First hint of summer (pool) training

As I've said before, I'm planning to go big at Summer Nats in July, my original intent being to swim the 100/200 fly, 100/200 back, and 200/400 IM.  Unfortunately, the 100 fly is right after the 400 IM, so I might have to forego the 100.  I can do the 50 fly instead, but it's right before the 200 IM.  With how many heats there should be (last year there were 21 heats of the 50 fly and 15 of the 200 IM, and I'd be in the last or second to last heat of both), that is a doable time gap between races.  Probably 45 minutes to an hour between the 50 fly and the 200 IM, plenty of time for me to cool down and rest.

Anyways, my big events are the 200 fly, 200 back, and 400 IM.

400 IM: This is going to be the biggest beast, and the most challenging to train for.  Breaststroke really isn't my thing, so I'll have to do a significant amount of breast in practice before I'm ready to pull my weight in a 100 breast in that event.  In addition, one of my biggest takeaways from spring Nats a few weeks back was that I still have a lot to work on to get my back end speed up and increase my overall endurance.  I'm pretty confident that I'll have a decent first half of the race, but right now the second half would be very rough.

200 fly: I swam this once during the short course season, back at the beginning of March.  I didn't have a very good swim, and was tired from a hard week of practices, to boot.  I went a 2:32.90, and was totally dead at the end.  Due to long days and the stress of work wiping me out on the shorter days last week (I was wrapping up the project I've been slaving over the past six months), I was out of the water for about a week and a half, and just got back in this Tuesday evening.  It doesn't take more than a few days for me to lose my touch in the water, so I felt pretty weak and felt my endurance give out about halfway through the practice.  Anyhoo, the main set included 6 x 200 race pace (there were three rounds of the set, with 2 x 200 at the end of each round), the first round was fly, second was back, and the third was free.  I burned out right before the first fly 200, so I was running on fumes.  In addition, I was sharing the lane with one of the girls on the team, and she's quite a bit slower on fly, so I had to dodge her at random points in the swim, and at the 150 we ran into each other (I was at the flags coming into the wall and she was a 50 behind me, coming off the wall, and pushed off into me), causing me to stop for about 5 seconds.  I felt ridiculously slow on the first 200 (and to be fair, I WAS ridiculously slow) and didn't have the energy to swim anywhere near race pace.  Still, I went a 2:49 on the first one.  With how slow I was swimming, how little energy I had, and the collision, I was very surprised by that time.  I would have thought I'd have been way more than 17 seconds off my race time.  If I'd had the lane to myself and had not been tired/burned out, I probably could have hit my meet time from a push.  Of course, I died even worse on the second one, but still went a 2:51, albeit without any collisions.  That speaks volumes for my vastly improved conditioning since early March.  I've always had quite a bit of difference between my fastest practice speed (even when racing in practice) and my meet speeds, so if that margin is pretty small in practice for my 200 fly, even with the extenuating circumstances, then that makes me pretty happy for this race in the future.  Of course, swimming the 200 fly long course is vastly different than swimming it short course, but if I can get my speed and endurance up during summer training, I should be just fine for swimming it at Nats.

200 back: I did 2 x 200 back in the second round of Tuesday's main set, and did another race pace 200 back on Wednesday morning at practice.  I swam this once in the short course season, as well, and that was at the beginning of February, when I went a 2:24.  On Tuesday, I was done.  The 200s fly had completely wiped me out, so I was basically floating on my back and fitfully waving my arms and legs about.  Anyways, I went a 2:40 on the first 200 and then a 2:38 on the second (how I managed to go faster on the second, I have no earthly clue).  I'm pretty confident that I'd have been able to take off about 2-3 seconds per 50 if I hadn't been so dang weak and tired.  Wednesday morning, my back and shoulders were definitely feeling the effects of the previous night's 200s, so I was hurting, and still felt ridiculously weak.  The 200 back at that practice was at the end of the main set, and I was a goner by then (no fly before it, thankfully!).  I pulled a 2:35, and that's with a complete shutdown at the 125.  Like the 200 fly, I'm pretty confident that I'll swim this event pretty well at Nats, since I've got the groundwork there to improve substantially on what I did in February.

Looking forward to seeing how my training for the 400 IM progresses, and really looking forward to training for the 200 fly and 200 back!

Summer training and beyond!

We officially enter the summer season after Memorial Day--the short course season ends on May 19th, then we've got a week or so break before the next session starts.

I'm taking the whole summer season as an opportunity to work on some different stuff in the pool and to really work on non-pool swimming stuff and non-pool stuff!  If all goes well with it, I'll incorporate the other stuff into my training regimen in the fall and really up the intensity of my workouts so that I can train for everything year round.

So, here's what I'm going to be training for, and when:

1. Over Memorial Day weekend, there's a 2 mile lake swim in the area that I'm going to do, the Jim McDonnell Lake Swim on May 27th.  There are a few folks from the team going to it, and they cheerfully twisted my arm into signing up as well.  I'm soooooo not a distance swimmer, so it should be quite a fun (that is, deliciously not-fun) event!
2. July 5th-8th is the USMS Summer National Championship meet in Omaha, NE, at the same pool the Olympic Trials will be held at a few days before.  Being in the summer, it's a long course meet--that means that the pool is 50m long, rather than the 25y of the short course pools.  Events become exponentially more challenging over the longer length of the pool.  On top of that, I'm intending to do more distance events at that meet than I've done in this season.  The events I want to do are the 100/200 fly, 100/200 back, and 200/400 IM.  That being said, the 400 IM and 100 fly are the first two events on the first day of the meet, and the 200 back is the 4th event that day.  There's no way I'm going to have the juice to pull that off, so I gotta figure out which events I *really* want to do.  I've got 3 weeks to decide, so I'm not making that call yet.  No matter which way I go, I will be doing substantially more difficult events at this meet than I've done yet.  My training goal in the pool in the two months between now and then is to train for all of those longer events so that I'll hopefully be able to do them in a 50m pool without drowning myself.
3. Triathlons!  Triathletes make up a HUGE proportion of the regulars on the swim team, and I've become friends with several of them.  In years past, I was pretty into riding my (really cruddy) mountain bike in Charleston, and would regularly go for 20-45 mile rides.  That being said, I haven't ridden my bike in a good year +, and have only ridden a spin bike in the meantime.  Same with running--used to run 5-6 days a week in Charleston, but have run a whopping total of two times in the year I've been up here, both times with teammates before Saturday morning practice.  With so many friends of mine who are into cycling, or running, or tris, I've been given a lot of recommendations to look into tris, as various folks have said they think I'd be pretty good at them if I train for them.  So, with that in mind, I'm going to go to the Culpeper Sprint Triathlon on August 5th.  It's a 750m lake swim, 16 mile ride, and 5k run.  I'm not worried about the run or the swim in the slightest.  The bike portion is the main area I need to work on.  My cruddy, 9 year old cheapo mountain bike isn't going to cut it, so I'm going to buy a road bike in June.  No clue which bike I'll get yet, as the world of road cycling is just a *teeny tiny* bit more complex then just going to the nearest Dick's Sporting Goods and picking a $150 mountain bike off the rack.  I've got two friends on the team who are helping me pick out a bike, and a couple friends in Charleston who are also providing advice and recommendations.
4. After the summer ends, I plan to keep training for tris and maybe some road races or running races.  They will serve as great cross training for swimming, which is my #1 priority.

