Zones!!

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

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

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

Here's the synopsis of my swims:

Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issues for Nationals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's how it all went down.

Saturday

100 back

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

50 breast

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

50 back

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

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

Sunday

200 back

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

100 breast

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

100 fly

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

Great Tropical Splash on Sunday!

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

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

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

100 IM

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

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

200 back

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

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

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

50 free (200 free relay)

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

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

50 breast (200 medley relay)

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

200 IM

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

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

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

200 breast

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

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

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

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

What to swim at Nationals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should be interesting!!!

First meet in a while...

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

400 IM

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

100 back

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

100 IM

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

200 medley relay

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

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

Gameplan for Nationals

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

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

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

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

I've got a LOT to be thankful for!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First local meet of the season!!

Yesterday we had the first local meet of the season, the Sprint Classic at George Mason University!  We had a stellar turnout from the team with 15+ folks coming out to swim, with this being the first Masters meet for many of them!

I swam a total of 9 events: 50 fly, 100 back, 50 free, 100 IM, 50 back, then the 25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast, and 25 free.

50 fly: I hadn't felt good at all in the water during warmup (back and shoulders were really tight and still didn't loosen up with about a 900).  Stretched for a good 15 minutes before swimming the 50, but that didn't help much.  Still was really tight and couldn't shake it out.  On top of that, once I dove in, I couldn't establish the body rhythm I needed, so I stayed pretty darn flat on the water.  Consequently, my arms dragged through the water pretty badly during the first few strokes off both the start and the turn.  Sigh.  Even with how unsatisfying the swim was, I went a 26.49, which is only about half a second off my PR that I set at Nats in the spring.  With the increase in speed and conditioning over the course of the season, I should be able to drop down to about a 25.50 in the 50.  On an even better note, I whomped the tar outta my time at the same meet last year, which was a 29.30!  :-)

100 back: This was the event I'd gone to the meet to swim.  Everything else was extraneous--I just wanted to have a good swim in this to make all the back technique training I've done since June worth it.  And I got my wish!  I had a great start and probably the best all around backstroke race I've had in years, with a few minor exceptions.  At around the flags going into the last turn, I started to choke on water.  Normally by that point in a race, I'm *this* close to oxygen deprivation, so when I had three breaths in a row that were blocked by water, I started to panic a bit.  Ended up doing a super long turn as I hacked out the water in my throat and mouth, but it wasn't the worst turn I've ever had.  Couldn't feel my legs on the last 25, so I wasn't sure if I was even still kicking.  From watching the video, it turns out I was kicking, so +1 for me!  I split a 30.07 and 32.66 for a 1:02.73.  Over the last two meets, I've dropped almost four seconds from my best time last season!  I'm quite confident that I'll be under a minute by the end of the season.  As it stands, I only have to drop a bit less than a second to make the 2013 Nats cut!  As a side note, I'd gone a 1:11.57 at the same meet in 2011, so I'm extremely pleased with that progress!

50 free:  Ooh boy, this was a rather embarrassing swim!  It was pretty much right after the 100 back, so I only had enough time to warm down a 150 before heading back behind the blocks to stretch out before swimming again.  By the time I climbed up on the blocks, my heart rate still hadn't fully subsided from the 100 back and I was still breathing somewhat heavily.  I had zero energy on this race--couldn't get my turnover tempo up and just couldn't squeeze out any speed.  On the plus side, my kick was a lot better than I expected, although that isn't saying much!  I went a 26.26, which is a full 1.4 seconds off my 50 time leading off our 200 free relay at Nats.  I was aiming for a low/mid 25, but hey, after that 100 back, I guess I should be happy that I broke a 27!  :-D

100 IM: I was pretty darn tired at this point.  This one was the next event immediately after the 50, so I only had time for about a 250 warmdown in between the two.  I was dragging and just didn't have much gas in the tank.  I decided not to blow out and attempt a PR, but just focus on making it through the race without drowning and also pull off the crossover back-breast turn I've been practicing for the past few weeks.  Well, I succeeded on both fronts, although I did a reaalllllllly long back-breast turn.  Nailed the crossover itself, though!  I went a 1:03.82, about 2 seconds off my best from Nats.  That being said, I split a 28.94 and a 34.88.  The first 50 was about 1.3 seconds off my Nats split, while the second 50 was only about .7 off--I attribute it to the crossover turn and my breast being slightly less sucky than it was in the spring.  And to make it even better, I'd gone a 1:10.21 at the same meet in 2011!  I'll take it!

