AMYMSA Postal 1650 swim

Race: AMYMSA 1650 swim
Date: 07 December 2013
Location: Greensburg, Pa.
Time: 24:53.87
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 4

Annual 1650-yard meet. I beat my time from last year by 13 seconds. That is an improvement of 0.9%. Wish I went even faster, but small improvements sum up to large successes. I will keep swimming!

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: AMYMSA swim meet
Date: 01 December 2013
Location: Sewickley, Pa.

A good solid swim meet for me. Qick recap:

Event #1 was the 100-yard Individual Medley. My old personal best was 1:15.24, set a month ago. Today I swam it in 1:15.09. I think my turns were good. I was well ahead of my heat until my breastroke-freestyle turn. Nevertheless, I remember concentrating more on my breaststroke and freestyle segments more this race than a month ago. I maintained good streamlining during breaststroke and refused to get tired like I usually do. Then during the last half of the freestyle I found some extra energy for a sprint and made a good finish. I felt sick afterwards, which suggests I gave it my all.

Event #2: 50-yard Butterfly. I swam this in 33.60 seconds, about a second off my best time. I did not push it, and was not out of breath at the end.

Event #3: 100-yard Backstroke. I swam this in 1:27.25, well above my personal best of 1:22.61. I was still tired from the earlier swims. Indeed, I need to work on my endurance in this event, since I get tired after 50 yards (true for all my strokes except freestyle). My friends tell me I still need a lot of work on my turns, as I initiate them much too late. Also, my finish was terrible. I didn't quite run into the wall, but my arm hit the top of the touch pad and it was a second or so before I realized I needed to touch it on its face to stop the clock. Once agian, my legs were burning and I felt sick. In fact, very sick. I got lightheaded and nauseated. I thought about scratching my next event but eventually felt rested enough to go for it.

Event #4: 200-yard freestyle. I swam this in 2:42.89, well above my personal best of 2:38.11. I am surprised how slow I went. When I was in the water I felt like my strokes were strong and effortless. I was grabbing water and pushing it behind me. It's always nice to end with a good swim.

I truly did my best this meet and have no regrets. I am still very happy I lowered one of my personal bests in the 100-IM. In the spring I will train harder and do even better.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Master's swim meet
Date: 17 November 2013
Location: Greensburg, PA

I had a great time at this swim meet. I swam four events and set a new personal best in one of them. But even if that were not true, I would still feel good. I gave my swims 100% effort. I made some mistakes, but my intentions were true.

Event #2: 100 yard freestyle
I swam this in 1:07.30, which was less than a second off my personal best. My dive was deep and I didn't surface for a while. Then I started swimming with big, long strokes with a lot of power and rapid kicking. When the race results come out, I will look to see if this first 50 yards was under 29 seconds because it sure felt like my fastest 50 ever [actually, it was far from my best time: 31.89]. The problem with this is that I still had another 50 yards to go and I started to feel burning in my legs. Later, after my swim, I felt sick from the lactic acid and was worried I would not recover in time for my next event. But after 15 min I was ready to go. Eventually I will gain the necessary experience I need to pace myself, but definitely not today!

Event #6: 50-yard freestyle
This was my new personal best. I swam it in 29.30 seconds, besting my old time by 0.23 seconds. I breathed once toward the end of the first pool length (mostly out of habit), and took about 4 breaths during the last 25 yards. John K. said my finish looked good, and I have a bit of a jammed middle finger to prove it. I hit the touch pad with a lot of velocity. Unlike my first event, I was not out of breath or overly exhausted after this swim, which is good, because I had to swim in the next event!

Event #7: 200-yard backstroke
I was disappointed in my 200 backstroke at the last meet, so I thought I'd try it out again. The problem is that in the intervening 2 weeks, I think I only practiced my backstroke once. So this was just a repeat of an over-par swim. I finished in about 3:11, which was 3 seconds off my best time. I did better today than two weeks ago, but I still made the same error: initiating my turns too close to the wall, and swallowing water at pretty much every turn. At least I counted my laps correctly this time! Oh boy, my legs and arms were both burning at the end of this swim. And my next event was...less than 10 minutes away.

Event #8: 50 breaststroke
I finished in 39.91, about 2.5 seconds off my best time. I remember staying even with at least two swimmers during the first 25 yards. I was watching them out of the corner of my eye, and I saw that their stroke rate was faster than mine, yet they were no faster in the water. Then I turned at the wall and as I began to swim the last 25 yards I saw my competitors gain a widening lead. I did what I could to keep up, but my arms were feeling really heavy.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: AMYMSA Masters Swim Meet
Date: 3 November 2013
Location: Clearfield, Pa.