I'm pumped!  Should be a great summer!

Nationals, baby!!!

Man, what a phenomenal meet!  Dan, Katie, and I drove down Thursday night and got in around 10:15ish.  I went straight to bed once I got to my room.

It's a very nice pool!  Construction on the facility finished last summer (which makes it the newest pool I've ever swum in, I think), and it's a very clean, very good facility.  It's a 50 meter pool, and they had the bulkheads in the middle to split it into two 10 lane pools.  There was also a separate 6 lane warmup pool and a six lane diving well.  The competition pool is fast--I'd say about 9 feet deep, good deep gutters, and non-turbulent lane lines.  The blocks were good, too.  On a cool side note, they've got a strip of LEDs on the front edge of the block that light up when the race is started (for some reason, with my hearing, I've always tried to begin my start off the light from the starter box if I can see it, not the sound, so I thought this was pretty helpful, and with how attentive and focused I am on the block, it felt like it was a pretty measurable difference between the light and the sound).  In addition, they've got relay pads, so the block has sensors in it that work with the pad on the wall so they can tell if someone leaves early on a relay exchange.  Pretty sure they didn't have it set up for it at the meet, but I know top level swimmers use those systems to see what their reaction times are off the flat starts and on relay exchanges--I've seen some ridiculous relay exchange times posted, like within .03.  The pool was also kept nice and cool, as well.  I'd guess around 74, not quite quite as shockingly chill as the Sportsplex in Nashville, which if memory serves me, is kept at 72, but still a pretty good temperature.  

They seeded the heats and swam the events in a kind of odd order.  The events were by and large circle seeded by age group, starting out with the old folks first and working down to the 18-24 age group in the last heats.  They swam the odd heats in one pool and the even heats in the other. Overall, it worked out pretty well, but it was rather jarring seeing yourself be in heat 34 of something and know you only actually had 16 heats before yours, not 33.  In addition, sometimes one pool would get ahead of the other, so you'd look at the scoreboard and see that one pool was on heat 11 and the other was on 16.

As a group (there were four of us from AMS there: Katie, Sarah, Dan, and myself), we had a pretty good meet overall!  A few less than excellent swims between us, but overall a pretty sweet meet.  I'll cover my swims and some of the more notable ones from the really fast swimmers at the meet.  I'll post the videos of our swims and the fast swims tonight or tomorrow, depending on how long it takes to get them uploaded.

Friday

I got up at 5:30 to finish shaving and to reshave my head (seriously, I had to reshave it all three mornings since it would be stubble each day), then we went to the pool at 7:00 for warmups (when I say we, I'm referring to Katie, Dan, and I--Sarah stayed with a friend of hers at a different hotel and had her own transportation).

100 fly: This race was simultaneously freaking frustrating and totally awesome.  It was the first event on Friday after the 400 IM, so I was freshly warmed up and rarin' to go.  Dan and I were in the same heat, I was in lane 5 and he was in lane 8.  I took the first 25 out a little bit slower than I planned, but wasn't too worried....then coming off the first turn, my entire right leg cramped up.  I don't mean a single quad cramp, or a single calf cramp.  Quad, hamstring, inner thigh, calf, foot, Achilles tendon, the whole shebang.  Completely locked up off the wall.  I panicked a bit on the second 25, then just tried my best to just swim through it.  As a result, I basically only kicked with my left leg for the 75 after the cramp, with my right leg just along for the ride.  On a side note, you can't even notice the disparity in the video of the race!  Anyways, my first 50 ended up about 3/4 of a second off the pace I wanted to go out in, but my second 50 was only about 1/2 a second off of it.  I thought I would have been way off my pace due to the effective loss of my right leg, but I wasn't that far off!  I'd been trying all season to break 1:00 in the 100 fly, but had had no success, and had been plateaued at a 1:01 for a few months.  Well, I finally broke it!  I went a 59.53, dropping 1.74 seconds in the process!  My splits were 27.61 and 31.92.  I was hoping to go out with a low 27 and back with a low/mid 31, but I will definitely take it!  If I was able to go a 59.53 with the leg issue, I'd assume that I could have hit a 58 sans leg cramp.  Dan had an excellent race as well, and beat me with a 58.32.  Probably would have been right there with him.  Oh well.  I'm very happy that I broke a minute, regardless of how the actual race was!!

The guy who won the 100 fly did a 46.86, smashing the previous record by over a second in the process.  I totally missed his swim and really wish I'd seen it!

50 free on the 200 free relay: I led off our free relay and had a phenomenal swim, all things considered!  I had what felt like a great start and breakout.  However, at the turn, I have no idea what I was thinking.  I almost started my turn stroke a full two strokes out from the wall, realized what I was doing a split second after I started the turn stroke, recovered, then managed to turn on the proper stroke.  However, even that turn was still a bit farther out than I'd have liked, so I didn't have a very good plant on the wall.  Normally, my sprint free is pretty flat in the water, without much body rotation from side to side.  Watching a lot of the top tier sprint freestylers, they have a dominant side and a decidedly rolling stroke.  I tried that technique out on the second 25--not sure how I did with it, but hey, it was fun to try!  Anyways, I touched the wall with a 24.92, a full 1.2 seconds faster than the last time I swam the 50 in January!  Our relay was entered with a totally made up 1:40.40, and we went a 1:41.10 and got 11th in our age group...by less than half a second.  If we'd gotten 10th, we'd have gotten medals and points for the team.  Phooie!  I had a great race (time), so I'm not complaining!

Saturday

Up at 5:30 again to reshave my head, then we went to Waffle House for a deliciously healthy breakfast before heading to warmups at 7:00.

100 IM: Again, this was the first event of the day after the 500 free.  My goal was to throw out all my previous efforts at pacing the IM and just sprint the dang thing.  It worked pretty well, although I couldn't get my turnover rate up on backstroke!  I dropped .97 from my Zones time to a 1:01.77.  I'll definitely take it, especially with how sucky my breaststroke is. In addition, I jammed my right thumb on the breast-free turn, and it still hurts today.  Definitely getting better at the IM!

