Meets

I decided last night during/after the forumite dinner that I was going to swim today's events "cold turkey". What that means is basically ZERO warmup/ZERO cooldown. I broke that rule by doing a 100 cooldown after my 500, but that was it. A total of 700 GTD yards for the day. And I don't regret my decision at all. It worked out fine, and honestly I don't believe I would've been any faster in the 500 even with a warmup.

Here it is:

500 Free - 8th Place - I posted my splits, along with Jorge, who was right next to me in the heat. He was coming back at me slowly during the race, and around the 400 I really noticed him coming!! Went to the legs like my coach always says, and that is was pulled me through! Without my legs, I would've lost this race. Thank you Coach John!!
While it looks like I added time, I didn't. It was a masters best time by over 2 seconds from when I wore a full-leg tech suit back when I was 32 years old. So this is by far my master's best time. I held very consistent, and definitely hit the afterburners at the end.

8 Adams, James 35 HMS 5:05.00 5:10.30
27.42 58.01 (30.59)
1:29.51 (31.50) 2:01.38 (31.87)
2:33.06 (31.68) 3:04.93 (31.87)
3:36.88 (31.95) 4:08.59 (31.71)
4:40.53 (31.94) 5:10.30 (29.77)
9 Albino, Jorge 38 SYSM 5:02.00 5:10.72
27.73 58.74 (31.01)
1:30.97 (32.23) 2:03.23 (32.26)
2:35.63 (32.40) 3:07.80 (32.17)
3:38.78 (30.98) 4:10.00 (31.22)
4:40.99 (30.99) 5:10.72 (29.73)

100 Free - 28th Place - this was my sixth event choice, or "filler material" for the meet. I knew my flight outta here was at 3:00pm, and just signed up for the first event of the day regardless of what it was...thankfully it wasn't the 50 Breast!

28 Adams, James 35 HMS 52.49 52.72
25.08 52.72 (27.64)

It is what it is. The 100 isn't exactly my style anymore, but I gave it all I had. Felt more like flailing in the water vs. that EZ swim that I remember back in college. Oh well, back home soon, and back to hardcore training again with the kiddos at Velocity Swimming. LCM season is upon us, even though I won't be in a LCM pool till June, right when our opening of the season LCM meet is.

It was great seeing and meeting all the forum folks this year at Nationals as well. Good luck to everyone, and thank you all for your support!

Thursday was a rough day to start with...

At least starting on Wednesday night, leaving Seattle airport at 11:25pm, flying to Chicago. Got awoken about WAY TOO EARLY somewhere over Salt Lake City as the capitan mistakenly spoke through the cabin speakers rather than the transmission do the air tower in Salt Lake. Grrrr.... I never really got back to "good sleep", if you can call it that, for the remainder of the flight.
2 hours of sitting in Chicago, with a McDs Hot Cakes Big Breakfast as well about 5:30am local time (3:30am to my body).
We boarded the plane to Indy. That seat felt amazing, and I was instantly out. I don't even remember leaving Chicago, but woke up as the wheels hit the ground with a bump in Indianapolis.


...but it finished quite nicely:

2 Adams, James 35 HMS 18:03.13 17:46.96
1:31.10 ( ) 2:02.87 (31.77)
2:35.30 (32.43) 3:07.38 (32.08)
3:39.55 (32.17) 4:11.72 (32.17)
4:44.28 (32.56) 5:16.81 (32.53)
5:49.44 (32.63) 6:21.90 (32.46)
6:54.47 (32.57) 7:27.41 (32.94)
8:00.21 (32.80) 8:32.90 (32.69)
9:05.58 (32.68) 9:38.47 (32.89)
10:11.33 (32.86) 10:44.39 (33.06)
11:17.48 (33.09) 11:50.12 (32.64)
12:22.70 (32.58) 12:55.58 (32.88)
13:28.38 (32.80) 14:01.15 (32.77)
14:34.02 (32.87) 15:06.50 (32.48)
15:39.08 (32.58) 16:11.79 (32.71)
16:44.24 (32.45) 17:16.38 (32.14) 17:46.96 (30.58)


Season best 500 time, and season best 1000 time on the way out for the race. Dropped over 16 seconds on the race from last January. I probably could've been faster, but I'm happy with it. It was very consistent, even though it didn't feel that way. I began picking up my kick intensity about 400 to go, even though the splits don't show it, but perhaps this kept me from going the other way too.

Not to bad with roughly 3 hours or so of sleep, plus the East Coast time zone change. I'll hopefully get more rest tonight in the hotel.

Tomorrow is my marathon day: 400 IM, 200 Free, 200 Fly...then forum dinner time.

I drove over and back to/from Spokane, Washington today for the final day of a 3-day pentathlon meet. Friday night they did the short version, 50s plus 100 IM. Saturday was the 100s plus 200 IM. Today was the day I went for: 200s plus 400 IM. Gotta get my money's worth of course!

I was tired this morning for sure. Yesterday I ended up working 8 hours of OT in the morning, then did plenty more unpaid work at home to finish my night. We had all the cousins over here with my kids last night, so we decided to rent a movie from the RedBox - "Wreck It Ralph". A good kids movie, very funny, and did actually teach life lessons. That set me back to about 10:30pm for bedtime though.

Alarm went off at 4:30am and I was out the door for my almost 3 hour drive to Spokane. USAS meets have such darn early warmups, and then the meets last most of the day as well. That's the bummer part of the whole thing...otherwise I love every bit of them, especially the great competition!

Team Warmup:

500 Free
3 x 200 "IM" stroke down/free back @ ~1:00 rest
8 x 50 Build Choice (did 1 Fly, 7 Free) @ 1:15
2 x Dive 25s (1 Fly, 1 Free)
(1550 yards)

I did plenty of cooling down after each of the following races, but ZERO warmup prior to any of them. That's how I roll...

400 IM - 4:38.60
27.6 / 31.8 (59.4)
36.7 / 37.1 (1:13.8)
41.4 / 40.6 (1:22.0)
32.0 / 31.6 (1:03.6)
This was a season best time for me by 2 seconds, but I wasn't very happy with it. My legs just killed me after a 50 of the backstroke. Probably the lack of rest, plus sitting in a car for 3 hours prior to this didn't help. I'll go faster in a couple weeks.

Got in a Power Nap in my chair here for about 30 minutes

200 Back - 2:17.89
31.9 / 35.3 / 35.6 / 35.2
Right on the time I did a couple weeks ago at the LMSC Masters Champs meet. I was huffing and puffing afterward, and my legs still weren't happy with me.

Another Power Nap in the chair...who knows how long, but each event was spaced out almost 1 1/2 hours or more.

200 Breast - 2:32.65
34.3 / 38.5 / 39.5 / 39.6
Good season best time, I can live with it. I had explosive wall pushoffs, and my pullouts carried me a long way, so I didn't have to swim much. That's the goal of breaststroke - not to have to do very much, right?

