ILMSA 2014 SCY State Championships - Swim

Friday
1000 Free: 13:37.92
Got there plenty early to see the heats and have lots of time to warm-up. This is a check-in event, so heats aren't available until just before, but the psyche sheet lists everyone who had signed up and lists them according to seed time. So we can approximate it.

Put in a decent warm-up at the other end of the pool and waited my turn. For this one, planned to just swim it at a fairly decent pace, but try to work on controlling the pace over the distance and keep up the form. Did ok on the pacing, as splits were rather consistent around :41/50 except for the few botched turns resulting in an occasional :43. This was slower than I wanted as was hoping for :40 at worst, so definitely wasn't holding form as well. I could feel my elbows dropping early on, but couldn't figure out exactly where to fix it on the fly. I had seeded at 14:00, which is 1:24/100, but had been wanting to break 1:20. Ended up just behind 1:22.

After discussing with my coach, need to keep up the swim volume and really work on watching form throughout all of practice. Mostly improve on doing it deeper each interval as I'll do good at the start of each, but then drift over to mostly effort watching. I have a good sense of monitoring effort from running and biking, but the form instinct isn't quite where a swimmer would have it. I have to think too much about it still. In a meet, they don't really have to so much.

Saturday
Got there early to get in a warm-up out in the pool before things started. Then waited around awhile before my turn. Put in another short warm-up just before each event and some cool-down after. Doesn't look like much just from the events, but this was still 2,000 plus total swimming.

100 Fly: 1:14.21
Had talked with coach about doing other stroke events and said to just go for it one of these times. So I did with this one. 50's had been feeling just fine in practice so long as I wasn't really worn down at the time. All I wanted to do was just get through it in a nice rhythm as it's the first time I raced, or even timed it. Took a best guess on seeding from a couple others I swim with at 1:20. Able to get through the first 75 just fine, and tried picking it up for the final one. Not sure that actually helped as I tensed up quite a bit and couldn't sense it being any faster. Still made it to the end just fine and had plenty of energy left over.

A few hundred c/d after that, before the relay. Then another few hundred w/u before my heat in the 200.

200 Free: 2:19.57
Wasn't sure about this one being after fly, but optimistic after how much energy I had left. Didn't know how well it'd go, but wanted to push some. Seemed ok, but not grabbing as much water as I'd like. Kick timing also seems off on faster stuff. Turned ok, but could do better. Didn't miss any like in the 1000. Beat the seed time of 2:20 and felt a lot better than the 2:26 from a meet a month ago. Knew that one was off.

C/D of 500

Sunday
Lots of stuff this morning, but all short after the 500.

500 Free: 6:29.63
Had a good warm-up before the event. There was near half an hour scheduled in after the 500 finished, so pool mostly just had those of us in this event. Another check-in event, so wasn't entirely sure of heat until I got there in the morning. Just where I thought.

For the race, wanted to push through the first few hundred well and then try to pick it up over the last 200 for some change of pace experimenting. I was really thrown off on this when the guys on either side sped away earlier on. Seed was 6:45 and most in this heat were near 7:00. These two severely sand-bagged their times, coming in at 6 flat and 5:58. I just kept going instead, tried to stretch out my stroke, thinking I was doing horribly and needed to fix it. Usually it's from not getting a big hold, only to see I was safely ahead of my seed time at the end. 50 splits fell off throughout, so will have to think about stroke development some although mental outlook could have been a factor.

C/d of near 500 from that and shook it off.

Mixed 200 Free Relay: 28.93
Just fun stuff now, so said ok to being in a relay. Got to lead off our B-team. Stroke feels like a mess compared to longer events, but went at it from discussions with the coach on doing sprints. It feels like this during my fastest 25's in practice too. Trust that the form will be there well enough. Botched the far turn, flipped a little soon, as I was coming in with much more speed than at any other point in this pool. Hardly any push-off, but took-off best I could for the return. Happy to see sub-30 for the first time ever.

50 Fly: 32.38
Some fatigue starting to show up from all the events, but doing ok with it. On this one, tried to get through the motion faster without really trying to rip it harder. Fast, but not hard. The hurt will come later. Have to keep loose and a feel for the timing. Seeded :33 from the last meet and beat that well. Felt more burn after this than the 100.

100 Free: 1:02.45
Another sprint, and tried pressing the turn-over higher again. This time pushing it for longer. Guy next to me slipped just ahead. Tried to catch him on the last lap, but couldn't quite get there. Seeded 1:06, so beat that well. Thought the final time *might* be possible, but was more of a stars align time, so good to see. Something surprising was that I didn't break :30 in either 50.

Men 200 Medley Relay (Free): 28.03
One more event, and got into our A-team medley as another pulled out. Was put on free to anchor it as that matched up with abilities the best. Got out well and turned over as quick as I could, getting in a few breaths on the way out, so wouldn't need much on the way back. Hit the turn right this time and kept going with what I had left, was feeling it before this event, but didn't want to let people down. Happy to see this right around :28. And also beat our backstroker. He's 52, but already put up a couple :28's in the 50 back and another medley relay before.

Total swimming on the day was near 3700. Usually a c/d near 200 for each event, and then another w/u near 200 for the next.

Age Group Placing:
100 Free: 13/15
200 Free:14/18
500 Free: 7/8
1000: 8/9
50 Fly: 8/8
100 Fly: 8/8

Some of the swimmers here are really something. A guy in my age group entered 9 events and won all 9, plus did 3 relays for his team. Not exactly easy events either with the 200, 500, 1000 free, 200 fly, and 200 & 400 IM in there. Former Olympian David Sims was also there. He's 51, but still always way up there in the fast heats.