I had a great time, and I am so happy that this is true of almost all my meets. I swam the 500-yard Freestyle in 7:09.82, which broke my old record of 7:28.09. Interesting pattern in the numbers there, you see it? I also set a personal best in the 25-yard Butterfly, which I swam in 14.58 seconds (an improvement of 1.2%). Then I swam the 200-yard Backstroke in 3:08.00, which was just 0.09 seconds off my personal best. Lastly, I swam the 100-yard Freestyle in 1:09.13, which was about 2.5 seconds slower than my best time. I don't know what went "wrong" with this last swim, but it doesn't matter. I am satisfied with something under 1:10, especially given a well below-average amount of swim training the past month.

Wilmerding Pumpkin Chase 5k

Race: 5k run
Date: 26 October 2013
Location: Wilmerding, PA
Time: 25:57
Overall Rank: 11 out of XX
Age Group Rank: 3 out of X

Another run in 34 degree temps, but it was a beautiful morning otherwise, and I dressed warm enough for it. I decided to speed down the first hill and got tired by the first mile marker. In fact, I kind of got bored. I had started at the front of the group and maintained a position toward the front, so there were only 5 people ahead of me, spaced widely apart. By the end of the race, another 5 people passed me so I ended in 11th place. I don't think I slowed my pace, but I may have. Having so few people in front might have led me to revert to a slower pace since it was kind of like a regular run rather than a race. The 8:22 mile/min pace is good, but I've gone faster than that several times before. In fact, I was 33 seconds slower this year compared to the same race last year. I don't care that much about this shortfall; I have barely trained for anything in the past two months.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet
Date: 20 October 2013
Location: Indiana, PA
Results: http://www.amymsa.org/Results/S2013-2014/IndianaOct13.html

Second swim meet of the season. I felt great, even though I haven't been doing a lot of training in the pool lately.

Event #1: 200 freestyle
New personal best of 2:38.11. This beats my old personal best of 2:38.45 I set in April 2013. This was a great swim. It felt perfect. I shattered my seed time, which I always set as my personal best so I know immediately if I have set a new record. I made a mistake this time, though. I submitted a seed time for the 200-free based on the 200-IM, so I did not shatter my old record by as much as I initially thought. Oh well, it's still a new PB.

Event #2: 50 backstroke
I swam this in 38.49, missing my personal best by about two seconds. I was still tired from the 200 free, and I misjudged the wall and failed to do a good turn.

Event #3: 50 butterfly
This went pretty effortlessly. I swam in 33.17, which was just a half-second away from my personal best of 32.43. I could have sped up my stroke rate and gone faster.

Event #4: 100 Individual Medley
I swam this in 1:15.24 which bested my previous time by 0.67 second. I was pretty tired by this time but this felt good. I was breathing really hard after I got out of the pool, so I know I did my best.

Penguins 6.6K Run

Race: 6.6K run
Date: 6 October 2013
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Time: 34:52
Overall Rank: 535 out of 3051
Age Group Rank: 39 out of 167 (top 23%)
Results: http://runhigh.com/2013RESULTS/R100613AC.html

Oddly, with a 8:30 min/mile pace I landed in the top 23% of men in my age group (39 out of 167). I don't think I've ever placed so well with a pace like that. It was a good pace, but it is far from that of a top runner.

The run was fun until the end when there is a hill and I was going faster than normal because I was trying to keep up with a guy who I was having a conversation with. I very slowly got dropped as the finish line approached. Good bye, new friend! Good bye....


Penguins 6.6k run in downtown Pittsburgh

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: AMYMSA Swim Meet
Date: 15 Sept 2013
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

This was my first AMYMSA masters swim meet of the season. I started with a 400 warmup. It felt good, so why push it? No stress.

Event #1: 100 freestyle
Finished in 1:07.37, about 1 second off my personal best. This is great, since it is the first swim meet and with the triathlon season just finishing, I haven't been training for short races. Dive was great, first turn was perfect. Then my turns got progressively worse. I felt sick with lactic acid for several minutes after this race, so I know I worked hard. My stroke felt really wild; my body was not rigid as it should be, so there is a lot of drag I can reduce and wasted energy I can recoup with improved form and less panic.

Event #2: 50 free
Finished in 29.53, which is a personal best. I knew this was going to be a fast swim when I was in the water. It felt perfect.