Power Nap right up till 2 heats before I swam the next one - the parent next to me woke me up to see if I wanted to swim or not.

200 Fly - 2:10.09
28.2 / 32.6 / (1:09.2 2nd 100)
This one felt pretty okay. I was back and forth with the boy next to me, each of us taking turns leading the other. Good race. I ended up 4th place in this race, my only ribbon-worthy swim of the day. I need to remember to keep my head down on the 1st stroke off each wall in this race. If I breathe first thing, it slows my momentum for the entire 25, and then I start sucking...

200 Free - 1:55.33 (Masters Best Time - at least untapered/unshaved)
27.0 / 29.9 / 29.9 / 28.7
I didn't feel excellent as I stepped up onto the blocks for this one, so I decided to start out easy and see what happened. The kids next to me got out ahead in the first 100, but I kept them close. Started giving more power in the 3rd 50, and kept going on the 4th 50. The final 25 though is where I really made up ground, over a bodylength on the boy next to me to finish strong. This makes me happy leading into Nationals to be able to have a best time like that.

Saturday

I was feeling a bit sluggish prior to warm-ups, and even stretching out a bit in the pool didn’t seem to help. I guess 12 days out of the water, then getting sick (food poisoning) and trying to swim this week anyway wasn’t helping me out too much. Oh well, race time anyway…

200 Back
2:17.82 – season best time by 3 seconds
32.46 / 34.71 / 35.82 / 34.83
This actually felt pretty okay, I was trying to extend my wall underwater work a bit more than normal, even though after the 100 I reverted back to my streamline glides for distance off the walls. Managed to hold off a 40yr-something backstroker for the win.

100 Breast – complete blah!
1:10.72
33.00 / 37.72
I just couldn’t get into my stroke. I could feel that I wasn’t grabbing water, and my pushoffs and pulldowns just didn’t have the normal “umph” that I normally have. It didn’t help that 55 year old Mike did a 1:05 with minimal effort next to me. He can glide almost 8-10 yards off one stroke cycle!

200 IM
2:14.53 – 3 seconds slow
27.98 / 36.52 / 40.25 / 29.78
My fly felt right up until I started my first stroke. By the end of the backstroke it became a good 3 man race – myself, Wes (40-something backstroke guy), and Mike (55 yr, breaststoker) Mike caught up quickly, but I managed to stay with him on the breast, Wes was a bodylength behind, but within striking distance. I was beat to the wall by ½ bodylength, but made up my mind that I wasn’t going to lose the race. Powered home strong to have a good finish.

No relays today for me. We only have 7 people from my workout group here, and they were going after some 55+ relay records in the LMSC.

I got to see something in person for the first time today at the pool…we have a blind swimmer at the meet this weekend, and she has a person at end of the pool with poles to tap her on the back just prior to reaching the wall. She does all four of the strokes too, and swims straighter than any person with two working eyes. Pretty darn good.

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Sunday

Started off with a good long warmup at the beginning, prior to the 1650s, even though I wasn’t doing the 1650 this time.

500 Free
10 x 50 @ ~:15 rest SDK on back/Str. Flutter Kick on back by 25s
4 x 50 Fly Drill 3/3/2/2/1/1/Full Stroke to end
200 Free EZ
(1400/1400)

Got in for another quick warmup prior to the “main part” of the meet. Did another 400 or so.

200 Fly
2:11.15
27.98 / 32.79 / 34.59 / 35.77
This felt rather good. I just didn’t have my get-out speed at the beginning, and just tried to maintain my 2-up/1-down breathing pattern. Out in about 1:00.8. Nothing hurt until length #7, and then it was just tough it out to the end. I was only 3.5 seconds off my time from 2 months ago in Kirkland, so this was pretty decent.

50 Back leadoff of the 200 Medley Relay
29.63 – pretty sure this is a best time for me.
I took 11 SDK’s off both the start and the turn. My coach told me I really nailed the competition on the 2^nd 25 with the underwater work.

200 Breast – 2:41.xx
35.65 / 41.72 / 42.59 / 41.31
I just completed this one. It was cool to see Mike go a 2:23 in front of me at age 55!

500 Free – 5:19.61
29.05 / 32.25 (1:01.30)
32.77 / 32.57 (1:05.34)
32.57 / 32.37 (1:04.94)
32.25 / 32.54 (1:04.79)
31.95 / 31.29 (1:03.24)
Good way to end the meet. Even split it and had fun.


Now it's time to get my butt back in shape. I've got about 5 weeks till Indy, but 2 weeks until I do one day of a Triple Pentathlon meet (USAS). Of course, the distance version I'm signed up for. Swimming these times at or close to my season best times with the 2 weeks off from training makes me feel good about what's to come at Indy.

Got up this morning and left about 5:30am, which was a 2 hour sleep in for me, so I was happy. At least I wasn't going to work, but I do have to go in on Sunday morning instead since I missed today for the meet. Work still has to get done.

There were about 60 people in the meet today, but it was spread out nicely on the total timeline, going from ~10:15am till 4:30ish pm when the final 1500 heat finished. I didn't space out the events too well though, doing the first 2, last 2, and one in the first 1/3 of the meet as well, in addition to 3 relays with my workout group. It was a good day of swimming, having over 3000 meters of racing in 8 races, plus all the warmups/cooldowns, and the 205 miles of driving each way to and from the meet.

200 IM - 2:25.27
30.04 / 38.23 / 43.72 / 33.28
My legs were just dead after the backstroke...during the breaststroke leg, I thought to myself "boy the 400 IM is going to hurt later".

400 Free - 4:33.08
30.80 / 33.73 (1:04.53)
34.91 / 35.13 (1:10.04)
35.17 / 34.99 (1:10.16)
34.55 / 33.80 (1:08.35)
Not too shabby. A few seconds slower than last fall, but this was a few heats after the 200 IM as well. At least it was split decently.

50 Free leadoff in the 200 Free Relay - 26.76
Pretty sure this is a SCM best time in the 50 for me.

200 Free - 2:08.01
29.44 / 32.18 / 33.29 / 33.10
This was a better swim than this meet last year, at least in terms of time. I got "dusted" (to use That Guy's words) by Larry Krauser, a 60 year old who just set the World Record in the 200 Free right next to me. He dusted me by 0.05 seconds, but did admit that I gave him a hell of a draft for the first 150 of the race.

100 Fly split in the 400 Medley Relay - 1:05.40
This was just fun with the team. I caught us back up after the neighboring relay left us in the breaststroke leg. Good thing our Wenatchee team has a flyer

200 Free leadoff in the 800 Free Relay - 2:19.40
I originally was going to do the 200 like normal, but my earlier time was good enough, so thought I'd do a 100 Split Request. Went a 59.30 UGH!! super tired!!, and then had to finish my leg as quickly as I could manage. Our team was going for the LMSC record as well. We did get that by about 5 seconds.