50 back on the 200 medley relay: I led off our medley relay.  I was not very happy with my swim, although the time was fine.  I went a shade deep off the start, but nothing drastic.  However, on the turn, I was a bit too close to the wall and my heels hit too high up, so when I pushed off the wall, instead of going out and a bit downwards, I went down and a bit outwards.  Went way too deep for comfort off the turn, so I was struggling to get to the surface.  Still, all that said, I did a 29.2, right at my time from Zones.  We were entered with a totally made up 1:54.00 and went a 1:54.95

There were some fantastic 50 frees on Saturday!  A few big name sprinters came out, Cullen Jones ('08 Olympic gold medallist), Josh Schneider, Bryan Lundquist, and Nick Brunelli, all from North Carolina (NC groups all the different Masters clubs under one state wide team).  Brunelli was the first of them to race, and went a 19.87.  Dominated his heat.  Next up were Jones and Lundquist, in lanes 5 and 6 of their heat.  Lundquist bombed the start and couldn't make up the ground, but both dominated their heat with Jones going exactly his entered time of a 19.53 and Lundquist going a 20.18.  Last up was Schneider, who completely destroyed his heat with a 19.36, setting a new USMS national record for his age group.  What is that all these guys are deep in their training for Trials, and are tired and not tapered!  Heck, Jones even had a bit of a beard!

I've seen some faster swims on youtube and obviously have watched guys like this at the Olympics, but seeing these guys go at it in person is absolutely amazing!  Totally would have been worth driving to NC just to see those races!  The entire complex was gathered around to see the races--the pool deck was standing room only, the spectator seating was extremely crowded above the pool they were swimming in, and huge rounds of applause after the races.  Sooooo cool to be a part of that!

There were also some fantastic 200 free relays (the all male/female free relays were on Saturday).  NCMS set the record two years ago with a 1:18.32 and it looked like they had a real shot at breaking it this year with those four sprinters.  However, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why they did this, they entered their fastest relay with Jones, Schneider, Brunelli, and their coach...a 53 year old guy.  I mean, he's not slow--he went a 23.87 as the anchor, but still.  Going by their entered times, the four guys would have been on pace to shave a tenth or so off the record.  Got it and Lundquist's relay on my camcorder, too.

We got done with the meet around 5:30ish, I think, so we went back to the hotels for a bit, then went to a barbecue place by the pool, then hit up a bar in downtown Greensboro.  You know, I think I kinda like this whole meet thing better as an adult than I did as a teenager!

Sunday

Didn't have to get up as early this time, but was still up at 7:00.  Breakfast at the hotel, then back to the pool for my last two events.  I had the 50 fly and 50 back on the schedule, and was looking forward to them, since they are just pure speed races and don't require any sort of pacing, or even thinking really.

50 fly: Like my 100 fly, this race was simultaneously frustrating and awesome.  There were supposed to be five of us in my heat...but only one other guy showed up, and he was three lanes over, so totally of no use for pushing me.  I had a good start, but it took me two strokes out of the breakout to get up and going.  That really ticked me off, since I'd worked on that in warmup and didn't have any issues with getting up and going in warmup.  My turn felt fantastic, and my first stroke off the breakout was good...and then I hit the last wave of my wake from the first 25...and my arms started dragging water at the very back of the stroke.  Destroyed that stroke, but I was moderately successful at a clean stroke on the next one.  I've been fighting at the 26.00 barrier since March, so I really hoped I'd break it in this swim.  As soon as I touched, though, I thought the breakout problems might have sunk my chances at breaking the 26.00 mark.  Nope!  I dropped .54 from Zones and went a 25.90, so I'm ecstatic about that swim!

50 back: I just wanted to break that dang 29.00 mark!  I've been fighting it since March and just wanted to finally clear that hurdle.  I had a decent race--nothing about it was really good or really bad, just a moderate race.  That being said, I finally broke the 29!  I went a 28.96, dropping .26 from my Zones time.  Overall racewise, I think the Zones race was better, but my technique has improved since then, hence the drop in time.

Overall takeaways from the meet

• Nationals is sooooooooo much fun!  I'm definitely going to do summer Nationals and plan to do both each year moving forward!
• I don't think I was even close to peaking in fly in highschool.  My 50 fly is almost a full second faster than my fastest 50 fly back then, and my 100 time is only a few seconds off my fastest from back then.  This is all without me really getting in a lot of fly training like I did back then, without me doing weights at all, and with me still losing weight and getting into shape.  I haven't a clue what my ceiling on fly is going to be once I really get into it.  I mean, I'm at this point with just six months of relatively non-serious training!  Who knows what I'll get to at next year's spring Nationals in Indy, with a full year and a half of training under my belt then!
• Unfortunately, it looks like I might have peaked at backstroke in highschool, or at least that's how it looks as of now.  I'm well over a second off my best 50 back time from then and am waaaay more than that off my 100 back time.  I think my backstroke potential now is in endurance and the IMs--if I can get my endurance back, I should be able to put together a pretty decent 200 back.
• I don't know if I peaked in free in highschool.  That 24.92 in the 50 free was actually faster than a couple of my 50s my senior year, and I actually trained (at least some) for free then.  I'll add some sprint free training in over the summer and fall just to see where it takes me.
• I need to do pylometrics and other exercises to work my fast twitch muscles.  I don't have the sheer movement speed, even when I'm sprinting, that the majority of the folks faster than me have.  The pylometrics, specifically, will especially help out on my starts and turns--I saw some phenomenal starts and turns at the meet.
• Going along with the previous point, I'm a good bit stronger now, without weight training, than I was at my weight training peak in highschool.  I've got a LOT more muscle mass than I did then, although it ain't quite as defined as it used to be.  With adding in weight training, I expect I'll develop quite a bit more power than I had.

And finally, here's my time progression for this short course season, tracing my times from my first meet in October when I was badly out of shape through Nationals.

Event	Initial Time	Fastest Time
50 freestyle	26.93	24.92
100 freestyle	57.52	57.52 (only swam it once, in January)
50 backstroke	31.71	28.96
100 backstroke	1:11.57	1:06.03 (haven’t swum it since February)
200 backstroke	2:24.72	2:24.72 (only swam it once, in February)
50 butterfly	29.30	25.90
100 butterfly	1:04.86	59.53
200 butterfly	2:32.90	2.32.90 (only swam it once, in March)
100 IM	1:10.21	1:01.77
200 IM	2:23.82	2:19.62

This week, I'm going to unwind and do some easy effort practices, then back to it next week to start training for summer Nats!

Last full taper day before Nationals!

Today is my last full taper day before the drive down to Nationals with Dan and Katie tomorrow afternoon!

Last night was the last full taper practice--tonight I'm doing a 30-45 minute technique and turn session, and tomorrow morning a meet warmup, but no more full practices till after Nationals.  Looking back at the last week and a half, I've had a pretty darn successful taper!  I did some sprints from the block last night (the Tuesday night practice pool has the best blocks of the three pools we swim at) and did some decent times--I did a 50 fly, 50 free, 50 back, and then 25s of each.

50 fly: Terrible start (my sister started me...and let's just say her starting technique needs work...), freakishly horribly long turn, and I caught the massive wake from the other team's sprint practice in the lane next to mine for pretty much the first 35 yards of the race.  All that said, I did a mid/high 28.  That's what I took my 100 fly at Zones out in, so I'm pretty comfortable with that time.  In addition, I did 27s for two fly 50s last Tuesday and didn't have the problems with the start/turn/wake that I did last night.  I figure there's about a 10% improvement in my regular meet times compared to my practice times, so add in the FSII jammers and the shave on top of that 10% (I'd say those are worth another 5% drop), and I should be right where I want to be.