50 back: Ugh.  I didn't have anything left in the tank for this one.  On top of that, I went really deep off both the start and turn and had major problems getting up to the surface.  Not cool.  I went a 29.48, which is about half a second off my Nats time.  Still, I went a 31.71 at this meet last year, so I can't really complain too much!

I swam all four 25s and had a blast with them, too.  Didn't set any sort of speed records by any means, but posted decent times that were all pretty significant improvements over last year's times.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how this meet turned out!  Even though I wasn't super happy with any of my swims besides the 100 back, I'm still in a much, much better position at this point in the season than I was at this time last year!

Heavy competition promoting has paid off in spades!

All last short course season, I watched as at meet after meet, we'd send the same 2-3 folks, while other teams that were our size or smaller would regularly send 10+ swimmers to the meets without fail.  Even at Zones in April, we had to struggle to make sure we could put together a relay, and that was a local meet.  For a team with a total of 150+ swimmers, that's a downright pitiful competition rate!

At Nationals and for a few weeks afterward, I communicated with a swimmer on one of the much more competition prone teams in the area, trying to figure out what they were doing that we weren't.  Short answer, they were doing a LOT that we weren't!  They had a group that was focused on competing, did lots of stuff together to build camaraderie, and a bunch of other stuff along those lines.

Probably the biggest issue we faced is that meets weren't publicized...at all.  About 75% of the local meets last season were posted on team website's calendar, but they weren't announced.  If you never looked at the calendar, the only way you'd hear about meets would likely be by word of mouth.  The handful of us who were blatantly focused on competition all were in the know, but we did a pretty terrible job about spreading the news to everyone else.

Over the course of the summer, we started to broaden the path of our word of mouth meet announcements, but didn't really start hitting it hard till the short course season started in September.  The head coach has sent several meet announcement emails out and I've made competition a key part of my coaching philosophy.

Every week, I send out an email to my evening swimmers letting them know the themes of the next week's practices, upcoming team social events, and upcoming meets.  I also started a coaching specific blog (if you're remotely interested in reading it--it's kinda dry, since I target it towards my swimmers, not the general public--you can check it out here), in which I've added a calendar that has all the upcoming local meets on a rolling month-month and a half basis.  And I REALLY plug these meets both in the weekly email and when I talk about them at practice!  In addition, I've told my swimmers that I'm training them for competition, whether or not they'll ever actually compete.  As far as I'm concerned, none of them are training just for fitness.  We do extremely competition specific training, lots of IM work, lots of technique work, and plenty of other stuff that would be completely unnecessary for folks who're swimming just for fitness.  I'd say 50% of my swimmers probably are swimming just for fitness, but they're getting trained for competition.  Sure, they grumble when I'm having them do a long, hard IM set, but even if they don't compete, it's beefing up their general fitness!  I don't know what the other coaches are doing, but I'd imagine they aren't staying mum on the whole competition thing.

...All of that leads up to this weekend, the first local meet of the short course season.  The first meet of the season was actually a few weeks ago, but this is the first one that's within the DC area.  I've been plugging the crap out of the meet for about a month and a half, both as a coach and to my fellow swimmers on Saturdays.

Last year we had 3 swimmers at the meet, including me.  There were a total of 163 swimmers representing 49 teams.  This year there are 200 swimmers representing 39 teams.  We've got 19 of those swimmers!  That was far more than my wildest expectations--I would have been happy if we'd gotten 7 or 8 swimmers signed up!  Of our 19 swimmers, 11 of them are evening swimmers (counting me).  I'm absolutely floored by the registration take up we've gotten for this meet!  Who knows if we'll be able to sustain this type of participation rate for the whole season, but holy cow, this is a hell of a way to open the competition season with a bang!

Team practice meet this morning!

In lieu of the regular Saturday morning practice, we held a practice meet instead.  Lots of folks on the team have never done a swim meet before, or haven't done one since they were a teenager.  This was an attempt to familiarize them with the meet process and hopefully drum up their interest in competing in real meets with the team.

In terms of that aspect of the whole shindig, I think it worked very well!  I spoke to a handful of the meet newbies afterwards, and they all said they were interested in doing meets now.  +1 for us!

