Of Swimming Bondage
Nats Day 1 - I'm no Katie Ledecky ...
by , April 28th, 2016 at 02:06 PM (286 Views)
... and maybe I shouldn't have had that extra shot of espresso about 20 minutes ahead of my 1000 today, but the end result at least got me to my first level of 'swim nirvana' - a best time!
I will say that my trip out yesterday, last night and this morning was the smoothest and least nerve-wracking that I can ever recall before a big meet. I was ultra calm, felt almost no worry about my race today, slept very well - especially given the timezone change, and was supremely confident in warmups. Yes, I did get a little nerves around heat 19 ( I was in heat 23), but nothing like I normally feel before my first race at a Nationals. I'm sure it helped that my memories of swimming here in 2012 are beyond positive - I went 6 for 6 best times then and really surprised myself on some of my swims. It also helped that I was very confident in my training leading up to this.
I had a race plan going into the 1000 today that was very similar to what I've done the last two times I've raced it:
- First 400 - try to get into a 13 SPL and feel smooth
- Next 300 - as needed, bump up to 14 SPL
- Next 200 - go to 15 SPL
- Last 100 - whatever the hell I've got
... but I also decided that I was going to just go with whatever feel I had at the start of the race and try to get into a pretty fast stroke rate. The one thing I did not want to happen was to lock into too slow a stroke rate or to feel like I had too much left at the end of the race.
Well, I clearly accomplished the last goal - I was pretty hurting by around the 650-750 - and had as close to zero in the tank at the touch as I wanted. I also generally held to the stroke rate and count plan, though I could feel my stroke getting sloppy around the same point that I started to get tired. My splits tell the story of the pain ...
- 500s - 4:58.3 - 5:11.6
- 200s - 1:56.2 - 2:00.8 - 2:03.4 - 2:05.0 - 2:04.5
... but I touched just under 10:10 at 10:09.92 for the overall win and a best time by 4 seconds
The only bummer is that I was very close to my next level of swim nirvana - breaking our AZ State Record from the suit era, which was 10:09.09. When I touched the wall and saw how close I was to that, I was initially bummed that I didn't get it ... but I quickly got over that and am really pleased how the meet has started.
Of course ... I still think I can go faster next year as I really want to achieve my next level of 1000 swim nirvana - sub 10!
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Allen Stark