50 free: First time I've done one of these (actually racing) in practice in a good three months, I think.  Totally felt out of sync the entire 50, but did a mid 27 nonetheless.  Add in the 10-15% projected drop for the meet (I lead off the 200 free relay on Friday) and that puts me right where I want to be.  Now that I think about it, given that I almost always choose a stroke other than free when we're doing sprint sets and I'll get enough rest to pull it off, being able to do a 27 with a bad race in practice is a pretty darn good job for me!

50 back: Cruddy start (to be expected, since I only have good starts off the pads, not off the bare wall), but I went a high 30 or a low 31.  Given that my current best meet time is a 29.22, I'm VERY happy with that time.  I focused on my head position and hand position on the pull, and it sure looks like those are a big help when I race.  10-15% drop puts me well under my current best time!

Tonight I'm going to work more on my back technique, trying to iron out the remaining kinks.  I've got the head position down pat now, so it's mostly just the hand position on the pull that I'm still actively working on now.  Then it's some open turn work and that's it for the pool for today.

When I get home, the roomie is shaving my head.  I'm going to practice tomorrow morning to do a meet warmup, and also to verify that my goggles still fit on my newly shaved head.  If they don't, I can either adjust that set or put together a new pair from the three sets of spares I have.  After the short practice in the morning, it's shave time!  Doing the full shave...except for my eyebrows...so I'm pretty pumped about that!  Then I'll just relax the rest of the day till I pick Dan and Katie up in the afternoon.

To say that I'm pumped up right now would be a *slight* understatement!

7 days till Nationals!

The countown to Nationals is almost over!  We drive down next Thursday afternoon/evening, and then kick off the meet Friday morning!

Here's how I stand as of now, with about a week of taper under my belt:

Fly: Feeling good!  We did two 50s race pace from a dive on Tuesday at the end of practice and both were quick.  Accounting for the inaccuracy of the coach timing me, I was probably around a mid 27 on both, which is a second off my meet time.  That is right where I want to be.  My normal fudge factor is that practice times are about 5-10% slower than in a meet, so if that is actually the case, then I should be able to break that 26 second barrier in the 50 fly at Nats.

Back: I *might* have figured out the biggest missing piece in the why-is-my-backstroke-so-sucky puzzle by accident on Wednesday!  Back in my junior year of highschool, I'd plateaued for quite a while in backstroke--I think I spent about a year and some change within a second or two range on the 100 and 200.  Mike and Scott tried anything and everything under the sun to improve my stroke and get me off the plateau, but nothing was working.  Finally, in what I'm now pretty sure was a why the hell not move, Scott had me tuck my chin in more towards my chest more when I swim, taking my head out of the neutral position.  For some reason, it worked, and I started dropping time again and continued throughout my senior year.  Anyways, until Wednesday night, I'd completely forgotten about that technique.  I kicked something in the lane while doing some backstroke drill, so I lifted my head up a bit to see what I'd kicked and as I did so, I remembered the technique.  Played around with it a bit and ended up doing two 50s sprint from a push, one with my normal head position, one with my head curled in a bit.  The second, with the head position change, was at least a second faster than the first one. That, along with the corrected pull technique I've been working on, could very well be the ticket to me starting to approach my old speed!  It's too early to tell one way or the other, soI'll have to work on it quite a bit more to make sure, but so far it's quite promising!

Kick: I've been doing a LOT of butterfly vertical kicking lately, and it's showing.  I've been doing sessions ranging from 10 minutes straight to half an hour straight, and my fly kick is feeling great.  It's been my strongest point since I started swimming again, but it's feeling stronger than ever--I'm usually able to get more speed off the walls on a turn in practice than anyone I'm swimming against in the next lane.  On a side note, doing that much vertical kicking is a HECK of a good ab workout!  I've still got more weight to lose till my abs are fully revealed, but I can feel them and the top muscles are starting to be revealed.  I've been working this week on adding at least one more fly kick coming off each wall--when I swim a free set, I've been trying to do at least four fly kicks off the turns, instead of my normal three, and so on.

My overall energy level is way up, my appetite is generally through the roof, and I'm raring to go!  Hopefully I'll keep that energy and enthusiasm up through next weekend!

Taper time!

Woohoo, now it's time to taper for the remaining week and a half till Nationals!

You have no idea how happy I am about that!  I've been running a pretty punishing fitness regimen lately, with heavy yardage in the pool, a bit of running here and there, and spin a couple times a week.  For the next week and a half, no running, no spinning, and less yardage in the pool.  Instead, I'll be focusing on speed and technique in the pool.  Now is the time to iron out as many of my swimming errors as I can to prepare for Nats.  Along with general speed, here's what I'm going to be focusing heavily on between now and next Thursday, when we drive down.

Fly: My stroke is good, no issues there.  Watching my swims at Zones shows that my stroke and kick are actually better than I thought.  That being said, I do have two areas to work on, pacing and my initial breakout.  Watching my 50 fly, it took me a couple strokes off the breakout to get into my rhythm.  By the time I hit the surface, I need to be at full speed, not flopping around for two strokes before I hit my stride.  And in the 100, my pacing is bass ackward.  I need to take it out at least a full second, second and a half faster and keep the pace up on the second 50.  If I do that, instead of a 1:01.2, I'll be on track to go a 58 or 59.  Another thing that is an area that needs a bit of refinement (I'm doing fine in it now, just could get even better at it) is my underwater work off the last turn in the 100.  I went underwater for a perfectly satisfactory distance, but I will strive to eke out another dolphin kick or two underwater before needing to surface.  Finally, as always, my turns can improve.  That's not saying they're horrible now, just that turns can always improve.

To train for these things, I'll do a handful of individual practices before the team practices this week and next week.  I'll continue to do a substantial amount of vertical kicking through next Tuesday and will also work on my fly endurance with a mix of 50s and a few 100s during my own practices and the team practices.  Breakout speed will rely on us practicing starts in practice, as I've never been able to replicate the issue from a push.

Back: Lots of stuff to work on here.  My underwater work is phenomenal (for me), so nothing to work on there.  However, my stroke is pretty cruddy.  I worked on my arm turnover speed yesterday during my (non-relay) 50 back, but it can still be faster.  It looks like my right arm isn't catching much water when I pull, though, and my left arm is only marginally better.  Like with fly, I can also work on my turns.

To train for these things, there are two main things I can think of--doing backstroke spin drills to work on my arm speed, and to pull backstroke with paddles to work on how I'm catching the water in my pull.  I can do both during my individual practices through next Tuesday.

Breast: Um, faster arm speed?  I haven't trained at all for breast and am not intending on doing anything specific for it between now and Nats.