In terms of my performance (I swam the 50 fly, 100 free, and 50 free), I only swam fair to middling overall.  Had some of the best competition that I've had at any Masters meet, since all the fast guys were there and swam--swam against one of them in the 50 fly, and then swam against two of them in the 100, then all three of 'em in the 50 free.

I didn't have high hopes for my times going into the meet, though.  My upper back and shoulders have been ridiculously tight and sore for who knows what reason since Wednesday night.  On top of that, the pool we swim at has moronic blocks--they've got the slatted surface, but the slats run vertically, rather than horizontally, so there's no purchase for your feet.  I can't even count how many times I've flubbed my starts off those blocks in practice.  With all that in mind, though, here's how I did.

50 fly:  I had a rather ginger start, since my back foot had slipped on both of my starts in warmup.  Not much speed or power off the block, but once I entered the water I actually felt really good.  I felt a bit flat in the water, but everything felt like it was clicking...until the turn.  I completely misjudged the wall and went to dive forward at the end of my last stroke into wall...only to realize that I was nearly a full stroke out from where I thought I was.  As a result, I ended up doing 4 kicks to get myself to the wall.  The second 25 felt great, though.  If I heard the timer right, and if she actually got the time right (they used stopwatches, and several times people got were very iffy), I went a 26.48.  With the wussy start and abominable turn, that's a heck of a good time!  I went a 25.90 at Nats, and that was when I was tapered and all trained up for the 50.  Not to mention that I was shaved and had no major problems with the race.  If I did in fact go a 26.48 (the fast guy next to me was told he went a 25.8, which makes my time sound about right in comparison), that means I can probably cut off at least a second from that this season.  Without the start/turn trouble, I probably could have kept pace with the other guy and hit my Nats time!  I might need to update my 25.50 goal time for the season...

100 free: Okay, this one wasn't that hot.  Since we were cramming 7 events into 40 minutes, there was very little time between swims.  I didn't get a chance to swim down more than a 100 after the 50 fly and my upper back had really tightened up.  I had another wussy start but then took it out pretty well.  Unfortunately, I started to fade a bit on the third 25 and ran out of gas halfway back on the last 25.  Still, I went a 58.5 (again, if the timer is to be trusted), which is what I went at the meet a few weeks ago, when my performance all around felt better.  My 55.0 goal time for the season should definitely be in reach.

50 free: Blegh.  I don't think it was a bad swim, all things considered, but I just couldn't everything put together.  Had probably my best start of the three, but it felt like I was stuck in second gear and couldn't shift.  I went a 26.5...a shade slower than my 50 fly, even with that swim's turn problems!

Best part about coaching!

(This is my second post today, unrelated to the first one)

At this point, I've been coaching for Potomac Marlins and Alexandria Masters for a month.  I've gotten into the swing of things and have come to know almost all of my adult swimmers and a good number of my little kiddos.  I'm coaching several groups:

• Monday evening: One of my three Masters practices.  With the exception of random swimmers from the morning practices, I know all of the swimmers.
• Tuesday afternoon: My Tuesday/Thursday kiddo group (Mini Marlins, the second practice group up the group hierarchy).  I know all of them.
• Tuesday evening: My second Masters practice.  Most of the swimmers are regular Monday/Thursday swimmers, too, but some I only see on Tuesday nights.  Again, I know all the regulars.
• Thursday afternoon: My second Mini Marlins practice, same group as on Tuesday.
• Thursday evening: The last of my Masters practices.  Normally it's the same group as on Monday, with a few other people thrown in.  I know all the regulars.
• Friday afternoon: My age group practice (fourth practice group up the group hierarchy).  I've only coached them once so far, so I don't really know them yet.
• Sunday afternoon, session 1: Sunday Mini Marlins group--this is a largish group, around 18 kids, and I'm struggling with their names.  Only know about 2/5 of the group by name, but know 'em all by sight.
• Sunday afternoon, session 2: Sunday Stroke School group (introductory group, the first on the group hierarchy list)--this is a large group, around 22 kids, and I'm doing even worse with names than with the Mini Marlin group before them.  I know about 3/4 by sight, but only about 1/3 by name.  Sigh.
• Sunday evening: Just picked this one up this past Sunday, but it's two of the area summer league teams that have a weekly winter swim session.  Don't know which kids I'll be coaching on a regular basis.

