't die.
The 1:15.58 was shockingly a masters PR! My former PR was a 1:16.25 from back in 2015, the last time I raced it at summer nats, but I hadn't expected to come close to that here. I would've been happy, and expected to be, somewhere in the 1:17ish range, so going 1:15 here was a happily unanticipated swim.
On a side note, watching the video, my underwaters and distance per stroke are both much better than the dude next to me. I'm 99% sure I physically cannot spin my arms as fast as he did for the whole race. I think if the pool had been 5m longer, I might've been able to get him on the finish.
Excellent way to open the meet!
50 fly
(If the video doesn't start at the right place, my race starts at 7:59:35 and I'm in lane 1 at the bottom of the screen)
This one was simultaneously a great race and a meh race. Meh in that I couldn't find a higher gear to save my life--it felt like I was swimming an appropriately paced first 50 of a 100 fly, not an individual 50 sprint...and I finished the race without being out of breath. Great in that I didn't fade at all, kept a good steady kick, kept to my planned breathing pattern, and nailed my underwater and breakout.
I've had plenty of fly and dies while swimming fly in long course, including while swimming the 50 fly last year at long course nats, albeit that one was just in the last 5m or so, but I had no such issues here. Honestly, I only swam a single long course 50 fly this entire summer prior to this race, and maybe a total of five 50s fly including short course practices, so for me to not fade at all while doing zero fly training is an excellent sign.
The time was a bit off my 31.91 MPR from last year, but right in the ballpark with my other three 32.0 swims from 2014-2015.
I'm not going to complain!
50 breast on men's 200 medley relay
(If the video doesn't start at the right place, our relay starts at 8:57:00, we're in lane 6 in the top lane and I swam the 2nd leg of the relay, though you really can't see much of my swim)
My start was horrifically slow--the swimmer doing backstroke hadn't practiced backstroke finishes and didn't know where the wall was, so I played it very, very safe on my start timing. That 38.61 is my 2nd fastest masters time after my flat start MPR last year of 38.16, and I'd wager that the difference between the two is almost entirely attributable to my slow start here.
Given that me and sprint breast don't mix at all, this was quite a good swim. Sprint breast for me is always a crapshoot, but I'm happy that I made up significant ground on the guy in the lane next to me for our back half swimmers (it looked like I was ~12m behind him at my takeoff and closed that gap to 5-6m). As a relay we swam way better than we expected based on our seed time, so it was a great race for the four of us!
Friday
Friday was my easy day, with just a 50 free on our mixed 200 free relay on the docket. We spent the day with the boys at the science center before Alaina dropped me off at the pool. Beats sitting at the pool for 8 hours before my race! :-D
50 free on mixed 200 free relay
I managed to slip my left foot while doing the windup part of my relay start and resultingly had a poor dive, then screwed up my stroke/breath count and ended up breathing 3 times instead of my planned 2 times, but I was just a hair off my 28.87 relay MPR from 2014 Nats. Not bad!
Saturday
I had the 50 free, 50 back, and 50 back on the mixed medley relay on the docket. I tried something new for this session. Instead of warming up in the water before each event (they were ~2 hours apart), I instead did dynamic dryland stretching before the races. Lots of regular stretching, arm/leg swings, pylometrics, etc for about 20 minutes before the race. I still went to the warmdown pool after each race and did my normal warmdown, but this was the first time I'd tried the dryland warmup instead of pool warmup. It worked out quite well! I hadn't planned to do that at this meet, but given the crowded warmup pool situation I'd dealt with on Thursday and Friday, I thought I'd give it a shot. Going forward at local meets, I'm considering now doing my main meet warmup first thing, then doing the dryland warmup before my events, but I'll play that by ear.
50 free
(If the video doesn't start in the right place, my race starts at 3:25:50, I'm in lane 2 at the bottom)
Much better race than on the relay! Hit my stroke/breath count and swam this just about as well as I think is possible for me to swim any free sprint. Knocked .19 off my former MPR from last year, so I'll take it!
On a side note, I didn't realize till rewatching the race video that I was stroke for stroke with the guy next to me coming into the finish. Cool!