Free: I'm only swimming a total of a 75 of free at Nats, the last 25 of the 100 IM and a 50 free on the 200 free relay.  From watching my 100 IM at Zones, it looks like my arm turnover wasn't very fast (MUCH better than in my 200 IM, but absolutely not anything to write home about), so I'll work on bringing the 100 IM home faster.  The other thing I can work on is my overall sprint speed for the relay leg.

To work on these things, I'll just need to work on finishing fast free sets in practice at a higher speed than I have been in the past. 

Starts: This is going to be the hardest part to work on.  The blocks at Lee District, where I will be doing all but two of the twelve individual/team practices between now and next Wednesday, suck.  I've slipped on them almost every time I've started off of them.  The top of the block is the plastic slats that are pretty commonplace at pools...but they run vertically, not horizontally like every other freaking pool's blocks do, so your feet have almost no purchase and slide back very easily if the blocks have any water on them.  The two practices at another pool will be much more helpful, since that pool has functional blocks.  In terms of my backstroke start, I'll get no useful practice before Nats--where I place my feet on the start, they're right in the middle of the black T on the wall, which is pretty freaking slick.  If I start like that, they slip straight down when I push off, which results in me doing a back flop.  If I change the position of my feet higher or lower, it royally throws off my start and I either back flop or push straight off without an arch.  Only times I've been able to practice my back start has been at meets, when they've got the touch pads on the walls.  Still, my start for the medley relay at Zones was phenomenal (besides going a bit too deep), so I'm not too worried.

Underwater dolphin kicks: This is my strongest portion of my backstroke races and makes up a good portion of my fly races.  I'll continue to do 20-45 minute vertical kicking sessions through Tuesday, and will also add in at least 10 minutes of jumps off the bottom (go to a deepish part of the pool, at least 10 feet deep, and push off as hard as you can in streamline and do dolphin kicks all the way up, trying to clear the water to your waist on the way up) and underwater 25s to work on my lung capacity so I can stay underwater longer in my races and capitalize on my kick.

We (Katie, Dan, and I) drive down to Nationals next Thursday.  I'm planning on 12 practices between now and next Wednesday evening, a total of six on my own and six with the team (I'll do a practice of my own tonight before the team practice, then do one on my own Wednesday and Friday nights, and then another one next Monday and next Wednesday; the team practices are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights this week, Saturday morning, and Monday/Tuesday of next week).  My individual practices are mostly going to focus on the dolphin kicking, underwater work, and technique work, while the team practices will take care of the speed and endurance work.

And then finally, not something I will be working on, but I'm planning to buy a camcorder before Nationals.  Being able to watch my races at Zones has been extremely helpful, so I want to film my races (and races of teammates if they'd like to see them) at all meets going forward so I can always see how I'm doing and what I need to work on right then and there.

Can't wait till next Thursday!

Day 2 of the Colonies Zone Championship swim meet!

Today was the second (third) and final day of Zones.  I had the 100 IM, 50 back, and 100 fly on my plate for the day.  Katie and Dan also came back today, Katie swimming the 200 free and 400 IM, and Dan swimming the 200 free, 50 free, and 100 fly.  In addition, Chris (another guy on the team around my age) swam the 100 fly, too.  I've got the videos of their swims on facebook, but am posting only mine here.

My 100 IM

First up was my 100 IM.  I had a great start and took the fly out quite well.  Wasn't full out sprinting on the fly, but I took it out at a nice clip.  After watching many videos of Olympians and studs at the NCAA championships swimming fly and back, I've decided to model my underwater work off theirs and stay underwater as long as I can.  You can see its results in the IM.  Good fly, long turn, though.  The pool has three Ts going into the bulkhead for the turn, which screwed me up, as you can see.  Good backstroke leg (relatively speaking--my backstroke is still way slower than it used to be, but for where it is now, quite a good leg).  My breaststroke is also rather slow in general, but relatively speaking it was another good leg.  I brought the free home fast for me, so overall it was a good swim.  I dropped about a second in it and went a 1:02.74.  I'll take it!  

I haven't spent much time at all training for IMs in practice, so I'm quite happy of my performance in this one.  With two weeks to work on my IM, plus the whole taper and shave thing, I'm aiming for around a 1:00 in it at Nationals. 

My 50 back

My next event was the 50 back.  I had a rather terrible start on it--ideally I have a nice high arch pushing off the wall (see my 50 back on the relay yesterday for an example), but I wasn't set well on the wall, so I pushed off very flat.  Good underwater work off both walls, though.  My arm spin speed was better than the 50 yesterday, but my backstroke as a whole isn't anywhere near where it should be.  I dropped another .2 seconds from my time yesterday, so over the two days of the meet I've dropped my 50 back time from a 29.89 to a 29.22.  Eh, lots of work to do on back, but I'll take it!

My 100 fly

My last event today was the 100 fly.  This was a very frustrating race in retrospect.  Every time I've swum it up till now, I've taken it out too fast and died on the second half (among other issues).  This time around, I was aiming to take it out a bit easier and save enough juice for the second half.  Yesterday in my 200 IM, I took it out in a 27.89 and felt pretty relaxed doing so.  With my 50 fly time being a 26.44, I was aiming for about the same pace I did yesterday in the 200 IM for the first half of the 100 fly.  I had a great start and the first 50 of the 100 felt nice and relaxed....a bit too relaxed.  I tried to pick up the pace on the second 50, but it was too late.  Normally my back is on fire by the end of the 3rd 25, but it didn't start tightening up till halfway back on the last 25.  By the way, the last time I swam the 100 fly two weeks ago, I kept choking on water.  In the video, take a look at my third breath on the last 25--I choked on the second breath, so I raised my head higher out of the water on the third breath to get air--you can see how it affects my stroke.  Anyways, I dropped about half a second in this event and went a 1:01.27.  I took it out in a 28.98 and brought it back in a 32.29.  Not nearly fast enough.  The past two times I've swum it, I've taken it out in a 27.84 and a 28.03.  The 27.84 is what I should've been today.  On the plus side, I've brought it back in a 33.91 and 34.01 respectively, so my 32.29 today wasn't too terrible in comparison.

On a side note, I wore my Fastskin jammers for this race.  I'll be wearing them for Nationals, so I decided to break them out today and see how they felt.  For the most part, they felt fantastic both in and out of the water, but the bottom of the leg is very tight on my thighs just above the knee.  Almost too tight, but I can live with it.  I could feel quite a bit of difference overall between it and the Aquablade jammers that I normally wear, and besides the knee issue, I much prefer the Fastskin.

****

Overall, this was a fantastic meet!  I dropped time in everything I swam, and had a blast with my teammates.  And with me finally being able to see videos of my races, I can pinpoint exactly what I need to work on over the next two weeks till Nationals.  Gonna be a fun and productive two weeks!

Day 1 of the Colonies Zone Championship swim meet!

Today was the first day of the Colonies Zone Championship for me--the meet actually started yesterday, but that was just the 1000 and 1650.

