After a long rest

I have been feeling bad for a week now with a cold and as I blogged earlier this week I was worried I would be unable to swim today. My chest congestion finally started to loosen up yesterday and I felt much better last night. I once again loaded up on mucinex and Alka seltzer nighttime cold medicine and despite not feeling stellar this morning I felt ok.

I had delayed my positive checkin until this morning and made the call to swim the 800m at about 5am this morning. I feel ok in myself but I am unable to clear my chest. I had decided that I would just swim it and not stress out about the swim or my time. I was seeded in the last heat with a few guys I knew; Kurt Dickson, Ramses Rodriguez and Bruce Thomas along with a bunch of young guys I did not know. My plan was to swim a controlled first 400m and then see how I felt.

The guys in lanes 4-7 went out fast including Kurt who is in my age group. At 300m I almost quit but coughed hard coming off the wall and my chest let go. I did not think anything at 400m but noticed Kurt was a body length up on me. At 500m I felt ok and decided to try to pick it up. At the turn at 600m I was ahead of Kurt. I worked hard to not tighten up and focused on my walls and keeping my stroke long. I finished with 9:18 which was an ok time(slower than world's last year) and my splits were great going 4:37,4:40. More importantly I won the 45-49 age group.

The 800 always hurts but this one could have been a lot worse and I am so glad I did not quit at 300m. Somehow I need to find a way to stay healthy before nationals!

Tomorrow I have just the one swim again with the 200m back. This should again be a great race with Kurt Dickson and Lee Lawrence. I hope I feel better and better as the meet goes on.