400 IM - 5:19.11
32.07 / 37.55 (1:09.62) - serious...I tried to go easy
43.37 / 42.85 (1:26.22)
46.19 / 46.56 (1:32.75)
35.40 / 35.12 (1:10.52)
I was just DEAD prior to this race. I didn't want to swim it, but did it anyway on sheer principle. You sign up for it, you swim it.

1500 Free - 18:19.46 - New LMSC Record

I was semi-dead tired prior to this one as well, and almost just fell into the pool off the blocks. We had no counters either (our fault for not trying to find one), but magically around lap 17 or so some numbers starting appearing in my lane! Thank you mystery person!! I wouldn't have been able to count the whole thing myself.
I just cruised alongside That Guy for the first 3-400 of the race. My UGHness starting wearing off, so I decided to pick up the pace a bit to see what happened, and I felt okay. I kept looking over to T.G. to see if he was coming, but didn't seem to want to. Around the 800, I tried giving another speed increase, and was still feeling good...slowly increasing my lead. 300 to go, one last speed increase. WAIT A MINUTE!!...cancel that. I'm fine at my 800 cruising speed. Finished the race and just hung on to the wall, glad to be against dry land again.

They had to input all the 1500 times manually as they decided to do a little reconfiguring at the last moment with the heats to combine them from 3 heats into 2. It was a good idea to save another 30 minutes for all of us, but no computerized splits on Meet Manager. I'll have to check the computer tape backup...
About the backup...(I'm sorry T.G.) I left the meet getting the meet manager backup file on my flash drive, but left the hard copies sitting on the desk in the office of the pool. I called the meet director on the way home and let her know that so she can save them for me. SOOOOOOO, both our 800 free split request times are still unknown, but they are in Coeur d'Alene.

I took off this morning around 5:15am for my trip over the mountains to the west side of the state again. I checked the pass report and viewed the Dept. of Transportations webcams for the mountain passes, and everything looked okay and good to go, so I didn't bother much in my vehicle selection. I took my normal '83 Toyota pickup (100% 2007 rebuild by me) that I drive on a daily basis, figuring it would be no problem. Well, I got to the base of the mountain pass, and the pass report sign was flashing so I tuned in on the radio to find that my pass was Traction Tires Required.
Great!! "Too late" to turn back and get my wife's car, that would put me over 1 1/2 hours off my schedule and would've made for issues, so I just forged on with plans to take it easy if needed. Well, the snow got heavier and heavier, not really a lot on the roadway yet, but I knew the west side of the slope would get thicker...this is also the downhill side for the direction I was traveling.
Well, I was going slow and easy, and on the downhill had a left turn coming ahead. My foot barely touched the brake pedal, and WHHHHEEEEEEEE!!!!!! I was skiing! In my truck!! Fortunately swimmers are the only ones up this early on a Sunday morning (and quite a few insane skiers), so I had the whole highway to manuever my truck around to get it under control. No problems, other than raising my heartrate to the EN3 level really quickly!!
I'm sure I left those tracks in the snow of a spinning, sliding vehicle that we've all seen before and wondered how it ended up.
Good news is that I made it down okay, swam the meet, and the return trip home at 1:00 in the afternoon was without incident. No snow at all on the roadway in fact!

----------------------------------------------------

Started off with a nice stretched out 1000ish worth of Freestyle, with a few lengths of Fly drill mixed in near the end. One pace 50 Free, which I did a :30. Zero diving, just a little stretch out in the hot showers.
I hadn't done much fly at all this past week, let alone the past month since I began having shoulder soreness a while back. But I never really did a lot of fly in practice to begin with, so I figured I'd be okay.

200 Fly - 2:07.50 - New LMSC Record 35-39
27.75 / 32.09 (59.84)
32.98 / 34.68 <--- UGH!! at the 175, and That Guy was coming, but thankfully it was SCY, not SCM
I looked back at my swim results database, and this is actually my 4th fastest 200 Fly for me, with my fastest being a 2:06.30. I was on track to better that today, till somebody was throwing pianos in the pool. I got hit with a small one, but a few other big ones hit too!

200 IM - 2:11.14
27.57 / 34.76 / 39.37 / 29.44
My fastest time in over 2 years. I know I can improve on this race all around. I was really only happy with the final split.

7 heats of 50 Fly rest, then...

50 Fly - 26.23
Right on par with where I've been when I swim this event...the one 50 I don't mind swimming. I almost kissed the wall on the turn taking a short stroke and almost regretted it.

Afterward, I did a 300+ straight swim at a quick pace during the 10 minute break. I was probably going around 1:10-12 per 100 during it. My body needed to get a little jump start to it for the last couple events, rather than just having some EZ swimming in the 14 yard long cooldown area.

100 Fly - 57.77
27.03 / 30.74
I would've like to go faster, but you can't have everything all the time. At least my kick respond to my brain's command on the final 25, so I could drive through the waves of the leader next to me who went a :53

200 Free - 1:55.81
26.75 / 30.03
30.12 / 28.91
I was happy with this race, and it was the fastest 200 Free I'd done in years too! I need to be able to bring down the middle two 50s into the :28 range as well, but that will come later in the season. My kicking training is what brought me home on this race.

So happy to finally have a meet right at home today! Every other meet is so far "out there" that it's nice to be able to swim right at home. Today was nice as well, because I had some very nice competition today from that guy who lives on the west side of the state: That Guy! It's not too far timewise, aside from the mountain passes which can be an adventure at times.

1650 Free - 18:03.13 (masters best time, new LMSC record)
I was feeling pretty good about this event beforehand, and I probably took it out a bit faster than I should have. For some reason the splits didn't get recorded on the official computer results in Meet Manager...not sure why, but being the Top Ten Recorder person for the LMSC, I have the hard copies of all the meet paperwork/deck computer timing tapes/etc., so I can actually look up my splits for BLOG purposes.
For That Guy's info, I will place his splits next to mine, as he also had a very good neck and neck race with me.
Dist. / James / T.G. / (Differtial me vs. him)
100 - 59.53 / 1:01.13 (1.60)
200 - 2:04.81 / 2:06.38 (1.57)
300 - 3:10.39 / 3:11.39 (1.00)
400 - 4:16.48 / 4:16.58 (0.10)
500 - 5:22.92 / 5:22.29 (-0.63) <== "changing of the guard" here
600 - 6:29.24 / 6:28.12 (-1.12)
700 - 7:36.08 / 7:34.58 (-1.50)
800 - 8:43.78 / 8:41.12 (-2.66)
900 - 9:51.54 / 9:47.61 (-3.93)
1000 - 10:58.89 / 10:54.89 (-4.00)
1100 - 12:05.74 / 12:01.86 (-3.88)
1200 - 13:11.78 / 13:08.91 (-2.87)
1300 - 14:18.67 / 14:16.19 (-2.48)
1400 - 15:24.32 / 15:22.89 (-1.43)
1500 - 16:29.59 / 16:28.57 (-1.02)
1600 - 17:33.97 / 17:33.97 (0.00) <== Exactly tied here with a 50 to go!
1650 - 18:03.13 / 18:04.53 (1.40)

Masters best times for both of us as well! My age group coach John was there taking splits for me, and encouraging me onward through the race. Around the 7/8/900 point of the race, I was hurting bad, and wanting to back off, but knew John would've needed a real good excuse if I did.
It was good that I had kept relatively close to T.G., because having the rabbit out front can be encouraging when you want it to be. I was very happy with this swim, and I'm sure T.G. was as well, though he went to the gutter after the race for "just in case" reasons. I was very glad to have someone to swim this race with me today, and we pushed each other to just about the max. The rest of my day took a hit on performances, but it's all good.

