Predict my times - first masters swim meet (Page 2)

I was surprised it was that much of a difference too.  The guy that was second (a 52 year old guy who got 5 seconds ahead of me by the 400m mark and I just couldn't catch him in the end) said it's closer to a full minute for him over the 1500.

The winner told me about this calculator http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/results/conversions.asp - according to that, my 21:18 is equivalent to 20:35 short course.

Axenspeedyhottie!!!

You did awesome, especially for your first masters meet and racing in a long time. Strategy, starts, turns and pushoffs are such an enormous part of pool racing. Different beast. It's not just that you still rock my world, you rock it even more now

And yeah, LCM makes a huge difference even over SCM, not to mention SCY.

Congratulations! I've been thinking about joining my local Masters team and your post yesterday reminded me of how much I enjoyed meet day.

Reviewing my predictions, your actual times:

400 - 4:22 (you did 5:07)

100 - 1:00 (you did 1:01.87)

1500 - 19:58 (you did 21:15)

I was way off on the 400, pretty close on the 100 (off 1.87 seconds), and not too far off on the 1500.

I thought you would go a little conservative on the 400, since you were finishing your day with your longest event. Since your PR for 100 was 1:00, I thought your splits would look something like 1:02, 1:05: 1:05, 1:08 (worst case), for a total time of 4:22. Your average 100 pace was actually 1:19.

I thought you would go hard on the 100, but not BTTW (sub 1:00) since, again, you still had the 1500 to do. I suspect you can go < 1:00.

On the 1500, I estimated your time based upon assuming a few things about your posted pace:

1. You might add ~15 seconds per 500 (or 0:03 per 100) to your practice time (6:42 per 500 on the 7:30) + fudge a little more time since it was your first 1500 race.
2. I thought you'd hold an average pace of at least 1:20
3. You'd leave everything in the pool since it was your last event and come in a little quicker (fudge my estimate a little less)

I think you did GREAT on the 100 and 1500, given your PRs and practice times.

What happened on the 400? Did you hold back? How much did you warm-up and how long before your event did you warm-up?

Also, how much rest time did you have in between your events? And how long was your day?

I hope you don't mind my deconstructing your events. It's purely from an analytical POV and helping me as I reflect on what I should expect of my own performance if I decide to take the plunge.

Thanks for sharing. It's got me kind of excited about joining a team.

Looks to me that your sprint speed is superior to you distance events.

Renee you have his actual times mixed up with anothers predictions.

Dambit, Gumby.

No question about that.  I was a pure sprinter when I swam as a kid. 

I definitely held back on the 400.  The first 200 was at a steady cruise pace and then I built from there but I finished feeling like I left a lot out there. 

I had about 40 mins between my warmup and the 400 and then almost 1.5 hours before the 100.  Then, only about 10 mins between the 100 and the 1500.  I think the 1.5 hours before the 100 was a bit of a speed killer but then the 10 mins to the 1500 was ok as it got me a bit warmed up before the 1500. 

As for going sub 1:00 on the 100, I know I could do it.  A month ago, on a good day I could have done it for sure.  It goes to show me what swimming 2-3 times/week does vs 3-4 times/week.  I was on the 3-4 times/week schedule for a couple of months in Dec/Jan and the last month or so I've done less and it's showing.  I definitely want to get back to 3-4/week.

If you are thinking about joining a club and going to a meet, do it!  It was a lot of fun.  Not something I would do often or travel to but since I was going to be in the city this one was being held in anyway, I'm glad I did it.  Kinda made me hungry to improve more. 

Your still fast at all distances!

Was it uphill?

There are a good number of OWS races at which the local Master teams (we have a few) participate. I want to do some OWS races, but I want to actually train hard for them for a change. Ergo, Masters team may be in my immediate future.

I knew you were holding back on that 400. A very solid outing for your first meet of the year, nonetheless.

I think you should go sub 1:00 at your next meet. Just cuz.

Here is a video my wife took of the 100 free (lane 2 with lane 1 being the closest to the camera). Talk about a non existent kick!  That was definitely one aspect that wasn't firing well that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy36iGBKY6I

Very brave of you to post a vid. Again, well done.

1) It is clearly a slow pool. Slow lane lines, too.

2) No warmup is going to make a big difference.

axteraa - 2012-02-20 11:01 PM I *could* blame a slow pool and lane lines (it was less than 3' deep for half of it) but I'm not gonna.  I just underperformed.   

You don't have to blame anything. I did it for ya.

First of all I'd like to say I'm quite dissappointed that you didn't finish at EXACTLY the times I posted!

Secondly, dude, those are some great times, I hope to be at that level someday, congratulations!

Thirdly, looks like you won the heat, and with wife and family watching that's cool!  When my kids see me win a heat, they don't care about who won the heat after mine.  It's called masters swim, seeding strategy, LOL

axteraa - 2012-02-20 10:01 AM I *could* blame a slow pool and lane lines (it was less than 3' deep for half of it) but I'm not gonna.  I just underperformed.   

Yuck! Who builds a long course pool that is 3' deep?! I would find that very annoying. You didn't have to dive into it at 3', did you?

Watched the video.

Well, I actually had the fastest time of all 3 heats.  Notice the empty lane beside me though, there was a guy with a seed time of 1:00.00 but he pulled out at the last minute.

Renee - 2012-02-20 11:17 AM

axteraa - 2012-02-20 10:01 AM I *could* blame a slow pool and lane lines (it was less than 3' deep for half of it) but I'm not gonna.  I just underperformed.   

Yuck! Who builds a long course pool that is 3' deep?! I would find that very annoying. You didn't have to dive into it at 3', did you?

No, the other end was quite deep as it has tower dive platforms.  The other end was shallow enough that for the 4x50 relays, the swimmers starting in the shallow end weren't allowed to dive and had to go from a push.

So you WON the whole damn thing? Well, why didn't you SAY SO?!?!?! Who CARES what your times were (well, me, I seem to be minus a Piglet Pec Press right now) ... you came in FIRST!!!

That's fantastic! Congratulations.

Did they go to finals in the evening?

Thanks Renee and Yanti! 

No finals, it was a pretty small meet.  Most events were only one heat and some were even combined male/female.  The 100 had 3 heats for men and 2 for women.

Your kid was there...at the start...lol

Looked to me like you may have gone out a little quick. I know it's only a 100 but man, you looked gassed at the end. I've found that slower up front, means better body position at the end, means a little quicker time. As we get tired in a longer race, the position slowly deteriorates but the stroke is a little more mellow and it doesn't have "as big" an impact as in sprinting. In sprinting, body position goes to chit and we wind up thrashing and going nowhere and it has a huge impact. If you could have saved just a little to be able to get your kick to the surface in the last 25m, I bet you swim a much better time.

You also lift your head a bunch when you breath, another killer in a sprint.

Great times all around though! Swim meets are so fun. I can't wait to do a LC one.

So what is a good pool and lanes lines worth?

Anyway, as that video rolled all I could think is that 50m pools go on for a long, long time.  ;-)