50 back
(If the video doesn't start at the right place, my race starts at 6:13:20, I'm in lane 2 towards the bottom)
This was a new MPR for me, dropping my former MPR entry time from last year! I had another suboptimal backstroke start here and managed to wrench my neck in the process...which made the race ever so pain-free...but I'm quite happy with it!
50 back on mixed 200 medley relay
(If the video doesn't start in the right place, it starts at 9:21:35, we're in lane 3 towards the bottom)
Holy cannoli, I had an awful start! I don't know what I did--I think I had a better body position on the wall, my feet didn't slip, etc, but I got absolutely zero arch over the water and instead plowed straight back into it. Besides that snafu, I think the rest of the race was better than my individual 50 back. Underwater felt even stronger, stroke felt better on the surface, just think the deficit from the crummy start was too much to overcome. Still, not at all a bad split!
Sunday
I kept up my dryland warmup before my two races this day, the 50 free on the men's 200 free relay and individual 100 free.
50 free on men's 200 free relay
28.62 was a much better race than on the mixed 200 free relay on Friday and a new relay MPR by .25. I'll take it!
100 free
(If the video doesn't start in the right place, my race starts at 5:35:38, I'm at the top of the screen)
This was an ok race. For what it was, I think I paced it well. I tried to turn up the turnover coming off the turn and just didn't have a higher gear to shift into. I didn't die, didn't feel exhausted, just didn't have a higher gear. That's my 2nd fastest masters time, though a good bit off my 1:04.32 MPR from last year. I think this was probably the first race where my lack of training this summer really showed itself. Still, I'll take it! To still put up a respectable time, and more importantly not die, after 4 long days and 8 previous events, especially with a very light training base, is quite a good sign.
Times comparisons
I decided to do some comparisons on my swims from this meet compared to my most recent SCY time (they cover 2019, 2021, and 2022 Nats, so quite a spread!) and compared to my swims at LC Nats last summer.
Event
2022 LCM
Most Recent SCY
Delta
2021 LCM
Delta
50 Free
29.29
24.95
17%
29.48
-1%
100 Free
65.74
55.04
19%
64.32
2%
50 Back
34.41
30.14
14%
34.58
0%
100 Back
75.58
61.19
24%
N/A
N/A
50 Fly
32.09
27.32
17%
31.91
1%
50 Breast*
38.61
32.52
19%
38.16
1%
My strength on the underwaters is what makes me a halfway decent swimmer, and long course has always penalized me accordingly. For me, a good 50 and non-backstroke 100 delta is in the 15-20% range from short course to long course, and a good 100/200 backstroke delta is in the 20-25% range.
My swims were towards the upper end of those deltas, but I stayed in bounds! I do find it interesting how close the delta between these LC swims and last year's LC swims given the big difference in my training base between the two. That gap is really only apparent in the 100 free, everything else is within the margin of error for each race. I'm hoping that's a good sign for this upcoming season!
Overall thoughts
This meet was an unqualified success! I'm much less invested in long course than I am in short course, so that took a lot of pressure off me going into this summer and this meet, which I wasn't sure how it was going to impact my ability to race well, especially given my lack of training in comparison to the short course season. I had a lot of fun, racked up a good number of new MPRs and upper tier times, and got to race on relays again. Going off on a bit of a tangent, I'm a HUGE fan of relays and love to swim them no matter what other events I'm doing or how I'm swimming, and these past few Nats where we haven't had enough people to do relays has been a bummer. 2018 short course Nats was the last one before this one that we had relays at and I really missed it!
Backstroke start issues aside, I'm quite pleased with my performances in my backstroke races; I'm also quite pleased with my endurance and technique in the 50 fly. That helps solidify my plan to switch from training breast to training for back and fly once short course starts back up. If I can put up solid to excellent swims in long course with the shape I'm in right now, what can I do when I actually train for them and train seriously in general? It's been years since I've seriously trained for either stroke, with my emphasis the past ~4 years being almost entirely on breast and free, so I'm excited to work on something different.
It's nice getting back to the normal Nationals schedule of short course in the spring and long course in the summer! In 2020, both were canceled, then last year they were both pushed back--short course was in the summer and long course was in the fall, so this was my first normal Nats cycle since 2019.
Anyway, here's the recap of each event, as well as a comparison at the end of each recap of how my times were compared to my time expectations from before the meet, and capping it off with thoughts for long course this summer and the next short course season starting in the fall.