Event #3: 50 breast
Finished in 37.34 seconds which beat my old personal best by 1.28 seconds. That's a big improvement, and it was probably due to my dive and underwater glide. My coach and I practiced that a couple days ago. I put it to good use and didn't surface until well past the 15-yard line. Otherwise, my stroke felt rushed and inefficient. I was fast (for me), but there is a lot of improvement I could still make.

Event #4: 25 fly
Completed in 13.74 seconds, which was 0.98 seconds faster than my previous personal best. I smashed it. My dive was great, I did some strong dolphin kicks to get to the surface, and then I sped up my stroke cadence. In the past I have paused a bit with my arms outstretched ahead of me but I have been working this summer to get rid of the pause.

The Nation's Triathlon

Race: The Nation's Triathlon
Date: September 8, 2013
Location: Washington. DC
Time: 2:49:32
Overall Rank: 952 out of 2864
Age Group Rank: 149 out of 316 (top 47%)
Results: http://nationstri.com/results/2013-results/#/person:&entry_id=945:1391895807835

My third season of triathlon has now closed and this race was a great ending. I must confess a malaise crept upon me during parts of the summer; I did not always look forward to my training sessions in the pool, road, and trail. Nor do I particularly enjoy the actual racing; it is hard. But the day after a successful race can be fantastic. That is how I feel today. I feel accomplished. I feel like a triathlete and not someone who just does triathlons.

My friend Geoff and I travelled to Washington, DC on Friday. On Saturday we picked up our registration packets, browsed the expo, attended the pre-race meeting to go over the race course, and left our bikes in the transition zone. On Sunday morning, we left Geoff’s parents’ house and drove into the city, arriving around 6am. The first wave of the race began at 7am. An hour seemed like plenty of time to set up, but I had no time to spare. We parked in the suggested parking lot, but I didn’t realize we would have to walk >0.5 mile to the starting line. The transition zone entrance was a snarl of people and it took a while to get in and out. The Nation’s Tri is billed as the largest triathlon in North America. There were more than 3,000 athletes registered. All of them had to pass through a 12-foot width entrance to the transition zone at least twice (going in and going out) in the half hour before the race began.



From official race website.

SWIM (1.5 K = 0.9 mile)
I finished in 30:58, which was ranked 78 out of 316 (top 24%) in my age group.

The course was in the Potomac River near the Lincoln Memorial. Swimmers swam upstream and under the Arlington Memorial Bridge, then turned around and came back. The swim was a time-trial start, with waves of 8 athletes pushing off every 15 seconds. This really helped to space people apart and minimized the bodily contact that I had to deal with in my previous open water races. I did well in those past races, but I really didn’t feel like fighting people today, so I chose to swim out to the side and make wide turns around the buoys. This means I probably swam greater than 1500 meters, but it was stress-free and I felt good. The water was 79.5 degrees (wetsuits not legal) and as smooth as open water could possibly be. My time of 30:27 does not impress me, since I covered the same distance in choppier water at the Pittsburgh Triathlon in July 2013 in 25:27.

I exited the water just behind my friend Geoff. He had a head start by several minutes, but I didn’t know by how many, so I wasn’t sure at that point whether I had swam fast enough to compensate for the faster run time I expected he would have.

T1 transition (3:51)
This went really smoothly. Given nearly 3,000 athletes, the transition zone was huge, so probably a minute of this time was spent running from entrance to exit. I also had to slow down a bit in order to pass an athlete in a wheelchair. I felt bad about rushing past him.

BIKE (40 K = 24.9 miles)
I finished in 1:14:50, which was ranked 152 out of 316 (top 48%) in my age group. My average speed was 19.9 mph.

The course was made up of two identical loops. We started out near the Lincoln Memorial and went across the 14th Street Bridge to the Pentagon, where we did a 180-degree turn and looped back to the Lincoln Memorial and travelled north to George Washington University. We did another 180-degree turn and headed west on the Whitehurst Freeway to near the Key Bridge and then another 180-degree turn to take us back towards Lincoln again. There was yet another 180-degree turn along Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. The tight turns on this course were my favorite parts. I feel I have excellent bike handling skills and took the turns as fast and tight as I could to get ahead of my competitors. While there were some sights to see, most of this route was on multi-lane highways closed to car traffic. It was not as picturesque as I expected, but I was concentrating on racing and wouldn’t have appreciated the scenery anyway. There were two tunnels we passed under, and it got really dark under there. I made sure to go “hooooo!” under one of them, as is my custom.