With all this coaching, I've got some favorite swimmers from each group.  One of the little girls from my Tuesday/Thursday Mini Marlins group, Hannah, is probably my all around favorite kid.  Cute little pint sized kiddo who is invariably polite.  "Hi Coach Tim!  How are you?"  "I'm doing great, Miss Hannah, how are you?"  "I'm doing well, thank you."  And then after practice, after I've told her she did a good job (what I tell all of the kis): "Thank you for practice, Coach Tim."  Cracks me up every time.  She's also at the top of the group, as far as ability goes, and pays the closest attention to what I say in practice.  Scratch that, she's the only one who gets stuff on the first try, without me having to repeat what we're doing two...three...four times.  As far as I can tell, she's legal in all four strokes.  I'm actually kinda bummed about that, since it most likely means that I'll have to move her up to the next group in a month or two, which would mean that I wouldn't coach her anymore.  Sigh.  On a side note, she's the one who said I was her favorite teacher when I asked the kids how school was going a few weeks ago.  Anyhoo, she's usually very attentive to what drill I'm showing them how to do and tries to do everything properly.  Not that she actually does everything properly, but she's 7, so 'tis to be expected.

That all leads into the main point of this post.  The best part about coaching, in my opinion, is seeing my swimmers actively work on something I'm trying to teach them.  Whether that's Hannah struggling mightily to master the dive (we've worked on it as a group for three practices now, often with quite hilarious results across the board--it's rather hard to stay *professional* when these kids dives make me laugh out loud pretty much at every attempt) or one of my adult swimmers finally fixing a head positioning problem I've been working on with them for a few weeks, or something else along those lines.

There are a number of my adult swimmers that I've been working with more than the rest, as they've either actively sought out my feedback or have proven to be extra receptive to my suggestions.  Three of them have names that start with an A, so I'm calling 'em A1, A2, and A3.

• A1 is a guy who only started swimming in the last 6-9 months, I believe.  If I remember our conversation from a few weeks back, I think he said he decided back in the spring that he wanted to train for a triathlon, so he started running and swimming then.  He's lost way more weight than I have in that time frame, so I give him huge props for that.  As a self taught swimmer, he's made vast strides since he started on the team.  Over the past few weeks, I've worked with him in a butterfly and a flipturn clinic.  Flipturns are still problematic, but he's now legal in butterfly.  He won't be swimming any butterfly at any meets, but to see that level of improvement after just a 45 minute clinic on butterfly is immensely gratifying as a coach!
• A2 is an older lady who had shoulder surgery a while back and has been gingerly getting back into swimming.  Since we do a LOT of IM work in my practices, we've had several conversations about how she could alter her stroke so that she could swim butterfly.  We've also had some fairly in depth conversations about freestyle technique, specifically about how changing her pull technique could reduce the strain on her recovering shoulder.  Seeing that level of interest from one of my swimmers is awesome!  Quite a few of my swimmers are extremely set in their ways in regards to technique, so to see someone like her who's been swimming for who knows how long be open to changing technique based on my feedback is a heck of a job satisfaction boost!
• A3 is a few years older than me, but hadn't swum since high school up until a month ago.  And when she swam in highschool, she said the coach never really gave any sort of correction or feedback--I'm guessing she swam for one of those teams that was all yardage and no technique.  Anyways, she's been very receptive to my feedback at practice and I've worked on her technique with her for 15 minutes outside of practice.  I really appreciate the effort and interest she's putting into this, and she seems to be even more appreciative of the attention I'm giving her, which is just awesome!
• K is one of my good friends on the team and is my main freestyle competition during practice, since Dan and Katie are out of my league.  Anyhoo, I've mentioned some body positioning tips to her and she's been working on them--I noticed last night that the issue in question last night was looking a whole lot better than it had a few weeks ago when I first mentioned it to her.  Fantastico!
• J is new to swimming, as far as I can tell.  She can swim free and back, and can swim the other two strokes rudimentarily.  She participated in the fly and flipturn clinics that A1 also participated in and I've seen a lot of improvement since I started coaching her in September.  She's got a long way to go like A1, but I've been very impressed with the amount of improvement I've seen thus far.