Note--for anyone who's read my blog, you know I tend to be my harshest critic and don't give myself much slack in evaluating my races, so that's going to be a constant theme in my race recaps/critiques.
Friday
Friday I had my first 2 events of the 6 I had lined up for the meet. First up was the 100 fly, then about 2 hours later I had the 200 free.
100 fly
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 13:30 mark on the video. I'm in lane 3 towards the top of the screen.
All in all, I'm quite happy with the time! That is my 5th fastest Masters time and the fastest I've been since 2017. My only faster swims were two in 2012 (59.53 and 1:01.27), one in 2013 (1:00.18), and one in 2017 (1:00.81). In 2012 I trained just for sprint fly, in 2013 I trained for sprint fly and sprint back, and 2017 I trained just for the 100 and 200 fly. Given that I neither trained fly nor trained for the sprints this season, I'm quite happy to getting back down towards those times.
It wasn't a terrible race, either. Excellent start (side note, I've been very happy with my reaction times in general and have been noticeably off the block quicker than the swimmers on either side of me the past few meets, and you can see that on the video here) and felt great through the 50. Started to feel the fatigue a bit going into the 3rd turn and struggled on the last lap. Dropped a dolphin kick off that turn and started to feel the piano with about 12.5 yards to go. Didn't go vertical, though! I've had some real humdingers where I've gone almost completely vertical, so while that's an exceedlingly low bar, I'm happy to have kept it to a pretty close semblance of normal butterfly. Should've taken another stroke on the finish, though, which might have gotten me under that #4 time from 2012.
Looking at the splits, I don't think I took it out too fast. Digging into my body of work in the 100 fly over the years, I've typically taken it out between a 27 mid and a 28 mid, with some outliers on either end. I think this was me just not being used to doing sprint fly and the energy demands of that race vs the mid distance work we've focused on this season. With some tweaking of my race strategy and taking that extra stroke at the finish, I'm pretty sure I could've pulled out around a 1:01 flat. Either way, I'm happy with how it turned out! Below is a list of my shaved and tapered 100 flys dating back to 2012--it doesn't have any of my in season swims, just my championship swims, to try and compare like with like. In that comparison, it was my 3rd fastest opening 50 and 3rd fastest closing 50, so while not great, it certainly wasn't terrible. I think I could've gotten that 2nd 50 below a 33 with a better turn and finish. I wanted to break 1:01 in this race, so while I missed my goal time, I wasn't too far off.
200 free
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 43:29 mark on the video. I'm in lane 7 closer to the bottom of the screen.
I'm happy with the time overall, as that's a new Masters PR by half a second!
That said, the time doesn't tell the whole story. It was a pretty terrible race from a technical perspective--4 of my 7 turns were really bad and I double breathed going into more than half the turns due to inhaling water twice and being in pretty severe oxygen deprivation for much of the race and honestly not being sure I could even do underwaters at all off those affected turns without taking the extra breath going into the turn.
3 of the bad turns were in a row, at the 75, 100, and 125 turn, with the last bad turn at the 175. 3 of the 4 bad turns were really long, 1 of which was almost long enough for me to miss the wall, and I jammed one turn really badly. On top of that, I choked on water twice in the race, once from the wake from the guy next to me going into the 75 turn and I honestly don't know why I inhaled water the other time. After inhaling water the first time, I was running into oxygen deprivation underwater and shortened my kicks from 3 off the wall to 2 off the wall, and I'm almost positive that's what screwed up my stroke counts after that point.
Looking at the splits (see below for comparison to every other time I've swum it shaved and tapered dating back to 2013), even with the atrocious turns and general lack of oxygen on the back half of that race, I held it together better than it felt. Given my state of suffering from spiraling oxygen debt and just general state of pain, I thought the wheels would have fallen off, but the splits are quite reasonable for me. Going back to 2013, the only swim where I took it out close to that aggressively was back in 2019 at my former MPR swim, and I faded a bit harder in that race than I did here. What I find interesting is that while I took it out substantially faster than every other race but the 2019 one, I also closed it significantly faster than all but that race, too.