From official race website.

I felt good on the first loop but after mile 14 my back started hurting. It gets that way if I have not trained enough in the bent-over position that fast bike riding requires. I decided I would not let this pain get in my way and I don’t remember it hurting on the rest of my ride. However, my calf and hamstring muscles were starting to twitch and cramp at mile 20 and I slowed down a tad to give them a break. I have had leg cramps spoil a run in previous triathlons, so I knew this was something to pay attention to. I drank plenty of water while on the bike, and I also consumed a gel, which I have never done while on the bike before. It did not prove difficult, and it may have helped with the cramping issue.

On the second loop, approaching the Pentagon (which, by the way, I never saw because I was always looking at the road), I came upon a bike crash involving at least four cyclists. The bikes were strewn at random angles and two people were sitting on the pavement being attended to by race officials and medics. I think all of us who passed by this scene became less aggressive on our bikes for the next mile or so as we processed the fact that what we were doing was dangerous. With so many bikes on the course, we were almost always next to another cyclist, passing them, or being passed. Just like driving a car on a highway, you have to look behind you to make sure there is room before initiating a pass. There are also “slow drivers” that are hazards and some elite cyclists that zoom past you without warning. I even yelled at one of the latter, telling him to “pass on the left, dude!” When I use the word “dude” in this context, you know I was not being friendly. Overall, I had great fun on this bike course, and people were mostly following the rules about drafting, blocking, and no passing near the bridge.

I never saw Geoff while on the bike. I assume that meant he was still behind me, meaning I had preserved my lead. But I couldn’t be sure.

T2 transition (2:58)
I felt better than I was as I racked my bike in the transition zone. As I bent down to change my shoes, I realized that I was super stiff in my hips. I most certainly didn’t feel like running, so I took my time and walked out of the transition zone. The spectators would not have that, so they yelled at me encouragingly until I started to run.

RUN (10 K = 6.2 miles)
I finished in 56:56, which was ranked 188 out of 316 (top 59%) in my age group. This equates to a 9:11 min/mile pace, which was only slightly slower than my run segment in the Pittsburgh Triathlon earlier in the summer.

I felt surprisingly good during the first 4 miles of this run. I kept a steady pace, but not rushed. I figured I would go a bit faster in my last mile. There were some folks who had stopped to walk, and a few were moving their arms but their feet weren’t keeping up. I passed them. It felt good to do so. Running is not my strong suit. There were spectators in places, many of them clapping, ringing cowbells, and dressed in banana suits. Yes, you read that right. There were several people dressed as bananas. It made me smile, and a smile is worth a lot when you are starting to get fatigued.

Between mile 4 and 5.5 I started to feel ill. My stomach was upset from the exertion and the heat (it was in the mid 80s at this point). My heart rate monitor told me I was peaking out in the 170s bpm. My vision was a little dim. But then a spectator said “look, you can see the finish line!” and she was right. There, about half a mile ahead, I saw the finish. So I kept going. I even quickened my pace and held my head high for the photographers.

This was a big regional race. The top 25 finishers in the whole race were from 10 states and the District of Columbia. Overall, I finished in 2:49:32, which was faster than the 3-hour goal that I had set. It ranks me 149 out of 316 (top 47%) in my gender-age group, and in the top 42% of all male competitors. In such a large field of athletes from all around the east coast of the United States, I feel really good to be better than half of them. I also beat my friend Geoff by more than 10 minutes, which is a second little victory that I celebrate, but it is done good-naturedly and with great respect for his excellent performance. I would not have been upset if he beat me, because this race is about what I can do independent of what he can do. I gave it everything I had and feel stronger and more alive today because of it.

I thank Geoff for his friendship and companionship. I also thank him for tolerating my erratic driving on the DC highways. Thanks are also due to his parents for hosting us and cheering us on. It was great to finally meet them.

Presque Isle Sprint Triathlon 2013

Race: Sprint Triathlon
Date: August 24, 2013
Location: Erie, Pa.
Time: 1:24:13.45
Overall Rank: 111 out of 370
Age Group Rank: 16 out of 29
Results: http://runhigh.com/2013RESULTS/R082413GA/AgeGroups.htm

This was my fourth triathlon of the season and I have one more in two weeks. This one went fine but it was another mediocre or ordinary experience for me, as I improved my time compared to last year’s race by just 34 seconds. That amount of improvement is not satisfying given the more intense training I’ve done this year. However, it’s still an improvement and I did quite well considering my month of August has featured a lot of traveling and stress at work.  I recall saying last time that I was not worried much about being slow in transition zones, but with this race, I can see that I could save a minute or two by having faster transitions, and that would at least make me feel better about my overall time, even if I had no measurable improvement in the actual swimming, cycling, and running. I will have to consider how to speed things up in all areas next year!
 