100 Free - 54.42
Pretty much blah, but what do you expect after a killer mile?
Note: I should probably retire from this event altogether.

200 Back - 2:20.45
Ditto

Sprint Fun - Unsanctioned 25s:

25 Fly - 11.83 - did it without a breath. (1st overall)
25 Back - 14.02 - SDKing was good, then was almost to the end (2nd overall)
25 Breast - 14.40 - I like this one. I had a completely different type of breaststroke on this one (1st overall)
25 Free - 11.33 - OK I guess (2nd overall)

These races basically consisted of the fast 25, hit the cooldown lane for a 25 back to the start end (wait for the reseeded chaos) and sprint another 25. Kind of a mini-workout in the middle of the meet.

Had a final leg on a 400 Free Relay at this point - didn't give much effort and cruised a 1:01

200 Free - 1:59.17
This was just hard. Still feeling the effects of the 1650. T.G. was right with me on this one...kicking my butt (meaning that he's tougher than me)

Swam the final leg on a 200 Free Relay, pretty much a cooldown swim

500 Free (swam as Fly) - 6:08.08
T.G. and myself both decided we would be worthless as far as putting together a "good" 500 Free race, so what the heck??

I had to give up the TV tonight to head to practice. I didn't really want to go, with the Oregon/"other team" going on tonight. The opening kickoff return was great, and the rest of the first quarter was pretty good as well. It was 15-7 with K-State banging on the door when I finally had to go for practice. After I got home, I was happy that ESPN had some good news for me.


Warmup:

300 Free
300 Kick w/ board
300 Free Pull
(900/900)

Kick Set:

4 Rounds of:

• 200 SDK @ 3:00 Build (2:40s)
• 100 SDK @ 1:25 Sprint (was 1:13-15s)
• 50 SDK @ :40 Sprint (was :35s)

(1400/2300)

Main Set:

4 x 300 @ 4:00 (held 3:25-3:30s)
2 min. rest
4 x 325 @ 4:00 (held 3:45-48s, 3:39 on last one)

200 EZ swim

(2700/5000)

16 x 50 @ 1:20 (4 of each stroke)

• Drill
• EZ
• Build
• Sprint

(800/5800)

8 x 25 AFAP (did all Free) @ 1:00
(200/6000)

200 EZ

-----------------------------
6200 Yards

That main set was a good one, and unlike any that we've really done before (with the club team) that I can remember. It's just 100% middle D/dist. short rest hard core kind of stuff--exactly what I like. The way John designed the set was each lane had the same intervals, but the other 2 lanes did 275/300 and 250/275 while my lane did the 300/325 distances. All 3 lanes were basically finishing their distances at the same time, so it worked out good.
I was pushing pretty hard, and not really sure if I could've possibly made it with a 325/350 distance on the 4:00 interval...but I bet KNelson's workout lane would've ate that up no problem!

The team is off to a 3 day meet this weekend down in Walla Walla, WA, so no team practices till Monday. I'll probably hit the YMCA on Saturday at lunchtime for a few miles.

I was able to drop in with the Oregon Reign Masters group out at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, OR on my way out of town from the Portland area this morning. Workout was coached by Dennis Baker. He was happy to see me there, and I was "happy" to see the outdoor pool was set up Long Course METERS!! They have a new bubble top over the pool which now makes it possible to swim outside at this time of year. Otherwise the pool would be unusable.

LCM
Warmup:

400 Free
200 Kick w/ board
400 Free Pull
200 more of Free waiting for the group
(1200/1200)

6 x 50 Free Desc. 1-3, 4-6 @ :10 rest
(300/1500)

Main Set: Idea is to get faster on each set of two 100s, even with less rest

2 x 100 Free @ :20 rest (went 1:23s)
2 x 100 Free @ :15 rest (went 1:19s)
2 x 100 Free @ :10 rest (went 1:15s)
200 Free Pull
1:00 rest
2 x 100 Free @ :20 rest (went 1:20s)
2 x 100 Free @ :15 rest (went 1:17s)
2 x 100 Free @ :10 rest (went 1:13s)
200 Free Pull
(1600/3100)

400 Kick w/ board, but must be fast in & out of the flags
(400/3500)

12 x 50 Free Pull @ :55
every 3rd one breath the least amount possible - basically I did a 6 stroke breathing pattern on these.
last one I did a :33
(600/4100)

6 x 50 IM (yes 12.5 of each str.) @ 1:10
I did 3 x 50 Fly, and 3 x 50 Back
(300/4400)

100 EZ and out

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4500 LCM in under 90 minutes, then hit to road back to home for 5 hours of fun. At least the roads were clear and no snow problems to deal with.

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Finished up the year with:
My Go The Distance 2012 Progress
581.31 miles swum (=1,023,114 yards, =935,535 meters).


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Oh, and here is a picture of my Animal Meet trophy award from the meet on Sunday.

This weekend was the annual Animal Meet weekend in Canby, Oregon. It started off as a USAS meet, and they have now piggybacked a masters version on at the end of the weekend for us to have some fun.
Masters have the option of doing the:

• Sprint - 100 IM, 50 Fly, and 200 Free
• Middle - 200 IM, 100 Fly, and 500 Free (also what the 12 & under USAS kids do)
• Distance - 400 IM, 200 Fly, and 1000 Free (also what the 13 & over USAS kids do)
• Or Masters can pick and choose between all the events (e.g. 200, 500, 1000 Free)
• An "Animal" award trophy is given to the fastest male and female in each of the categories, Sprint, Middle, and Distance (I went Trophy Hoing today)

The meet doesn't get very populated, partly due to the event selection, and partly from the time of year as well I suppose. I only travel down for this meet because I visit my grandparents for a few days as well on the same trip. I don't think I'd travel this far normally for just 3 events either.