I think the parts are there for me to be able to finally break 2:00. I'd been hoping for a 1:59 in that race and definitely think I'd have had it in me if I hadn't screwed up the turns. Oh well, that's a forced error on my part, but all in all I can't complain about going a new masters PR! I definitely need to play around with this race more, I think for next season it's going to be my primary focus event and I'll plan to swim it at every meet that I can, so I can iron out all the bugs and nail down my exact pacing and technique stuff.
Saturday
100 IM
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 32:06 mark on the video. I'm in lane 6 in the middle of the heat.
Ya know, for this race being a textbook example of Murphy's law in action, I'm quite pleased in retrospect with the time. It was my 5th fastest time after swims of 1:00.59 in 2018, 1:01.42 in 2017, 1:01.56 in 2013, and 1:01.77 in 2012, and was the fastest I've gone in this event since 2018. From that perspective, this was a good race!
From a technique perspective, this was hot garbage. My back foot slipped on the start and I entered deep and twisted to one side, which threw off my kick and stroke count for the fly lap, my feet were too high on the fly-back turn and I went too deep pushing off on back which threw off the kick and stroke count for that lap, I jammed the back-breast turn due to my stroke count being off and as a result had a subpar underwater pullout due to just being pretty discombobulated, then I inhaled water on the breast-free turn and came up early in order to hack out the water and actually get some air. In short, except for me getting DQed, pretty much anything that could go wrong in that race did go wrong!
Looking at the splits in comparison to my other shaved and tapered 100 IMs dating back to 2012, it's a mixed bag. The first 50 was slow, which, given the struggles I had on the start and first two turns, I'm not at all surprised about, but the second 50 was actually not terrible. With better underwaters on breast and free I'd like to think I could've brought it back around the same split I brought back last year's overall slower IM (1:02.10 vs 1:01.90) home in, which would have put my time around a 1:01.4, right in the vicinity of my #2 time from 2017. Between the flags I'm pretty happy with how I swam, it was just the dumpster fire turns and start that I wasn't happy with for this race. Given my top end speed struggles all season, I'd had a goal time of 1:01.5, so I was in the ballpark!
Sunday
This was my hardest day on paper, with the 200 IM, 100 free, and 200 breast on tap, though going into it I expected Friday to be a harder day. The 200 IM doesn't kick me in the gut like it does for other people, the 100 free has never made a big impact on me in the grand scheme of things, and the 200 breast *usually* doesn't impact me nearly as much as, say, the 200 back does. That said, I'd been sleeping like utter crap due to the godawful AC in my hotel room alternating seemingly alternating between 22 degrees and 82 degrees at night and making it impossible for me to sleep for more than an hour or two at a stretch without waking up soaked in sweat or freezing my toes off, and several nights of crap sleep was definitely affecting me even before I got to the pool for warmup. I just felt tired overall, far more than I should've for the event lineup I'd swum on Friday and Saturday, and far more than I'd ever felt going into day 3 of Nats, even when I'd had a much heftier lineup, a la 2019 and the all-200 lineup.
200 IM
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 4:31:50 mark on the video. I'm in lane 8 towards the top of the heat.
This was...a disaster...plain and simple. I've had this momentary thing (truly momentary, as in it will happen for a half hour or so then go away for months at a time with no lasting effects) a few times over the past few seasons where the front of my right knee below my kneecap will become very weak and not be able to support any weight. When that happens, things such as climbing out of the pool or bending over on the block to assume the starting position become very dicey propositions and my right knee has legit buckled due to not being able to support weight when that's happened.
Welp, it happened while I was practicing starts in warmup before the 200 IM. I did 3 starts off the block and the first 2 were just fine and dandy, then on my 3rd and last start, it collapsed on me when I bent over for the start and I nearly took a header off the block. I spent the ~30 minutes between then and my race trying to stretch and roll out my knee, but pretty much to no avail.
Getting up on the block, it felt wonky, then when I bent over on the start, it buckled and thankfully the starter signaled the start then, otherwise I'd have likely gotten DQed for a false start. I basically fell off the block and that part below my kneecap hurt on every single kick all the way through the 125 of the race. I deliberately held back and didn't push the kick through that point and effectively wrote off the event before I even made it through the first 25. I didn't drive my kicks hard, I didn't push hard and try to explode off the wall, I didn't do the back-breast crossover turn even though I'd nailed the stroke count for it, and I kept my breast kick looser than normal to try and not put extra torque on my knee. The pain vanished after the 125 turn, though, and while I still didn't try to explode off the walls out of caution, I did kick hard on the surface.