SWIM segment, 640 yards

Time: 13:34.10
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 29
Overall Rank: 39 out of 370

If I can celebrate anything with this race, it was the swim. Compared to last year, I improved my time by 17%, finishing 2:16 faster. When I look at the overall results, I was ranked #39 out of 370 competitors. That’s an incredible feeling, knowing I was faster than almost 90% of the field. I attribute this to better sighting (swimming more in a straight line to minimize overall distance covered), a stronger stroke (I have increased my speed over the last year), and my new wetsuit (no wetsuit last year). The wetsuit not only provides warmth in 74-degree water, but it also increases buoyancy in the torso and legs, which helps the swimmer reduce drag. The water was somewhat choppy. It was also filled with seaweed that got in my mouth sometimes! The swimmers were released in “waves” according to their reported confidence in open-water swimming. I was supposed to respond to an email a few weeks ago asking me about my confidence, but I have been on several trips and didn’t read the email until the day before the race. Therefore, I was placed in the fourth of five waves, which ended up being composed of less-confident swimmers. The same thing happened to my friend Dan, so we positioned ourselves up front and soon got ahead of our group. We had a few minutes of time in the water without other swimmers around, and then we started encountering the waves of swimmers ahead of us. Traffic jam! I feel like I was fighting these swimmers for the rest of the race, often coming into bodily contact with them. I have lost my fear of being hit y someone, and I just try to plow through the human mass as best I can. It’s not fun, but I think I do it pretty well.

T1 TRANSITION

My transition time between swim and bike was 2:25.20, which was just a fraction of a second faster than last year. This is significant, since last year I was not wearing a wetsuit and this year I was. It takes a bit of time to pull the wetsuit off, so I am happy to see that it didn’t slow me down at all. I should still work on being faster, though, as I was ranked 25 out of 29 in my age group.

BIKE segment, 13 miles

Time: 38:06.75
Age Group Rank: 19 out of 29

Here is the big surprise. I finished this segment around a minute slower this year compared to last year. Cycling is my strongest sport and my goal was to burn rubber on the road. Dan and I were evenly matched on the swim, so he was just a couple bikes ahead when I started the cycling segment. He increased his lead almost immediately. Several things worked against me. First, I was last on my road bike two weeks ago, doing the North Park triathlon. My legs did not feel strong, then or now. Second, and more acutely, I was out of breath when I started the ride. I don’t remember having this issue before. Third, I experienced a mild stomach cramp almost as soon as I started riding. Fourth, my front wheel began rubbing one of my brake pads. When I noticed this, I slowed down and attempted to adjust the brake pad with my hands with no success. I thought about stopping to take off the front wheel and then re-install it. But I knew if I stopped to service my bike I would lose valuable time. So I just kept going. At some point I figured the rim would wear away enough of my brake pad that it would stop causing friction. I assumed that happened, because after a couple minutes I forgot about the problem. After the race, as we were walking our bikes back to the car, Dan said “what’s that noise?” and I saw the issue had not been resolved. So, it appears I raced the whole time with a misaligned wheel or brake pad, and that could certainly be a cause for my slower performance this year. I really hate to blame it on a mechanical issue, though. I was not in top condition. That is still a big reason why I rode slower than expected.

 

T2 TRANSITION

My transition time between bike and run was 1:27.10, more than 17 seconds faster than last year. I would have gone even faster, but I was super thirsty after my bike ride and paused to take several squirts of water from my water bottle. Maybe I should have loaded my bike with a water bottle instead of keeping it in the transition zone. For sprint-length races, I keep it in transition because the bike segment isn’t long enough to require me to drink. At least, that is how I reasoned it. But next time I will take water with me. It doesn’t weight that much.

RUN segment, 3.5 miles

Time: 30:56.30

Age Group Rank: 21 out of 29

I ran this segment 46 seconds slower this year. I am really disappointed in that, because I actually felt like I was running fast. However, it took a mile of running to feel that way. I had to run my first mile at a very slow pace because my calves were starting to cramp. When I feel that happen, I just slow down and give them a chance to adjust; else they go into a full cramp and force me to quit completely. This must-avoid-the-cramp period must have gone on longer than I thought. Eventually, I was running at a good quick pace and was passing a lot of people in the last mile.