I've got plenty of other swimmers who've been taking what I say to heart, but this group of swimmers really make me happy to be a coach!  It's just very cool to see someone I've worked with make such strides in their swimming technique, and really makes me glad that I'm their coach!

Comparison from this time last season to now--feeling great!

This is the first of two posts I'm putting up today (the other is mostly unrelated).

Overall, I'm feeling great in the water, almost as good as I was in the buildup during the last few weeks before Nationals in April!  My fly isn't back to where it was then, but that's perfectly understandable since I was doing a LOT of fly then and haven't been doing all that much lately.

Weight: This time last season, I was pushing 215.  When I weighed myself Monday morning, I was 182.8.  I hit 179 at the peak of my training in April, and given that I haven't been training near as hard as that for quite some time now, I'm quite happy with it!  Of course, this is with my sometimes spastic scale, so I don't know how accurate it actually is, but relatively speaking I seem to be close to what I was at my best in the spring.

Water feel: I was still really pretty cruddy in the water last October.  I felt like a bloated whale and was swimming two lanes down from where I swim now.  I was having to push to hold 1:30 for multiple 100s free, and now I can hold 1:20s ad infinitum without breaking a sweat at all.  Back then I constantly had to fight the water, and now I feel like I'm just sliding through it.  I think it's a combination of me being substantially smaller than I was then and me now being in much better shape.  Whatever it is, it's great to go from feeling very out of place in the water to being back to feeling like it's where I belong!

Butterfly: No comparison at all!  Last October, I was struggling to make it through a 50 fly without my arms falling off.  My speed was abominable and my endurance was right around 0.  Fast forward to today, and while my endurance isn't at its April heights, 50s are no problem.  I currently have to push for a 100, but only start to feel it at the last 25.  The next month or so should help out with that.  Again, my speed has improved a ridiculous amount.  It hurt...a LOT...to try and break :40 in my 50 fly in practice last year, and now I can routinely break :35 without really pushing, and can hit a :29 or :30 at a sprint from a push.  Night and day difference!

Backstroke: Even more of an improvement than in fly!  I remember not being able to crack a 1:30 in the 100 back during a main set without sprinting last October, and now I can cruise to a 1:20-1:25 without breaking much of a sweat.  Pushing hard, I can hit around a 1:12 or so.  Still plenty of room for improvement, but I'm doing so much better than I was a year ago!

Breaststroke: My breast felt shitty last October, but to be honest, it's felt that way ever since I stopped being a breaststroker 13 or 14 years ago.  It still doesn't feel great, but the Rebecca Soni-esque pull that Katie introduced me to over the summer has made it feel a lot better than the craptastic stroke it had been.  I'll swim some breast events at one of the meets in the next month or so, just to see where I'm at.

Freestyle: Soooo much improvement!  As I mentioned before, I had to push myself to make consecutive 100s on 1:30.  Now I can hold 1:20 with no real expenditure of effort and can do at least a few consecutive 200s on 2:30 without having to kill myself.  For a single 100 from a push, I can hit around 1:10 without having to sprint, although I have to push hard.  In the spring I hit a couple 1:05s at a sprint from a push in the middle of practice (they were on 2:00, so I got lots of time to recover between them).  Haven't tried that yet this season, but I'd imagine I'm right there timewise.

Overall, I feel much more natural in the water.  Oh, sure, I still have to try hard to swim fast, but being in the water feels more like a natural state for me than it did a year ago.  Can't complain!

First short course meet of the season!

Today was the first meet of the short course season and I had a total blast!  There were five of us at the meet, which is quite a sizable crew for us (sadly that is indeed a large number from our team, but I'm hoping to greatly expand that this season!).

Today, in order, I swam the 200 back, 50 free on the 200 free relay, 100 fly, 100 back, 50 fly on the 200 medley relay, and the 100 free.  It was my first time swimming either backstroke event since February or March, and the first time swimming them after some serious technique work over the last few months--to be fair, I did swim them over the summer, but that was long course, which as far as I'm concerned, doesn't count.  It was my first time swimming the 100 fly since April, but I haven't trained for it at all since then.  And for the 100 free, that was my first time swimming it in a meet since 2004 or 2005, and I've done zero training for that event.  I've done a bit of free training (aimed at the 200) over the past few weeks, but I don't have an aerobic base for it at all.  I'm in the same boat for the 100 fly.

