DAM Short Course Meters Swim Meet 2008
Saturday, my wife and I swam in a swim meet, the first in about 4 years and the meet went very well for both of us.
I swam the 50M, 200M, 400M freestyles and the 100M backstroke. Maybe you will notice that the 100M freestyle is missing from that list. Well, my wife decided that she didn’t want to swim the 100M free, since she was tired and that was the last event she was registered for, so she scratched. What actually happened was that I ended up getting scratched, and I didn’t notice until I looked down at the timers clipboard that Brook’s name was listed and not mine. As there were only about 3 minutes until I was supposed to be swimming, there wasn’t anything that could be done to resolve the problem in time. That was really the only mishap of the meet.
The rest of this post will be analysis of the meet that I will be interested in the next time I enter this meet and some analysis of my swims. Nothing is likely to be of interest to anyone other then swimmers.
Getting to the Baylor Tom Landry center was not too difficult, and parking was easy, right across the street. Getting there right as warm up opens is the way to go, since getting in and getting warmed up before the pools fills with retards who stop in the middle of the lane is important, if you actually wanted to get warmed up.
I warmed up with a 400M free and a 100M back. Brook probably did more then twice this about. Lane 9 has water treadmills in it that scare most people away from joining the lane. Brook and I had the lane to ourselves the entire time I was in, and Brook only had one other person join her lane before her warmup was over.
The 400M fr was an easy swim for me, with the purpose being an fast warm up, rather than a competitive swim. I felt like I maintained a strong even pace throughout the race and finished with a time that was .3 seconds slower then my 2004 time. After my 2004 race, I remember being nearly dead, and I probably came home much faster in 2004. Results are not posted for 2008 year, so I cannot compare how I split 2008 vs. 2004.
The 50 fr immediately followed the 400fr. I got a good cool down in after the 400fr, since lane 9 and 8 were open for cool down/warm up, during the races. Again, I swam the 50fr strong, and didn’t really start kicking until the last 12.5 meters. Brook made two comments. First, it looked like I wasn’t bothering to sprint until the last 12.5, which is a comment I have heard many times. Second, she said I just need to quit bothering with 50s and focus on the 100 and 200. My time was almost .8 seconds faster then it was in 2004, which was a huge surprise. After the 50, I did only 100M warm down. The cool down lanes were packed and no one was getting any swimming done. Lots of standers in the lane, and luckily, this was a rarity, probably do to the rate that the 50s were completely and the number of heats.
After the 50, there was probably 25 to 30 minutes before the 200fr. I swam in lane one, which is the only competitive lane against the wall at this pool, and the pool floor slopes up to the wall at a 45 degree angle, putting the lane line on an angle. Other then one really strong jet, the lane wasn’t too bad, and I ended up going 4 seconds faster then in 2004 iirc. There was a problem with the timing system right before this event, and we had to step down and wait behind the blocks for a few minutes. There was a guy in lane 6 who was well matched to my speed, and I could see him and kept with him the entire race. Brook said I beat him at the end. The girl in lane 2 was miss seeded and I ended up lapping her. She ended up not finishing the race because she stopped the same time I did. My race was thoughtless, other then holding myself in reserve. I swam a strong race, but didn’t go all out until the last half length.
The 100M back immediately followed the 200M free, so I needed to cool down quickly before I had to get back up to swim the back. Brook stopped me during cool down to talk about the races, and I had to tell her that I had another swim in 2 or 3 heats and needed a quick cool down. There ended up being a meet break for 5 or 10 minutes before the back heat started, so there was plenty of time.
This was the first time I have swam the 100M back in competition. It did not feel as strong as my freestyles, but I was not disappointed with my performance. I entered the median time from 2007, but I mistakenly entered the yards conversion, not the real meters time. I was worried that I would not be able to go the yards time, but managed to bet my seed time by 3 seconds. My start did not feel horrendous, so that was an improvement over practice. Brook did tell me that I had not kickout from the wall, and if I would work on just that one thing, my time would improve considerably. Brook may not remember that my kick sucks in general, and that is the primary reason by my kickout is non existent.
There was a large break between the 100 Back and the 100 Free because the 200 IM and the 50 Breast took a fair bit of time to complete, and there were 9 heats of 100 free, which I thought I was in the 6th heat. Turns out that when Brook went to scratch, I was the one who ended up getting scratched, and I did not notice it until the heat before mine, so I was not able to swim the 100 fr.
We ended up leaving right around 11:30am. This happened to be right when I predicted we would be done with the 100M free. To figure out how long the meet would take, I took the worst time from 2007, rounded and then multipled by the number of six person heats. This approximated pretty well how long each event would take.
Brook started talking about scratching the 100 after swimming the 50fr, which surprised me. Brook had previously never had a good 200 swim, so I would have expected her to scratch the 200 and swim the 100. I think the cold was getting to her, and she wanted to swim one more race and then go get warm. It is possible if the meet was running slower, that she would have scratched both the 200M and the 100M freestyles, having already swam 3 events.
Brook was cold the entire meet. She wore her new parka, swimcaps, sweat pants and uggs whenever she was out of the water, and she was still cold. I, on the other hand, was never cold the entire meet. I started out waiting for Brook to come through the women’s locker room to the pool when we first got there, and I was too hot to leave my sweat shirt on. After warming up and wearing a long sleeved tech shirt for about 20 minutes, I stripped out of that and went shirtless for the rest of the meet, only wearing a pair of umbros and my uggs. Next time bring flip flops.
Along with being hot the entire meet, I probably drank 60 oz of water, and 24oz of that was before the meet even began. I did not drink and thing but water during the meet and only a sip of gatorade after the meet. During the meet I did not eat anything.
For breakfast before the meet, I had 2 eggos, a plain omlette and a latte. After the meet, we stopped at Chipotle and picked up burritos, and I washed mine down with a half a bottle of wine. I did not drink any alcohol for the month leading up to the meet, and for the week leading up to the meet, I ate paste rich meals. My lunches were baked ziti, with dark meat chicken, with meat lovers pizza on Friday at Joes. The two nights before the meet, were spaghetti with butter garlic shrimp and spaghetti with italian sausage. The whole week was well planned so I did not worry about being hungry. Breakfasts were eggos and omlettes, with Endurox after workouts.
The swim workouts were Wed., Thurs, Friday before the meet Saturday because Shannon was out of town Mon and Tues. Thursday I swam hard and Friday morning I was sore when I got into the water. Friday, I swam the entire workout at a recovery pace, only doing a pull set fast. Friday’s workout ended up only being 3600 yards, while Wed and Thurs were 4100 and 4200 with more hard sets. I did not spend much time on starts, only practicing starts a half dozen times, maybe 3 weeks before the meet and spending no time on turns.