Warmed up about 800 yards or so - I had to get into the "masters mood" rather than the age grouper I've been lately. Lots of 50s and 100s of mostly free and a few lengths of backstroke, with lots of talking in between. I wasn't worried about my swims, knowing my conditioning would carry me through no problem. I really only wanted to do well in my final race of the day, the 1000.
Did this meet on heavy Christmas training, with no additional rest aside from no swimming on Saturday (yesterday).


400 IM - 4:40.60 - not bad for a "cruise".
1:00.57 / 1:15.05 / 1:22.19 / 1:01.79
Got the splits from my old head coach that I used to work with here in Canby. He was there with his high school boys/girls swimmers who were our timers for the day.

200 Fly - 2:14.07 - whatever...not bad for how I swam it
I told myself that I wasn't going to push it, and that my final 50 was going to be the fastest split of the 4. Who does this???
Well, my final 50 was a 31.5ish, but not quite the fastest - my initial 50 was a 31.0. I did even split the 200 Fly, which is tough to do in itself

1000 Free - 10:47.92 - very happy with this
I was only 3 seconds off from my best time in the 1000, so considering the training I'm doing, this is good. I'm sporting a full beard right now, didn't wear anything remotely close to a "fast" suit either, just some plain ol' brief. I just got in a zone and went for it. The guy next to me said his goal was for me not to lap him 3 times. Knowing that, I tried to do just that, and got him 3 times on my final 50.
Eric told me my splits were (roughly):
1:00/1:05/1:06/1:05/1:05
1:05/1:05/1:04/1:04/1:02

In hindsight...I should've not even gone to the meet today. 2nd days of events like this just aren't the same as when we were younger.

I again did the standard team warmup:

600 Free
3 x 200 IM (stroke down/Free back)
4 x 50 @ 1:00 EZ/Fast
2 x Dive 25s

After this I just went into relaxation mode, and used a 2 hour+ window to sit down with my laptop and update the records for the Inland NW SCM records that were broken (I'm still waiting for a full update of the NW Zone SCM records from the NW Zone meet in October) <-- That Guy?? any help here? I can weed through them, but it'll take time.

Finally, my events:

200 Free - 1:57.61 - 2nd place
26.8/29.9/30.2/30.5
My legs were just tired and hurt on the second 100 of this race. I figure that's the "getting old" part of me kicking in.

200 Breast - 2:34.15 - 1st place
35.5/39.0/39.8/39.0
Beat the 12 year old girl on our team my less than a second! but paid for it too...
I did alright on this race, tried to stretch it out a bit, and increase the turnover near the end. Overall it was a bit slow, and afterward I had a little soreness on my left side groin area.

After cooldown and sitting in the chair for a while, the pain began to get a little more pronounced. ouchy.
I talked with John about it, and I may have overdone it a little. I told him I'd give the next race a shot, plus do the relay as well (since we had 7 relays in the 13&Over age group, and I didn't want him to have to rewrite all of them if not needed).

100 Back - 1:06.03 - 4th place
32.9/33.1
That's gotta be the most even split back race I've ever done!! Granted I didn't exactly explode off the wall for my start, and didn't kick too much either. I was hurting for sure, and after this race we made the final decision to scratch my remaining races for the day.

50 Free anchor leg on the 200 Free Relay - not sure on the split, but John thinks it was 22-high/23-low. The team from Moses Lake had a 5 yard lead on us when I dove in, and their 4th swimmer wasn't the greatest out there, so I knew we had a shot to possibly catch him. I gave it all I had, good relay exchange, 1 breath down, 1 breath back, but just couldn't quite catch him. It was fun though! Relays get me pumped, especially for these kind of situations.

100 Fly - SCRATCH

50 Free - SCRATCH

My first two races I've skipped out on since returning to swimming. Oh well, no sense in hurting myself, right? Now I just need to ice and rest my injury, unless I can find a good massage therapist.

Got to the pool early for the team warmup:

SCY
7:30am:
600 Free
2 x 200 "IM" (Stroke down/Free back)
6 x 50 Alt. EZ/Fast CHoice of stroke @ 1:00
2 x Dive 25s

Then I left for a while (from 8:15-11:00), since they had the younger kids warmup times, plus I wasn't in the first event of the meet. It is a non-split meet, so there is lots of waiting time as well.

100 Breast - 1:08.90 was 1st place
32.4/36.5
Decent race, I ended up "kicking air" a couple of times on my first strokes after the pullout, but still managed to have a good swim.

200 IM - 2:13.23 was 3rd place
27.5/35.9/39.3/30.1
While this race was on par with my other recent 200 IM swims in meets, my backstroke just suffered badly. I was running down some people in the breaststroke, which is strange, but I'll take it.

200 Medley Relay (co-ed mix) - did Breast - went 30.3
our original backstroker got sick, so we had to sub in another girl. That's too bad, cause she's one of the fastest girls in the state, and would've got us a nice lead against the boys team from Moses Lake. I ended up with about a 3-4 second deficit when I dove in for my FIRST EVER breaststroke leg of a medley relay. I've done the other 3 strokes, just never been needed to do breast. It was fun.

200 Back - 2:20.blah-blah was 3rd
32.8/35.9/36.5/35.3
This one felt horrible, I was tired, it was a tough race for me today, like usual.

200 Fly - 2:11.xx - was 1st place
28.8/33.1/34.8/34.4
This was decent, considering how tired I was at the start. I had two boys on either side of me about 4-5 seconds back, and I keep peeking at them on the turns. Kept my 2-up, 1 down breathing pattern going, and that's actually what kept me from feeling pain.

500 Free - 5:17.98 - was 1st place
1:00.59/1:05.2/1:04.4/1:04.6/1:02.8
This came close to an even split race. It happened exactly 15 minutes after the 200 Fly, we had a 15 min. break, then I was in the 1st heat of the fast-slow seedings. I beat my previous season time from Bainbridge by 2 seconds or so, so that was good as well. It's also about 6 seconds from my masters best time.

My placings are so high in this meet because most of the fast kids in the area are either at the Husky Invite meet in Federal Way, or at the other LMSC meet on the eastern side of the LMSC. We've just got the "western" teams here this weekend.
I've got the other half of events to do tomorrow, it's gonna be tough, 2 day meets are always like that for me...these kids can recover like nothing, but us need a little something more to bring us back. -->

I got my spot all reserved at the pool (got my chair set down at least), and that's the most important thing. It's gonna be crazy as hell at the pool this weekend, and every chance I can get, I'm gonna vacate the place for my house.

In other good news, my 15 year old teammate Jared swam a couple events today at the Husky Invitational in Federal Way, WA today, one of which was the 500 Free. He went a new PB of 4:52.77, dropping almost 10 seconds. Out in a 54mid, held 29mids the rest of the way. Awesome. Now I just need to follow suit.