On the plus side, though, even with all that garbage, I still went my 3rd fastest masters time after times of 2:14.87 in 2019 and 2:15.27 in 2017, so I dunno! I'd gone into this meet thinking a 2:13 was a reasonable goal time, so to be just 6 seconds off swimming with a bum knee, I can't complain *too* much about it. Here's the comparison with all my other shaved and tapered 200 IM swims.
I'm actually pretty surprised about my fly split--while it *should* have been around the 28 flat from 2019, it felt far slower than it actually was due to being gimpy. The back split looks about as slow as it felt--I dropped 2 butterfly kicks off both walls to baby my knee and it felt pretty wonky the entire 50. The breast split actually wasn't terrible! My 2017-2018 heyday of being able to actually sprint breast seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, but stripping out that 2017 split shockingly leaves this as my 2nd fastest one. I think I just muscled through the free and it surprisingly wasn't terrible, at my 3rd fastest closing split.
100 free
I was a man seeking redemption for this race! Ever since warm down after the 200 IM debacle, my right knee had been peachy keen and back to normal with no signs of weakness. I felt pumped up and ready to rumble!
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 6:25:00 mark on the video. I'm in lane 3 towards the bottom of the heat.
This was my 3rd fastest Masters time after a 54.65 in 2017 and a 54.80 in 2019. I think I'd have had a great shot at taking down at least the 2019 swim here, but my feet slipped on the 3rd turn and I ended up going deep on that underwater and needing to surface at a sharp angle, which then resulted in my stroke count for the finish being about half a stroke off.
Honestly, though, I have nothing really to complain about with this race. I split it well, I nailed my race strategy, and with the exception of that slip on the last turn, everything went exactly how I wanted it to. The only and only race at this meet where that was the case! :-D
Here's the split comparison with my other shaved and tapered 100s. The key difference between this one and my two faster swims was the first 50, and that I think was a key indicator of my wilful lack of sprint training this season. Looking back at my 200 free from day 1, I took that out in a 27.06 vs this 26.35, yet I hammered it a hell of a lot harder on this first 50 than I did on that one. I struggled all season to be able to find that top gear, and I can see that here. Given how much harder I swam this first 50 than taking out my 200, I'd have liked to be a 26.0 or maybe even a high 25. I'm happy with how I closed, though! Minus the kerfuffle on the 3rd turn and longish finish, I likely could have dipped under 2019's 28.57. I didn't have a set goal time for this race, since my top end speed was better in both 2017 and 2019, but I'd wanted to get back into the 54s. So close!
Again, nothing really to complain about with this race, I'm quite happy with how it turned out!
200 breast
Yikes! I've never had a 200 breast that's just completely fallen apart on me like this... 😬
Those are the splits and video link for the race. If the race video didn't sync to the right location for my race, it starts at about the 7:49:15 mark on the video. I'm in lane 8 towards the bottom of the heat.
I honestly have no idea what happened with this one. I felt great through the 125, felt calm and controlled, and then my lungs pretty much spontaneously combusted on the underwater off the 125 turn and the wheels just fell off from there. The last 50 was the most painful last 50 I can recall ever swimming in a 200 breast. I dunno if it was mental fatigue from a series of not-great swims, the lack of quality sleep catching up to me all of a sudden, my breaststroke suddenly not being there, something else, or a combination of any or all of the above. 🤷
The splits aren't pretty and the split comparison isn't pretty, either. This swim has the distinction of having both the slowest opening 100 and slowest closing 100 out of any of my shaved and tapered swims, even dating back to 2016 when I was in much worse swimming shape and wasn't able to hit the breast times in practice that I've been able to consistently hit this season. Given how much slower I took it out than normal, I definitely don't think this was a case of me going out too fast and then crashing and burning, so I dunno what was the problem with this race. Given what I was putting up in practice, I'd thought I had a legit shot at hitting a 2:30.
Overall thoughts
Ya know, this definitely wasn't the Nats that I'd hoped for or expected, but all in all I'm fairly pleased with it. I had a few standout swims, and even the suboptimal swims...except for the 200 breast...gave me solid feedback on things to work on. Again, except for the 200 breast, I turned out solid times across the board. Only one PR, but the other 4 swims were all respectable.