I swam two individual events today and led off with the backstroke leg of the 200 medley relay.  I was able to get someone to film each of my races, which is fantastic, since my mental perception of my races is apparently often quite a bit different than they actually are.  So, with that in mind, I'm providing the videos of each race and can critique them based on how I thought they went and how they actually went!

50 backstroke

I led off our Mixed 200 Medley Relay (two guys and two gals) with the backstroke leg.   I went too deep off the start, but looking at the video, my reaction time and the start itself look pretty darn good, much better than they felt!  Normally I stay under long enough to do 14 dolphin kicks before the breakout, which gets me up to the surface approximately one full stroke before the 15 yard mark.  Anyways, going too deep, I did 16 dolphin kicks before I reached the surface, and came up right at the 15 yard mark.  If this was a USA swim meet, rather than a USMS swim meet, there's a decent chance I'd have been DQed (on a side note, our relay did end up getting DQed, but it was due to an early start later on in the relay, not due to me).  My stroke speed for the first 10 yards was pretty decent, but it slowed down on the second 25.  I went a 29.64, which is about .2 faster than my previous Masters best time, so I'll take it, but I was hoping for faster.

This is my first time seeing a video of it, so that's a big area I need to improve, and is probably one of the main reasons why I'm so much slower in backstroke now than I used to be.  I've gotta work on my arm speed, so I'll be doing a lot of spin drills over the next two weeks till Nationals.

200 IM

This was an "interesting" swim.  I had a great start and a nicely relaxed 50 butterfly.  I was actually quicker going out in the fly than I expected or planned--I went a 27.8 and was aiming for a mid 28.  Backstroke felt pretty good, although I was about a second off my goal time for that split.  Breaststroke was where things started to go downhill.  I didn't get enough air on the back-breast turn, and also didn't push off deep enough, so I did a rushed pullout to get to the surface.  Midway through the first 25 of the breast, my back muscles locked up ridiculously badly.  Add on another too-shallow pullout off the turn, dying legs, and an ever more tightening back, and it was a pretty miserable 50.  By the time I got to the free, I was dead--back and shoulder muscles were on fire and my legs were dead.  Let's just say the the free was *slightly* slower than the pace I should've had.  All that said, I went a 2:19.62 and dropped four seconds off the last time I swam it, setting a new Masters best time.  And I haven't trained for the 200 IM at all, either!  While the back half was quite painful, I'll take that time!

50 fly

This was my most important swim of the day.  Going into today, my best time was a 26.48.  My goal at Nationals is to break a 26, so I was hoping to go a low 26 today.  Didn't quite make that, but did drop a few hundredths of a second to a 26.44.  My start wasn't the greatest--I wasn't properly set, so the push was kinda wussy, and my reaction time wasn't as good as it otherwise has been lately.  On top of that, it took me a few strokes to get into the rhythm after the breakout off the start.  Oh well, from there it was a good race and set a new lifetime personal best!  I'll take it, and hope that I can knock off the remaining half second in two weeks.

Overall, I'm very glad I was able to get friends to record my swims!  Sooooo nice being able to actually critique and reconcile the event I swam and the event they saw!  On top of that, I made a new friend on the team (she joined recently and I've only been to one or two practices she's been to) and got to see/cheer for/time/count for three of my other friends on the team.  I'm having a blast!

To adapt and paraphrase Buzz Lightyear...To Nationals and Beyond!

The competitive short course season is rapidly drawing to a close--Zones this weekend and Nationals in two and a half weeks.  We've still got a few weeks after Nats before we start the summer season, but short course competition ends at the end of April.

Over the course of this season, I've done a lot of thinking in regards to what times I wanted to make during the season, but didn't map out any of my long term goals.  With that in mind, today I sat down and mapped out my swimming goals through the rest of the year and next year.  I also threw in my goal times for 2014, but that is total conjecture at this point.

For 2012, the events listed with an asterisk are the events I plan to hit the times in by the end of the calendar year, but are either not on track to hit the times at Zones/Nats or don't think I'll hit the time till later this year.  For 2013, the times are just extensions of how my swimming has gone during this season.  I've got 20 months to train to hit those times, so they should be relatively achievable.  As I said, the 2014 goal times are total conjecture at this point, but that's where I could theoretically be if my swimming progresses over the next two years as it has over these past six months.

Event	2012	2013	2014
50 fly	25.8	24.5	23.8
100 fly	57.1	55.0	52.5
200 fly	2:18.0*	2:05.0	1:58.0
50 back	28.0	26.5	25.0
100 back	1:02.0*	57.0	55.0
200 back	2:18.0*	2:10.0 (low expectations)	2:00.0
100 IM	1:01.0	58.0	56.5
200 IM	2:15.0*	2:08.0	2:02.0
400 IM	5:00.0* (low expectations)	4:40.0	4:20.0
50 free	25.0* (low expectations)	23.9	23.5
100 free	55.5* (low expectations)	53.8	51.8
200 free	2:05.0* (low expectations)	1:58.0	1:53.0

2012: I think I've got a pretty good shot at the 50 and 100 fly over the next two meets.  Nats should be a great meet for me--I'll be shaved, tapered, wearing Fastskin jammers, and swimming in a very fast pool.  I think both of those times are well within reach.  I haven't trained for the 200 fly at all, but that time should be within reach with a bit of training.  As I've said before, I have no idea what's wrong with my backstroke--I'm planning on really working on ironing it out this summer, so if I'm successful, those back times should be in the realm of possibility.  The 100 IM should be achievable at Nats--I'm currently about 2.5 seconds off that, so preparation for Nats should help out.  The 200 IM should be well within reach by the end of the year--I've only swum it once so far and even with a horrible swim, I was a low 2:20s in it.  Should be a piece of cake to hit that mark.  The 400 IM is a total guess, but I'd imagine I could hit that by the end of the year.  I haven't "trained" for freestyle at all so far.  Yes, I do a lot of free yardage, but mentally I don't approach it the same way as I approach fly and IM work.  I'm completely guessing at those times, but they should be achievable by the end of the year.

Over the summer/fall, I plan to up my practice time, since there are currently a handful of practices each week that I don't go to, but could.  My goal is to work up to doing as many team practices as physically possible and at least continue the number of individual practices I currently do, or increase that number.  So while the length and intensity of the practices I do won't be drastically different than what I'm doing today, I'll hopefully be adding in 5-6 hours of swimming in a week on top of what my current regimen is.  Once I hit that level, I plan to maintain it for the forseeable future.

Another thing that I will focus on in the summer and fall is the technical details of swimming.  So far, I'd say approximately 60% of my time improvements have been a result of better conditioning, 30% has been from sheer muscling through the water, and 10% has been from technique improvements.  Some of the big technical areas that need attention are my starts and turns.  In addition, there's the little stuff like how I kick, my arm/hand position, all that fun stuff.  I intend to really get to work on ironing out all my technical deficiencies over the summer and fall.