200 back: I was quite nervous about this one.  The last time I swam it, I really wasn't feeling well and ended up not pleased at all with how I swam it at the meet back in February.  On the other hand, I had a markedly higher aerobic base at the time than I do now.  Anyhoo, I had a fairly good start and the first 50 felt great.  Second 50 felt good, too.  For some unbeknownst reason, my brain then told me that I'd die if I held at that pace, so I tried to take it down a notch on the third 50.  And then I promptly realized, going into the final 50, that I wasn't in fact going to die, so I picked it up on the last two laps.  Oops.  From the watch, my splits were a 32.43, 36.39, 37.42, and 36.63.  The clock time was a 2:22.93, which is a Masters PR and about 2 seconds faster than February!  Watching the video, I realized my turns are freakishly slow.  That is, the turn speed going into the wall is slow; coming off the wall I'm fine.  So, with faster turns, proper pacing, and the aerobic base I'll have later in the season, I am pretty confident that I'll be able to take that 2:22 down to below a 2:15 pretty easily.  The Nationals cut is a 2:12.94, which should be achievable by March or so.  While I've got loooooots of work to do on the 200 back over the course of the season, all things considered, this was a hell of a start!

200 free relay: I haven't worked on my sprint free at all since...ever...so I wasn't too worried about the relay.  On top of that, we were racing against one other relay...which was a 65+ women's relay.  And on top of THAT, our relay was not a legal relay, as the other guy on the relay is an unattached swimmer.  Over the summer, I dabbled a bit with trying my hand at galloping.  It's a freestyle technique where both strokes are out of sync and do not follow the same technique.  I haven't touched it since then, but since this was just a fun relay for us, I decided to give it a shot in this race.  Didn't turn out too shabbily, and I went a 26.40 per my watch.  If I'd really sprinted, probably would have been somewhere in the 25s.

100 fly: Ow!  This was right after the 200 free relay.  There was supposed to be a 400 medley relay, then one heat of the 100 fly before mine.  Well, there was no 400 medley relay.  As a result, I had enough time to take my goggles off, walk partway back to my bag, then turn around to head back to the blocks.  I wasn't mentally or physically ready for the race, and it showed.  I originally did not plan to go super fast (relatively speaking) on this one, just wanted to see where I was in my training, and see how much time I need to drop over the course of the season.  While my overall pace was slow, I was fine for the first 50...then started feeling the burn from the 50 free and the inherent nature of the 100 fly at about the 65 yard mark.  My watch splits were 30.29 and 35.99 for a clock time of 1:06.44.  Lots of room for improvement.  Without that 50 free right before, I most likely would have been well under 1:05.  Oh well.

100 back: Yes!  I had a lot of fun with this one and beat the #1 seed!  I had the second overall seed going into the event, with the girl in the lane next to me seeded 2 seconds faster than me.  I had decent turns (well, better than the ones in the 200 back) and good arm speed, but I burned out at the 75 from just overall tiredness.  If this race had been earlier, I might have been able to eke out another second or so, but I will definitely take it!  Per my watch, my splits were 30.94 and 33.70 for a 1:04.64, a full 2 seconds faster than my best from last season, giving me a new Masters PR!  The Nats cut is a 1:01.71, which I feel is definitely within reach, maybe even within just a couple of months.  Just speeding up my turns would probably cut off a second, then being fresh and rested would take care of another second or so, and then the rest will come from technique and aerobic improvements.

200 medley relay: I was starting to really feel it in my legs by this point.  I swam the fly leg of the relay and had a decent swim.  I split a 27.47 per the watch, but if we hadn't been swimming against invisible opponents, I probably could have split a 26 something.  Oh well, it was a fun relay!

100 free: My legs were gone and I was overall pretty pooped at this point.  I hadn't swum the 100 free since 2004 or 2005, so my original goal was to break a 58.  By this point in the meet, feeling as I was, I lowered the bar on that goal and changed it to breaking a minute.  My free actually looks surprisingly competent.  Definitely nothing spectacular by any means, but much stronger than I thought while swimming it.  Watch got my splits at 27.47 and 30.92 for a clock time of 58.56.  I'll definitely take it!  On the downside, it looks like I'm still crossing over with my right arm on the pull, although it doesn't appear to cross over as much as it used to.