One thing I definitely didn't like about this pool, since they renovated it at some point between when we last swam here in 2015 and this year, is the wall surfacing. It is stainless steel and whatever coating they have on it does nothing to prevent it from being as slick as uncoated stainless steel. My feet moved around on every single turn at the far end of the pool, and while I didn't outright lose traction and have my feet slip out from the right position on every turn, it is disconcerting to feel some slipping back and forth every single time they make contact with that wall. Given that's a world class pool, it boggles my mind that that is the wall coating they went with, and slipping on the turn end was a constant theme of conversation between people I knew at the meet and people I overheard warming up and cooling down. I've swum in other Myrtha pools and none of them are anywhere near as slick as this one, so it just mystifies me that this one is so slippery.
Long course Nats and next short course season
Now that short course Nats is over and done with, it's time to start thinking about long course Nats in Richmond in August! I don't know what my exact event lineup will be, but I'm planning on no IMs and no breast. 50 fly is a go, 100 and 200 frees are a go, 100 and 200 back are a go, and maybe even the 400 free. Depending on what my speed training looks like this summer, I might do the 50s again like I did last year, or I might just stick with the 100+ for free and back. I think I'm going to take a break from breast for a season or two, since I've been swimming it regularly since 2017. My back felt pretty good this season on the irregular occasions I swam it, so I think it might be time to put the work back in to get it up to par, since it's been quite a while since I focused on it.
For short course next year, while I'm definitely in the hypothetical range right now since the summer is going to play a big part in informing what I do in the fall and spring, I'm contemplating taking more of a speed focus and working on the 50/100/200 free, the 50/100 fly, and 50/100 (and maybe the 200) back. The 50s will require that I find that elusive top gear that I couldn't find at all this season, so I'll need to somehow get that sorted out if I want to swim satisfactory 50s next year.
Albatross Open is often the only SCM meet I do every year, and usually is my last in season meet before championship season (championship season is usually Zones in early April and Nationals in late April, though I only shave and taper for the latter; for unknown reasons to me, there was no Zones this year). This was my first Albatross Open, and first SCM meet, since 2018.
I'm not a fan of SCM in general, in the context that it's just one meet a season and I don't swim SCM in practice, nothing against SCM in principle. For those who aren't familiar with SCM, the key problem for me is that the flags are set at 5m from the wall instead of 5y from the wall as for SCY. It's not a huge difference just looking at the numbers, but it comes out to about a ~.75 stroke difference for backstroke, on top of the general stroke count difference going from SCY to SCM. When you spend all season dialing in your stroke counts for 25y and then randomly have a meet that's in SCM with different stroke counts across the board, it's a pain in the butt!
Anyways, I swam 3 events, the 100 free, 100 back, and 50 fly. Those aren't my normal lineup for this meet, but I looked at this meet this year as my final chance to pick my last two events for Nationals. The potential options for those last two events coming into the meet: 50/100/200 back, 50 fly, 100 free, and 100 IM. The 100 back was going to serve as a proxy for both the 100 and 200 back, while the 100 free and 50 fly were 1:1 comparisons for their respective events.
100 free
I swam this last at Tropical Splash in January and that was an utter dumpster fire of a race with me almost completely missing the wall at the 75 and losing all momentum as a result, resulting in a correspondingly abysmally slow time.
Didn't have that issue this time around! The only problem I had in this race was unintentionally starting my flip too early at the 3rd turn and having to stretch it way out mid-flip, which ended up being a slow turn, though I was able to stretch it out long enough that I hit the wall in the right position and got a good push, unlike at Tropical Splash. I also switched from a 4-2 breathing pattern to a 2-2 breathing pattern midway down the 3rd lap instead of just on the 4th lap due to inhaling a bit of wake and needing to breathe earlier than anticipated, but otherwise a very solid race.
This was my 2nd fastest masters time after a 1:01.9 in 2017. The last time I swam this, in 2018, I went a 1:04.6, so I'm happy that this swim was trending in the right direction. Depending on which swim conversion calculator I use, 1:02.77 converts to SCY in the 56.4-56.5 range, which is actually a bit faster than my fastest in season time of 54.8!
