The FAF AFAP Digest
NBAC Meet, Sunday, Sept. 9
by , September 9th, 2012 at 03:56 PM (2386 Views)
The FortressI woke up at 5:45 am today. This bears repeating. I, Leslie Livingston, woke up at 5:45 am today. I don't recall complaining about it either. I just made sure Jimby was awake and headed straight to the coffee machine. 20 minutes later Jazzy arrived and I was still guzzling caffeine and trying to eat something. Normally, I would never have considered journeying to a meet at this ungodly hour. But Jimby needed some succor and companionship in his quest to garner his first ever AA time in the 100 free. This was his third attempt at the event. Before this meet, he stood two hundredths of a second off Greg Shaw's time from Omaha. Who knew that a self described weak minded person had this much persistence?
Anyway, we made the hour plus trek to Baltimore without getting lost. I warmed up in the indoor short course meter pool. I saw no point in getting in the long course pool except to check out the backstroke blocks. Unfortunately, I checked the wrong end, the eight foot deep end, forgetting 50s start at the other end in long course. Just another reason long course sucks.
I hadn't entered 50 free, so happily had some time to continue to wake up. Jimby swam the 50 free and improved his time slightly. Plagued by elbow issues too, Jazz did a 50 flutter kick, posting a 41. This put the thought in my head that I would just kick a 50 back for time, not worrying about the 15 meter mark. Having only rested a couple days and swimming in an inferior pool, I figured I wouldn't be very close to my Omaha time.
So I wandered over to the correct end of the pool for 50s. Looked down, four feet at that end. WTF. I told Mollie Grover I would likely crash. Take your mark, crash. Well, maybe not a total crash, but an abrupt graze with a seemingly dead stop. I readjusted, went a few more feet and then grazed the bottom again. So much for people telling me I can train and compete in four feet deep pools ... But no matter! I persisted in my 50 kick for time. I went a little less than 3/4 of the pool underwater, maybe 40 kicks. I suspect I could have gone farther if I had not lost some momentum from the grazings or felt like pushing it more. Anyhoo, came up, noticeably slowing down flutter kicking on the surface, and touched in 35.2. This is less than 3 seconds slower than my Omaha time. So I'm thinking it's a decent 50 kick time -- especially given that the pool bit me twice. It would be fun to try it again in a deeper pool.
Oddly, very oddly, I was not DQ'd. At least no official approached me telling me I was DQ'd. Maybe they didn't see me? (Jazz video'd and said it was quite modernist with me missing for most of the vid.) I had planned to tell the referee that I would blast well past the 15 meter mark, but he was way down at the far end with the starter. I have never actually been at a meet where the starter was not at the start end ... These MD Series meets are, er, unique. But I really enjoyed both of them that I did this summer.
On to the 50 fly. Whoops, too busy chatting away with Jazz (about lifting) and Jimby and Skip (about various swimming topics). I saw my heat behind the blocks and didn't feel inclined to race over to try to make it. 50 breast was just minutes later anyway.
50 breast. Had kind of a sloppy entry, but otherwise everything seemed decent enough (who can really tell with this stroke?). I didn't really think about kicking hard until the last bit of the race. When one never does evil kick, one forgets to focus on it in a race ... Still, I went a 39.1, which is only .1 slower than Omaha. Not bad for no taper and doing weights earlier in the week. I like the 50 evil in long course. I am never tired afterward. This probably comes from not really using my legs much and getting to breath all the time. I was all ready for the 50 fly after that easy race.
But now it was time for Jimby's much anticipated 100 free, which I'm sure he'll blog about later, probably in a tldr format. He was simply masterly. Good start and breakout, a controlled first 50 and just hammered it home the second 50 with good tempo the whole way. He need to go faster than a 1:02.66 to claim the current fastest spot and he went a sizzling 1:01.4.Out to lunch after. Much fun had all around. Though I feel I should still do a speed workout tomorrow.
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