Mentally, I'm a much more effective swimmer than I was in highschool.  Back then it would take a looooong time of Mike and Scott (my coaches) yelling at me to correct something or alter my technique before I'd actually get it right.  These days, Drew/Katie/Jen only have to say something once or twice before I really try to work on it.  In addition, I actively work on technique and stuff on my own during my individual practices, something that would have been unheard of back then.  I think a lot of the shift in my mental outlook has come from my two year stint coaching and teaching lessons in South Carolina.  As a coach, you're the one on the deck working on the swimmers' technique, so it makes you constantly think about what you're seeing and how you'd correct it.  Whatever caused the mental shift, I'm SO much more effective mentally now than I was, and the mental aspect of swimming is about 90% of the sport.

2013: I plan to continue the volume of training established in the fall of 2012 through the full 2013 calendar year.  During the year, I intend to focus primarily on butterfly training.  My second and third priorities will be backstroke and IM, respectively.  Freestyle is a distant last priority.  With that in mind, the butterfly times should be easily achievable, especially if my butterfly progresses as it has so far.  Backstroke times are a guess, since I've got a LOT of work to do to even get to the point where they're theoretically possible.  The IMs shouldn't be too hard, I just need to train for them.  Free, again, is just a guess.

2014: Again, pure conjecture at this point, but these times are my long term goals.  These would be lifetime best times across the board.  If my training continues to progress and all that stuff, the fly times should be in the realm of possibility, but the rest are just guesses.

30-20-25

As of this morning, I've officially lost the 30 pounds that was my goal back in November!  I probably hit that mark a while ago, but I haven't weighed myself in two weeks.

Anyways, I've lost 30 pounds (31.1 to be exact) in 20 weeks before I hit 25.  I started out at the beginning of November at 212.6 or so.  As of this morning, I clocked in at 181.5.  My original goal was to hit 182.6 by the time my 25th birthday rolled around, approximately 20 weeks after starting.

Woohoo!

Set a lifetime personal record yesterday!

Yesterday was the last meet in the Carol Chidester Swim Series--it was a series of six meets in Maryland starting last fall.  Two of the meets were in Annapolis, one I went to in January and the one yesterday.  In January, Dan and I went to the meet, and this time it was Dan, Meggie, and I.

Last time around, I swam the 50 back, 50 fly, and 100 IM.  This time I just swam the 50 fly and 100 fly.  I would have liked to swim the 100 IM, but it was the next event after the 100 fly, so I didn't enter in it.  Good thing, too, since it turned out that there were only three heats separating my 100 fly and the heat I would've been in for the 100 IM.  Whew.  That would have been a terrible swim.

50 fly: When I swam the 50 fly at the meet in January, I went a 28.16.  This time around, I had a great race!  My start was decent--I wasn't the first off the blocks, but I had perfectly adequate reaction time, so I can't complain too much about it.  At least it wasn't a slow start, right?  Anyways, I intentionally went a bit deeper than normal off the dive--up till the last meet, I'd tried to stay pretty shallow and do no more than six fly kicks before surfacing; this time I stayed under long enough to do ten.  Good speed on the first 25 and breathed three times, including the last stroke into the wall.  It wasn't a flawless turn, but wasn't a shabby one, either.  Good push off the wall and felt really good once I surfaced.  Breathed six times on the way back, but probably could have dropped one or two of them.  The important point is that I didn't feel any oxygen deprivation, which used to kill me on fly.  Didn't have a great finish, but again, it wasn't a terrible finish.  Got second in the heat (and event) with a 26.48!  The meet last weekend was a short course meters meet and my time converted to a 26.76, but my best Masters 50 fly yards time was a 27.29.  Heck, in the last yards meet I swam at, just three weeks ago, I went a 27.45.  This was a great drop for me!  Looked up my old times from highschool, and it turns out that this is a lifetime best, since my best in highschool was a 26.67!  Booyah!  At this rate, especially given that I'm not tapering at all, and had some pretty tough practices the two days before the meet, I'm pretty pumped that I could probably break a 26 at Zones or Nats!

100 fly: This one wasn't near as good.  In the last week or so, I've had some big problems in practice with my back and arms tightening up pretty badly when I do more than a 50 straight of fly.  Not really sure why, since I haven't been doing that much more fly lately than I have been in general.  Weird.  Anyways, my goal in this 100 was to take it out a bit easier than I normally do in hopes of not having that issue on the back half.  To start off the race, I had a fantastic start--excellent reaction time, and from what I could see with my peripheral vision, I think I was the first off the blocks (I've been working a lot on my reaction time at meets, so it looks like it is finally paying off!).  Took the first 25 out way too slow, at more of a 200 pace than a good 100 pace.  Realized it at the turn, so I picked up the pace on the second 25.  One note that will help explain how the rest of the race went--the pool does have the wide competition lanes (8 feet, I think?), but doesn't have the wave-eating lane ropes, just the standard old lane ropes that do diddly for blocking waves.  That out of the way, back to the second 25--I picked up the pace just fine, and then about halfway back, I started catching the wake from the guy in the lane next to me (I was in lane 6 with a 1:01 entered time, and lanes 3-5 were guys who go in the mid 50s).  When I breathe in fly, my mouth is just above the surface of the water.  I was doing a 2-1 breathing pattern at this point (breathe for two strokes, no breath for one).  I've got a huge lung capacity--last time I went to the doctor in highschool, I took one of those lung capacity tests and nearly maxed it--but I go through oxygen extremely quickly when I push myself to that level of exertion, so I breathe a LOT on fly.  First mouthful of water was alarming, but not panic inducing.  Even though I wasn't supposed to breathe on the next stroke, I did anyways...and got another mouthful of water.  At that point, pure panic.  I was almost entirely out of oxygen and not even halfway through the race.  All thoughts of technique and speed went out the window and I pretty much launched half my upper body out of the water on the next stroke to get air.  I was successful in finally getting air, but doing a stroke like that totally destroys the body motion and isn't conducive to fast swimming in the slightest.  Decent turn, though, so I thought the third 25 would be better.  Nope.  It was worse, a lot worse.  First breath on the 25 was fine, then mouthful of water, mouthful of water, mouthful of water, sheer panic stroke that gave me oxygen, then another mouthful of water, another of water, another panic air, one more water, and then the last two were air.  Launching yourself that high up out of the water to get air is incredibly inefficient and tiring.  Doing it once, your muscles feel it.  Doing it three times in a race is very hellish.  Decent last turn.  At this point, I was so oxygen deprived that I was breathing every stroke (all but the first stroke--I'm proud to say that all my coaches over the years were actually successful in drumming the mantra of not breathing on the first stroke into my head).  Got three more full mouthfuls of water on the last 25, took two more panic breaths, and got two partial mouthfuls of water.  My back, arms, and shoulders were on fire, my legs were gone, and it was probably the most painful 100 fly I've ever swum.  All that said, I think I did a low 1:02, which is just half a second off my Masters best time.  I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate it when a competition pool has the good lane ropes in it that block 99% of the wake from one lane going into another!  My splits, while obviously slower than I'd like, weren't too shabby: 28.0 something on the first and then a high 32.  I'm actually quite surprised my second 50 was that fast--with how terrible it was, I thought it would have been closer to a 35!  It looks like the fundamentals are there, so I should be able to easily go under a minute at Nats, since I'll be fully tapered up, shaved, and swimming in a top tier competition pool.