--------------------

Warmup/Workout:

1000 Free warmup, stretch it out
1000 Kick w/ fins and board (I did about 500 or so with board only, NO FINS, really really easy)
1000 Pull - did 500 Free, then switched to 75 Free/25 Front SCull the rest of the 2nd 500

The set:
12 x 50 IMOrder (3 of each) @ 1:15
-- Drill, then Build, then Sprint by 50s
felt really good here, went fast!

4 x Dive 25s from the blocks that were just set up. Kids got to practice their shallow water dives into the 4'3" of water.

12 x 25 turns 25s from the middle of the pool, 6 @ each end.

outta there!

------------------------
~3400 Yards (maybe)


I took a look at the heat sheet on the wall at the pool. Not a lot of fast folks, but I'll have a good run for my money with 3 or 4 boys from the Moses Lake team. I'm the top seeds in the 100 & 200 Breast, & 200 Fly, with 2nd-4th in my other events, aside from the stupid 50 Free which I'm 6th.
It will be a fun meet, and I'm ready to race.

I headed over to Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA (close to Spokane) for Day 3 of the meet this weekend. It's nice only doing 1 day of these things.

All I can say is...man those kids are fast!!
There were a couple guys out there that were just unstoppable. I was watching two of them in my 200 Fly heat as well...they were that far ahead!

Did the team warmup with them prior to my events:

600 Free
3 x 200 "IMs" 25 Str/25 Free
8 x 50 Choice @ 1:15 (50 EZ/50 Fast)
2 x Dive 25s
-----------------
1650 Yards


1st event of the session was:

200 Fly - 2:10.15
28.1/32.4/34.3/35.2
Not my greatest showing. I was stuck in the lane adjacent to the warmup tank, so I was bounced around (felt like it) a bit during the swim. I got stuck on the laneline on my final 25 coming out of the breakout as well. That part really sucked. Stopped my momentum coming off the wall.
I ended up 3rd place in the race. 3rd, 4th, and 5th were within 0.5 seconds, so I won the touch at the finish. The Top 2 in the event were 1:54 & 1:58. Basically my best ever time from college wouldn't have won this heat!
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsj4dQSnnk"]11-18-12 - 200 SCY Fly, Cheney, WA USAS - YouTube[/nomedia]


200 Back - 2:16.25
31.2/35.5/35.3/33.6
Coach John wanted my to build my kick throughout the race, and put a little more SDK into my turns and streamlines. Accomplished both of those tasks, and while it wasn't my best performance in the race, it felt pretty good...and I almost ran down the guy next to me as well! 5th place in this one. Notice in the video that 1st place almost lapped me!!
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5BxzguaKPc"]11-18-12 - 200 SCY Back, Cheney, WA - USAS - YouTube[/nomedia]


200 Free - 1:56.xx (didn't get official time)
27.1/29.5/30.2/29.2
I just didn't have the easy speed to get out, but I was able to hang on to the race well, and between lanes 1, 2(me), and 3, we had a great race on the final 50. I ended up on the losing end of the 3-way battle, but it was very close.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liv9RgKF0wU"]11-18-12 - 200 SCY Free, Cheney, WA - USAS - YouTube[/nomedia]

Today was a long loooonnnnng LOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGG day.
I woke up at 3:50am, drove across town to pick up my teammate, then get gas, and on the road across the LMSC on one of the longest distances between any two of our "teams" cities. It's a 4 hour 15 minute drive from Wenatchee, WA to Sandpoint, ID.
I ended up picking up That Guy in Coeur d'Alene, ID on the way...he was on the side of the road hitchhiking or something. ???


The pool isn't the greatest pool out there, but it still about having fun and racing, and that's why we attend these masters meets. It's basically a non-glorified wave pool, with virtually no gutters (literally), and lanelines that plunge underwater outside the backstroke flags due to the anchor points that or 12 inches or more underwater on the walls. It's not exactly pleasant to swim in, but at least it's still water and 25 Meters long. Oh yeah, the starting blocks are AMAZING! T.G. got a picture of them I think.


800 Free (did 25 Free/25 Fly) 10:21.62
I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't believe I'd truly beat my earlier season best time, and T.G. kinda played around with my 1st counter board with a "43", so I decided at that point to switch to Free/Fly by 25s. It wasn't too bad, but not great either. Hindsight I should've just done freestyle.

200 Back - 2:31.xx or DQ, whatever you like
http://www.usms.org/rules/part1.pdf

101.1.2 Backstroke Start
Part B:

[SIZE=1]

The swimmers shall line up in the water facing the starting

end with both hands placed on the gutter or on the starting grips.
Standing in or on the gutter, placing the toes above the lip of the gutter
or bending the toes over the lip of the gutter before or after the start is

prohibited.

I did a start with one hand on the block and one hand behind me since the walls were super slippery and didn't want to have a start. So at the starting signal I then dropped underwater and SDK'd to begin my race...like in this previous video:
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhAJkagwn0M"]2-19-12 - Kirkland, WA - 200 Back - YouTube[/nomedia]
Apparently this is illegal, yet I've done this multiple times in both USMS and USA-S meets and never been DQ'd or told about it's illegality.

It cost my a 3 second time drop and approx. a 3 place move up in the top ten rankings, and an LMSC record, but oh well.

200 Breast - 2:49.34
This was a decent swim. I was still pissed off about my backstroke race, and I wanted to beat the older breaststroker in the race (who is much better than me). I swam the race smart, and hung right off his hip or legs throughout the first 150, then began my attack. It was either now or never, and my only shot at possibly catching him. I didn't really gain much ground toward the 175 turn, but from my blastoff pushoff and pulldown, I caught and overtook my rival. Now knowing I was ahead or tied, I pushed ahead with all I had and my turnover was great too, driving forward and no pain at all. I ended up beating him by a second as well.
Received many congratulations later about the race (many from the other guy's teammates )

200 Fly - 2:23.75
This was a really special event. We had arranged for as many people as possible in the LMSC to swim the 200 Fly in honor of Peony Munger who passed away this past August from her battle with pancreatic cancer. She was known for her miles and miles of butterfly, as well as swimming the most challenging races at the meets. She would've turned 78 years old tomorrow, Nov. 11th. This was for you Peony.
We had about 25% of those signed up for the meet swimming in the 200 Fly event today, many of whom this was their first every 200 Fly in their life. It was really neat to see 3 full heats of the 200 Fly today, and everyone in the pool area cheering on everyone to succeed in this swim today.

2nd best part of the swim...finding out that That Guy was eating my wake in the 2nd 100 of the 200 Fly.

100 IM - 1:08.xx
This was just a couple heats after the 200 Fly swim, I was tired, but still pushed it. Not a bad swim.


Survived the long drive home as well, arriving about 8:00pm at my house. 16 hours from the time I left, drove, swam, drove, ate lots of McD's, drove more, drank lots of soda and hot cocoa, drove more, and got home safely.