My top end speed isn't there yet, but historically that's the case until I start tapering when I've been training for 200s as I have been this season, vs when I train for the sprints, so I'm not worried right now, especially with having gone an excellent time even with a somewhat flawed race.
100 back
Unlike the 100 free, this one was a straight up dumpster fire. In warmup I'd had a devil of a time trying to nail down my SCM stroke count and was very hit or miss. That continued here.
On the start, both feet slipped straight down off the pad and I got zero push off the wall. The underwaters are my strength in back and are a comparative advantage against most people I race against, especially on the start, yet I came up dead last by almost a body length compared to everyone I could see. Adding insult to injury, I blew the first two turns and started my turn at the right point for a SCY race, not a SCM race...early enough that I should have been DQed on both turns because I finished the pulldown well before I initiated the flip due to just badly misjudging how far away I was. That was a lot of just dead time in the water gliding into the wall, which torpedoed my speed. At least I finally got it figured out for the last turn and nailed it there, so the race wasn't a *total* s-show.
All that said, this was my 4th fastest out of 6 SCM 100 backs, so not a terrible time in the grand scheme of things, but not a great time (my times have ranged from a mid 1:10 to a high 1:13). I think the start and first two turns added up to at least a 1.5 second deficit, which would've pushed this to around my 2nd fastest time, which really isn't bad. If anything, it speaks to my speed having increased on the surface compared to the past, if I can have atrocious walls and start and still be in the running compared to my historical times without such egregious user error issues.
50 fly
I was pretty happy with this time! I really haven't spent any time this season on top end speed, and have spent zero time on top end fly speed, so I just threw this out there as a what the hell swim.
I couldn't turn it into high gear on the first lap and got stuck on the wall on the turn--I hit the wall at the appropriate arm length away, but misjudged it a bit and was diving down into the wall because I thought I was further away than I actually was; as a result, while I hit at the right arm length, my feet were up and my upper body was down and it took subjectively FOREVER to complete the turn. Pretty sure I've had faster turns in my 200 fly! On the 2nd lap, I think I found that high gear I couldn't find on the 1st lap, but my pull, kick, and body motion all felt out of sync.
Still, I'll take it! I'd only swum this twice before in SCM, both times way back in the '11-12 season when I trained just for sprint fly, and this split the difference between the times for those two swims. Depending on the conversion calculator, this time converts to a 27.6-27.7 for SCY. The last time I was faster than that in season was way back in the fall of 2012, when I went a 26.4. I've got quite a few 50s fly that are in the mid-26 to mid-27 range, but they are all from Zones when I've already started my speed focus leading up to Nationals and am at the beginning stages of my taper, so this is an excellent time even with the absurdly slow turn.
Overall thoughts and Nationals stuff
This was definitely an up and down meet. Issues galore (admittedly, mostly user error) with my 100 back and, to a lesser extent, the 50 fly, but all in all I'm happy with all three events warts and all.
100 free: Good signs all around. It made up for the utter debacle that was the 100 free at Tropical Splash, so it made it in as my 5th event for Nats.
100 back: Shit show of a race, but promising signs for my over water speed, especially in conjunction with my pretty good 50 back from Annapolis 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, I'd have to devote a substantial amount of time and energy to ironing out the flaws in my backstroke over the next few weeks before Nats to be comfortable putting up a clean race in any of the three backstrokes, time that could be better spent on my other events/strokes, so no backstroke at Nats outside the IMs. Next year I might bring it back.
50 fly: Surprisingly solid, but not solid enough to make the cut for Nats. Excellent sign for my 100 fly there, though!
With those decisions, that brought my Nationals lineup out to the 100 fly and 200 free on Day 1, 100 IM on Day 2, and the 200 IM, 100 free, and 200 breast on Day 3. The 100 IM is potentially a throwaway event, since it was ridiculously slow at Tropical Splash but I've put up separate solid races of the individual strokes and had a good 200 IM at Annapolis, so I *should* be able to put up a solid 100 IM at Nats.
My dives were excellent yesterday. From what I could see peripherally, I was the first off the blocks and got just about the furthest distance on both dives, even with their postage stamp size blocks, so I'm quite happy with that! I'm hoping that at Nats with their large wedged blocks, I'll continue to keep my start as a strength point.
