Of Swimming Bondage

Today at the (un-aptly named for me) Sprinters Spectacular, I think I had the most fun and most pleasant 1000 I've swum since 1984, when I swam a picture perfect 9:17.75 in my junior year of HS, the swim I credit with catching Eddie Reese's eye (as he was at a meet in Potomac Valley to recruit another guy who was a senior). I didn't have anyone to race, so I planned and executed almost to perfection a stroke count/rate strategy ...

• 1st 400 - 13SPL
• Next 300 - 14 SPL
• Next 200 - 15 SPL
• Last 100 - ignore stroke count and throw my legs into it.

I don't have any splits yet, but I touched at 10:21.21, which, while not gargantuan, represented a 0.8 second drop from my best time, which was done last year at this meet. The best part about the race was that I felt like I really held my stroke together throughout the entirety, with three key focal points:

• stroke count
• consistent breathing pattern
• keeping my head looking down

I'll be interested to see my splits, which should come out tomorrow or possibly later today in the meet results, and compare them with last year's negative split (http://forums.usms.org/entry.php?354...split-decision).

After the 1000, I had a little bit of time to recovery and rest up for the 25 fly, which, like last year (http://forums.usms.org/entry.php?354...ot-Sprint-quot), was done from a 'flat start' off the bulkhead, but I managed to just dip under 12 seconds at 11.96 versus last year's 12.45.

There wasn't much more rest before the 200 fly and I really wanted to use this race as a checkpoint on where my 'race endurance' and fly were. No splits yet, but this felt like a well-executed 2:04.10, which is the fastest in-season swim I've gone since 2012. What this race convinced me to do is blow off the 400 IM on the first day of our State Meet in a few weeks (http://forums.usms.org/entry.php?383...Calf-amp-Slick) so I can see if I can put up a better time without a long race ahead of it.

The last race I did was the 50 "Anything Goes" in which I donned my old B70 Bodysuit and my monofin. I went from the blocks and pushed this as hard as I could, but it felt slow. I completely pulled an age-grouper move on the finish - as I was desperate for air (I took only one breath before the turn), I was rapidly surfacing and touched on top of the pad. So, my time was not official, but the timer got me at 21.35, which is not quite the 21.1 I went when racing Misty in this back in 2014 (http://forums.usms.org/entry.php?32577-Misty-Meet-Day-2), but better than the 21.90 I went last year.

At this point in the meet, I was still entered in the 100 fly, 50 fly and 25 free, but had little energy left. I considered the rest of my meet to be entering nationals:

Nationals Entry

Thursday, April 28, 2016
#2 1000 Freestyle 10:21.21

Friday, April 29, 2016
#12 50 Backstroke 27.93
#14 100 Freestyle 51.68 - Sixth Event

Saturday, April 30, 2016
#22 500 Freestyle 4:55.30
#28 200 Individual Medley 2:01.99

Sunday, May 1, 2016
#38 400 Individual Medley 4:21.21