I headed over to Spokane as a passenger today in a carpool with other teammates. Very nice relief, because I was exhausted. We left town @ 5:00am. I went to sleep at a good time for the early wakeup, but around 11:00pm last night the phone rang and I ended up talking with my old college friend about his son's seizure situation that is just now getting started. He was looking for any help/advice that I could give from my experiences. Well, that call was over an hour, and by the time I got back to sleep it was around 12:30am or so.

I felt pretty good with my warmup prior to the meet, getting ready for my IM heavy day today. It felt to be a good day coming, but I've also been dealing with a headcold all week, and still have pressure in my head that kills me underwater, or when my head goes upside down (like in flipturns, or the starting position on the blocks). Still...when it's time to race, you do what you can!


400 IM - 4:40.10
27.77/32.32 (1:00.09)
37.91/37.43 (1:15.3)
41.13/41.37 (1:22.4)
31.93/30.24 (1:02.1)
This was a decent race. It was about the same time as I did in a USAS meet at the same period last year. I know I took my fly out very relaxed today, and that my backstroke could use a little more work. Breaststroke felt really short and my pullouts were shallow. Free coming home was decent, but I was just tired overall.

100 IM - 1:01.17
28.39/32.78
My fly felt pathetic here, but my backstroke I took about 12 SDKs and was told I popped up just short of the 15 meter mark. I guess the kicking at practice is helping.
Breaststroke was blah...freestyle coming home = strong!

100 Free leadoff of 400 Free Relay - 54.60 (26.21/28.39)
Decent speed, at least better than my effort last weekend at BAMFest: 55.23
My team enjoyed being out to a lead on the relay, but it didn't last long. At least we now compete in the 35+ category, so the don't about it so much anymore.

200 IM - 2:30.75 (100% active cooldown - still was a clear leader in the event)
30.18/39.56/44.19/36.82
I wasn't feeling great to be able to give 100% effort in ALL my races today, but I still got up and swam them for my team's points that go toward the season points total.

50 Fly in the 200 Medley Relay - 25.5ish???
Originally I had no intention of racing fast in this one, but...
Our team was on the verge of getting lapped by the neighboring lane. Our breaststroker was finishing at virtually the same time as their flyer.
So it was ME (fly), vs. HIM (free) in an impromptu race for glory. I knew he was a decently fast guy in freestyle, and we were already starting the verbal jabs at each other on the blocks about making this a race. My swimmer ended up touching a 1/2 second or less ahead of them, so I had a slight takeoff lead. On the turn he ended up pulling even with me, and we raced home. I ended up outtouching him by 0.04 seconds, so we weren't officially lapped in the race. It was pure fun, and my teammates said there was a lot of screaming from the crowd during this 'race'.

***200 Fly - 2:10.31
28.35/32.94 (1:01.29)
34.59/34.43 (1:09.02)
This was a decent effort. Originally I wanted to go faster, but it wasn't happening today. I missed the LMSC record by 1.5 seconds, which will be a cakewalk the next time I race it.

***Prior to the heat of the 200 Fly event, our coach (at the meet director's request) made a small announcement about Peony Munger's history with the event, and her over 1000 1650 of fly that she'd done in practices over the past years. She ended up swimming up until about 3 weeks prior to her passing, doing at least 200 yards of fly in the past 3 months every day. Her body was succombing to "cold" in the water more than anything, but she was determined to fight on to the very end. She will be well remembered in our area, and we (as an LMSC) now have plans to OVERLOAD the 200 SCM Fly (as many as capable of completing the race, or attempt to) at the upcoming SCM meet in Sandpoint, ID in her honor. The meet happens to be on the day before her birthday, a day in which we traditionally all swam at least a continuous 400 Fly in her honor. I now have to get my entries changed since I already entered the meet with other events.

200 Free - 2:03.36
30.16/32.13 (1:02.29)
31.97/29.10 (1:01.07)
This wasn't a "loafing swim", but it wasn't a 100% effort either. I knew I was toast at this point of the meet, but I didn't want to look like a wimp for cooling down 2 events in the meet, so I decided to go for a strong negative split race.
I took it out easy, began accelerating going into the 100 turn a little. Hit the 150 turn and came off with 6 dolphin kicks out the mid-pool, then the 175 turn with 5 dolphin kicks off the wall with a spring to the finish.
Oh yeah, I don't do those "wimpy SDKs" either. Mine are full blast kicks from the core rather than "toe/ankle flicks" SDKs that I've seen done before. I honestly wasn't even tired doing this type of swim. Had I gone out hard at the beginning it would've been a lot more painful.


Overall, a decent meet. I'm still going to have to rest hardcore this coming week for the NW Zone meet though. I'm tired, I'm sick, I need rest (and clear fluids). I'm also probably only going to be swimming Day 1 of the NW Zone meet as well, and throwing Day 2 under the bus.

Left Wenatchee mega mega early...about 4:15am or so, to travel across the mountains to the Seattle area. Met up with That Guy and That Guy's friend (yes he has one), and we carpooled to the ferry docks to save a bit of money.

I was feeling okay during the meet warmup, but not 100% for sure. Not sure if it was the early morning, or the beatings that my body has been given at practices over the past month. Probably a bit of both. Oh well, you have to race anyway...


200 Free - 1:56.95
26.78 / 29.94
30.16 / 30.07
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XkXhkTZIZ8"]10-6-12 Bainbridge, WA - 200 SCY Free - YouTube[/nomedia]


50 Back - 30.05
This has been voted the #1 worst event to swim...will find you the actual reference at a later date.

50 Free - 24.95
I tied with That Guy in this one. We were in separate heats too. He got a best time, I had a worst time. Who wins?

100 Free - 55.23
26.47 / 28.76
I seem to recall doing this very same time during my 5 x 100 @ 6:00 set on Thursday. I just couldn't get going!

500 Free - 5:19.52
29.17 / 32.26
32.94 / 32.87
32.86 / 32.77
32.43 / 32.15
31.71 / 30.36
I was able to negative split this one 2:40/2:39 First time I've been able to do that. I didn't have a counter person either, and attempted counting for myself. I did sneak a peek on Kirk's counter during the race at length #9 and was correct on my counting, so I began to pick it up there. That's about the point my body started feeling good. The shorter length races just weren't working for me today.

At least my freestyle race times seem to go "together" in a sense:
50 - 24.95 (100 avg. 50.0)
100 - 55.23 (100 avg. 55.2)
200 - 1:56.95 (100 avg. 58.4)
500 - 5:19.52 (100 avg. 1:03.9)

Well, it was about as I had expected. Since I went into the meet with no expectations, I came out with the "no results" that I expected.
I was 80% sure earlier in the summer that I wouldn't even sign up for this event at the end of the summer on the pure fact that I know I'm not in shape for it at the end of summer. Well, on the final day of online entries I asked my wife if she wanted to go to Portland to visit the grandparents and my sister for the weekend (and let me swim on Saturday evening). At least I swam which was fun, even if it wasn't anywhere near my top performances.

