Pete's swim blog

Had a great first day today. I put in roughly 90 miles preparing for 7 200+ yard events and one sprint over 2 days. For the most part, it has paid off pretty big with some significant drops in time. As usual, the meet is well organized and has been as on-time as possible. Very much missed Ellen (ekw) and Elaine. My thoughts and prayers are with you both. Hope to see you next year! Saw Swimosaur who gutted out a 200 fly and 400 IM with me. On to the events:

1650 Free:
Seed time - 19:17.76
Meet time - 19:04.24
I was seeded #2 with my teammate #3 and Ellen's teammate, Eric @ #1. Eric had a 19:02 for his seed. Since I was shooting for a sub-19:00, the plan was to push Eric hoping to wear him out so my teammate would have a chance to knock him off (they were both in the same age group). The problem was that Eric came to swim. I stayed in contact with him for 500 yards before he started swimming away to an 18:40. If he had gone closer to his seed time, I think I could have put in a better effort. But as it turns out I was miserable after 1000 yards and pretty much swimming on my own. At 1200, I was ready to give it up. Somehow I gutted out the last 400 yards and turned in a pretty nice time. It's not sub 19:00 but I'm not going to scoff at a 13 second drop in time.

200 Fly:
Seed time - 2:30.63
Meet time - 2:21.94 (32.43, 36.15, 36.37, 36.29)
This was just a really fun swim. I was in lane three with my teammates Roger and Dave in lanes 4 and 5. Swimosaur was one more over in lane 6. My fly has improved a lot over the last year and the way this set up, there was a lot of motivation to do well. Roger got a second on me after 50 and held of my charge at the end. I was hurting after 150 but far from gassed and had plenty to make a run at Roger.

200 Free:
Seed time - 2:02.71
Meet time - 2:04.61 (28.92, 31.48, 32.30, 31.91)
As much as the 200 fly was one of my better swims, this was one of my worst. After a poor dive and bad turn @ the 50, I lost the mental battle, fatigued and just blew it. The 200 free continues to elude me. I'm capable of a sub-2:00 but can't ever figure out how to get there.

400 IM:
Seed time - 5:08.96
Meet time - 4:59.20 (1:09.30, 1:22.66, 1:20.82, 1:06.42)
I was going for a sub-5:00 time and knew I could do it but had doubts after the 200 free. I was very happy to turn around a bad race and make a goal like this.

Tomorrow - 500 Free, 200 Br, 50 Br and 200 IM.