*****

On a side note, this was Meggie's (she's my sister roomie) first meet as a Masters swimmer, and first time competing since 2000 or 2001, I think.  She did decently well in the 50, 100, and 200 free!  Comparatively much better than I did in my first meet back in October!

I'm in a hurry to get things done, oh I rush and rush until life's no fun...

[Editor's note: This is a continuation of a blog post from a week ago.]

Picking up where my post from a week ago left off, I test drove some more vehicles yesterday.  While last weekend I'd looked at the more expensive SUVs, this time I decided to go with the more mainstream vehicles, and dragged my sister along with me (she's my roomie). I test drove the Toyota Venza, looked at the Hyundai Tucson and Santa Fe, and test drove the Kia Sportage and Sorento.

Toyota Venza: I've always been comfortable with Toyotas.  As long as I can remember, my family has had a Toyota, and the car I've had for the last four years has been a Toyota.  They're safe, dependable, comfortable, and generally all around relatively boring.  All that being said, I'm on the market for a more exciting vehicle.  With that in mind, I figured I'd go ahead and give the Venza the benefit of a courtesy test drive, since I haven't had any bad experiences with Toyota.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Venza, it's kinda a cross between an SUV and a wago, and looks kinda funky.  Anyways, I test drove a mid tier model and wasn't super impressed.  For one, I knew going into going to the dealership that the Venza is a pretty pricey vehicle--loading it up with the options I want pushes the price up to the upper $30s.  And given that the Audi Q5 that is my dream car is only low $40s, that's so not cool.  Getting back to the point, my sister and I looked at the Venza and played around with it in the lot for a while before test driving it.  The seats are very comfortable and there's plenty of room up front and in the back.  The dashboard has a nice layout, although the fake wood trim looks pretty tacky.  The seats also looked weird, appearing to be a leather/vinyl blend.  Weird.  There is plenty of storage room behind the back seats (34.4 cubic feet), and with them folded down, there's a ton of space (70 cu ft).  Driving the car, the engine felt nice--it was the V6 and provided plenty of punch and power.  However, there was one big thing that I didn't like--the suspension felt jittery, with it almost constantly bouncing with these tiny bumps.  To clarify--it didn't bounce or waft over any actual bumps, but on a flat smooth road, it was constantly doing those tiny bumps.  Very odd, and rather off putting.  Overall, though, (discounting the jittery suspension) it was a solidly bland ride.  No dice.

Hyundai Tucson: This is the Hyundai version of the Kia Sportage, so I was interested in checking out how good it was.  However, there were about 15 people looking at cars at the dealership, and only appeared to be about 3 salesmen, so we never got a chance to do any test driving.  The interior looks quite nice, and although I prefer the exterior of the Sportage over that of the Tucson, it still had a decent exterior.  Plus, I like the color options that Hyundai has.

Hyundai Santa Fe: Like the Tucson, only got to look at the car, didn't get a chance to drive it.  Sizewise, I prefer it over the Tucson, but the Santa Fe is getting old (current generation has been out for quite a while).  It's getting totally redesigned for the 2013 model year, so I'd be pretty interested to see what the new one will look like later on this year.

Kia Sportage: I test drove an almost top of the line one--it had the turbo V4 and everything but navigation.  Very sharp looking car, inside and out.  Nice materials everywhere, and didn't feel like a cheap car at all.  I was a bit concerned about the interior space before I got to check it out--my Avalon is freaking huge on the inside, so I've been quite spoiled when it comes to the interior of a vehicle, and like to have plenty of room for passengers and cargo.  To my surprise, the interior was roomier than I expected, with plenty of passenger room up front and in the back.  Cargo space is 26.1 cu ft behind the seats and 54.6 with them folded down.  Sufficient room for my needs.  Driving it, I found some downsides.  With the driver seat, while the seat bottom is plenty comfortable, the seatback wasn't all that great.  I've got fairly broad shoulders, so I could feel the bolstering on the sides of the seat, and there wasn't enough padding for my tastes.  It wasn't an uncomfortable seat, per se, just not what I'm looking for.  In addition, the engine, while plenty powerful, was kinda noisy under acceleration.  At speed it was nice and quiet, just noiser than I expected when getting up to speed.  The biggest downside I saw was the lack of visibility.  To qualify--the rear window is pretty small, and the headrests obscure much of the bottom of the window, and having a passenger back there makes it even worse; the side windows, while providing a clear field of visibility through the available window area, are on the small side, since the car has a high belt line.  Finally, from reading reviews online, the turbo V4 has pretty cruddy gas mileage in real life, although it has a pretty darn good rating from the EPA.  All that being said...I could survive with that vehicle if it was my only realistic option.  I didn't price out that particular model, but I think it was mid/upper $20s, well within my price range.

Kia Sorento: The Sorento was the last vehicle I test drove.  When I'd done my online research, I'd been worried about the interior space of the Sportage, so I thought the Sorento (being bigger) might be more to my liking.  I test drove a fully loaded SX V6 AWD model.  I loved it!  The interior is styled differently than that of the Sportage, and I prefer how it looks.  The driver seat was much more comfortable to me--a good deal more padding on the back, and the bolstering wasn't an issue.  There was plenty of room in the middle row, and there is a miniscule back row for if I'm ever carting my sister's cat, Argo, around.  The middle row is also quite comfy.  With both rows of seats down, it can hold 72.5 cu ft of stuff, so it's got more than plenty of storage.  Being a fully optioned up car, it had the air cooled driver seat (if you've never been in a car with a cooled seat, it is AWESOME!), panoramic sunroof (also awesome), and nav/upgraded sound system.  Driving the car, the V6 provided plenty of power, and did it pretty quietly and seamlessly--it also has a very solid and steady suspension, which is nice.  A big improvement from the engine and transmission in my car.  Visibility was quite a bit better than in the Sportage--bigger rear window, unobstructed view out of it, lower beltline and bigger windows on the sides, and bigger side mirrors.  In addition, the gas mileage isn't half bad (for an SUV), with people reporting that they're getting around 22 combined with the AWD V6.  Optioned up the way I want it, and taking advantage of the various promotions offered, as well as any negotiating I can do, the car would be in the general vicinity of $30k, give or take a grand or two.  At that price, it's well within my price range to buy or lease.

I've decided to go with the Sorento AWD SX.  I'll go in and get it next Saturday.  Gonna take my car to Carmax to have it appraised before I go to the dealership, so I'll decide whether to trade or sell before I go to the dealer.  This time next week, I should have a new car!  Woohoo!