AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: October 7, 2012
Location: Edinboro, Pa

Second meet of the season is in the books, and I set three more personal records! After a 700-yard warmup, I did four events:

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle.
Time: 1:09.44
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My personal best set last year was 1:09.28. I did not beat that time, but I was close: 1:09.44. The actual records submitted to the Masters organization read 1:06.85, but I believe that is an error. The timing strips were set up wrong for the first few events of the meet and the 1:06 time was someone else's time. The person who got my 1:09.44 time might not know that he actually got 1:06.85. Fortunately, it made no difference in the age-group rankings for either him or me. Apart from that issue, this swim of mine was OK but not stellar. I know I could have done better. I had three turns and none of them were close enough to the wall to provide much thrust. Had I done my turns better, my time would have been 1-2 seconds faster. Oh, and a fellow team member pointed out that I didn't attack the wall at the end; I coasted in and got out-touched by my nearest competitors.

Event #2: 50-yard freestyle.
Time: 29.66
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My goal was to break 30 seconds, and I did! I was smiling for a good 30 min after this race was done, because I did it in 29.66 seconds. My old time was 30.4 seconds. In a race so short, this 0.74-second improvement is considerable. I had a great turn at the far wall to make up for the lousy ones in my last race.

Event #3: 50-yard breaststroke.
Time: 38.62
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
I have gone a year without improving my breaststroke times. But now I finally made progress. I swam this in 38.62 seconds, breaking my old record of 39.40. Again, a 0.78-second improvement is quite meaningful. I had a good dive, pull-out, and turn at the wall. I can't say that I was thinking about any other of my coach's pointers during the race; for example, I am pretty sure my head was up too high.

Event #4: 25-yard butterfly.
Time: 14.81
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
These short events are just pure fun and no one takes them very seriously because they are so short. In fact, I don't even breathe during a race like this. Anyway, because I did set another personal best, I'll make a big deal out of it. I swam this in 14.81 seconds, improving from my old record of 15.60. I may have shaved off some time due to a rather extended underwater series of dolphin kicks at the end of my dive.