Long Course Meters:

200 Free - 2:16.35 entry - went 2:17.21
This was probably my best overall swim of the day, because it was first. Still 3 seconds slower than start of summer.

100 Breast - 1:24.35 entry - went 1:26.40
This was 5 heats after the 200...I felt good for the dive, pullout, first 5 strokes, and then I needed the wall for my next pullout. Oh yeah, this isn't SCY! I died.

200 Medley Relay - We had 3 of us from our LMSC team - Hydropower Masters. We talked about doing a dedication relay in honor of Peony Munger who is my teammate who has been battling pancreatic cancer for the past year. Well....she's coming down to her final days now, and we swam this relay for her. A 4 x 50 Fly Relay. I know it's nothing compared to the miles and miles of butterfly workouts she's done over the past 6 years in masters workouts, but it was all about her. I ended up swimming the first and fourth legs of the relay, and Margaret Hair and Cynthia Clutter were my other two teammates for the relay. It was fun.

200 Back - entered 2:44.35 - went 2:45.38
Hmmmm...my vote for all time worst event ever in long course

100 Fly - entered 1:05.99 - went 1:06.78
semi pleased with this event. There was a good race next to me with Dennis Baker winning in low 1:03, and That Guy a 1:04 mid. Congrats to both of them!

200 IM - entered 2:33.35 - went 2:39.02
The only good part of this race was the final 50. Basically because I was almost done with my day! I looked right (my breathing side) and there was no one to race. I looked under the laneline to my left (with no breath) and saw my competition about 2 bodylengths ahead of me. Apparently this is impossible to do according to Rowdy Gaines in his Olympic coverage, but I had no problem seeing my competition on my non breathing side.
Well, about 15 meters from the end of the race I looked again and I was at the guy's hip, so I poured it on to the finish. Ended up touching him out my 0.2 seconds.


Glad the meet is over...I'm wiped out. Now it'll be time to relax, visit with family, and get to bed at some time. We're planning on driving to the Oregon coast tomorrow with the kids, getting lunch and stuff, and then returning the long drive home to Wenatchee. It'll be at least 9 hours of total driving tomorrow. And yes, I'll have my wife take over at some point of the drive!


And I'm glad LCM season is over for me. Bring back the short pools!! Oh crap! I have an OW event in 2 weeks.

Prep for the LCM meet tomorrow (or maybe not so preppy)

Warmup:

2 x 100 Free @ 1:30 (1:11s)
stopped to talk with the diving coach from the high school team who was there way back when I was in high school. He's a very positive encouraging guy.

Jared came in at this point, and we "warmed up":
4 x 100 Free @ 1:30 (1:06-1:07s) more of a race

1 x 500 Free Pull (went 5:58)

8 x 75 Flutter Kick w/ board @ 1:25 (went 1:20-1:23s)
--basically this was a straight 600 kick.

100 Free EZ

Main:

5 x 100 (25 Fly, 75 Free) @ 1:20 (went 1:11-1:14s)

100 EZ

That Guy's Timed Swim Challenge Of The Week (100 Back - 1:04 )

went 1:09 (did 11/7/4/3 SDKs by 25s)
respectable at least

100 EZ and taper time for the meet tomorrow.

------------------------
2600 Yards


Order of Events tomorrow:

400 Free (will warmup while this event is in the water- no more than 3-400 meters)
my philosophy: limited practice time over the summer, limited energy...why waste it here?
200 Free - swimming it
100 Breast - swimming it
50 Fly - NOPE
200 Medley Relay - I'm sure the Oregon Masters Relay Record Smashers will be at it again
400 Medley Relay - Ditto
200 Back - swimming it
50 Free - NOPE
100 Fly - swimming it
200 IM - swimming it
200 Free Relay - happy I don't have to sit thru these
400 Free Relay - this too
800 Free Relay - same here


Shouldn't be too bad, until the death by Dennis Baker's outboard motor wake in the 100 Fly.

I know this isn't going to compete with the Olympics swimming very well, but I'm gonna go for it anyway!

I woke up this morning at 5:30am and was on the road by 6:00 for another road trip to a swim meet. On my day off from work none-the-less, after working another 60+ hours workweek. My main goal was to get there by 9:00am when the meet was starting to get checked in for the 1500 Free. Made it!

My first event wasn't scheduled until around 11:45am or so, the 100 Fly, with my 100 Free around 12:50pm. I was in the 2nd heat of the 1500s (alternated girls/boys), so I swam it around 1:20pm or so.

-----------------------------------

The results:


100 Fly - 1:05.99 (season best, new LMSC record)

did this "cold turkey" - no warmup/no cooldown
I also got the pleasure of being seeded right next to the top seed in the event (circle seeding) as well, and he went a casual :58.0

***OH YEAH*** (almost forgot)
I got to talk with Tom Jager at this point of the meet. He is the head coach of one of the teams in our LSC. He thought it was cool that I was out there racing the kids at my age, and that I was doing as well I do.
I'm never going to wash my hand again, even though Tom's sprinting mojo didn't rub off any on me at all!
That's my Olympic moment.

100 Free - 1:02.59 ()

my lack of cooldown didn't help me here, and I just shut it down around 60-75 meters of the race, and did a Lochte "prelims finish" into the wall at the end. Oh well, this wasn't the reason I came to swim today anyway.

1500 Free - 19:20.45 (new LMSC record)

I got a few splits from one of the club coaches (I wasn't even thinking I'd get splits, so this was nice)

200 - 2:26.45
400 - 4:59.25 (2:33)
600 - 7:34.64 (2:35)
800 - 10:12.54 (2:38)
1000 - 12:50.99 (2:39)
1200 - 15:29.37 (2:39)
1400 - 18:07.82 (2:38)
(winner was an 18:12, so I wasn't lapped)
1500 - 19:20.45 (1:13) - picked it up here since I was having a small battle with a kid a few lanes over and wasn't going to get beat by more of these kids!

I was swimming right with another kid for the first 400(same one who basically tied with me in the 1 mile OW two weeks ago), but knew I wasn't going to be able to keep that pace, so I let him go and found my own pace.

My final time is almost :30 slower than last years performance, but it's still good enough for 6th in the current TT rankings (right behind That Guy, and Tjrpatt). I'm human.

The main differences with this swim vs. last year's performance was:

• Last year swam in early June vs. late July this year
• Only able to swim maybe 3 days a week of minimal training due to summer work schedule, as compared to the "school year" when work is normal.

Overall, I'm still happy with this performance. Looking back at it, I was able to settle into a pace and hold it pretty consistent throughout the race.

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That's it for my 2012 LCM season, thank goodness! I've got two more OW races to go, one of them is next Saturday, and another will be next month.