To sum up, I swam faster and improved my transitions. Then I got tired and couldn’t ride my bike or run as fast as I wanted. I still beat my old time, so all is well, and I look forward to this race again.

Ostrich Uproar 5K

Race: 5K run
Date: 16 August 2013
Location: Chicago, IL
Time: 24:20
Overall Rank: 19 out of 40

This was a small race with about 40 participants. I came in 19th place. My competitors were all my professional peers; it took place during the annual conference of the American Ornithologists' Union. Apparently, people who study birds for a living run quite fast! I went out too quick and burned out by mile 2. The person who came in second was a college kid attending the conference for the first time. He said he would have come in first if he hadn't stopped to vomit during the race. Too funny!

When I mapped the distance, it appears to have been shorter than 5K. Instead, it was 2.94 miles, which gives me a running pace of about 8:16 min/mile.

This is the turn-around point of the 5K run in Chicago. We started downtown near the tallest building.

Pittsburgh Triathlon 2013

Race: Pittsburgh Triathlon (international distance)
Date: 28 July 2013
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Time: 2:41:30
Overall Rank: 159 out of 344
Age Group Rank: 15 out of 31
Results: http://www.piranha-sports.com/Results/ResultsAll.aspx?RaceID=712

This was my second Olympic-length triathlon. My last one was this same race last year, so it is great to compare my performances and see the improvements I have made in one year! The swim was in the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh, the bike segment was along a highway HOV lane going out of town, and the run was along the riverfront.

Swim (1.5K) in 25:27, which ranked me 91 out of 344 competitors, and represents a 7% improvement from my performance last year. This race has a wave-start with 100+ people per wave. I looked up my swim time from last year and determined that my swim time was close to the median within my gender age group, so I started in the middle of the pack so I wouldn't have to crawl over a bunch of slower swimmers. Last year I was fairly timid and wanted to avoid all bodily contact so I started in the rear. This year I squeezed between slower swimmers without much trouble. Someone was drafting me for half the race. It was annoying so I starting kicking big in order to annoy them back! I started toward the center of the river, which was a wise move. Most of the field was off to my left, meaning they had to cover a greater distance in the same amount of time. This year I swam in a straight line. I have practiced my sighting skills and I think I have it down. Of course, there were other swimmers and numerous life guards in the water to help me stay on course. I did not feel any significant current in the water (which is surprising, given how much water volume there was with all the rain we've had), but the surface was choppy. My friend Dan started next to me, and we finished one after the other. Dan tells me he was keeping track of my position for the whole swim; I was oblivious as to where he was (sorry Dan), so it was a pleasant surprise to see that we were getting out of the water at the same time. We are so evenly matched!

I'm all business as I exit the water during the Pittsburgh international-distance triathlon.

T1 in 2:59 is faster than last year but still slow compared to most triathletes. I'm not bothered by this. My intent is to go fast on the swim, bike, and run. No one gets a prize for having the fastest transition times.

Bike (40K) in 1:15:46, which ranked me 139 out of 344 competitors, and represents a 10% improvement over last year. My goal for this entire race was to improve on the bike. Last year it seemed that EVERYONE was passing me as I meandered up the 6-mile ramp on the interstate HOV lane. So this year I trained for that ascent. I still went slower than expected. I dropped to 11 mph at some of the steeper spots, but so were most of the racers near me. I let it loose on the descents. My max speed was 36.5 mph. I was more conservative in my speed last year. Another thing I did differently this year was to be more diligent on taking water and food. On the slow ascents I accessed my water bottle and consumed a GU packet that I had stored in my shorts pocket. My legs didn't seem to get tired on this ride, but my back was distractingly uncomfortable through the whole thing. Since I have managed to avoid back pain on my training rides all year, the source of the pain was probably not due to poor condition. Instead, I noticed that my seat had shifted out of position; the nose was tilted down, probably as a result of transporting the bike on the vehicle. I did not take the time to readjust the seat during my race, so a strange pelvic position probably caused my back pain.

T2 in 1:56 which is a lot faster than last year because I didn't walk through the transition zone (I was hurting a lot more last year, so I needed to take a break in transition).

Run (10K) in 55:19, which ranked me 221 out of 344 competitors, and represents a 10% improvement over last year. After the bike segment, I was feeling good and ready to go. My legs didn't seem to be moving very fast, but I was able to keep to a similar pace as those around me, so I knew I was doing OK. I have never been a fast runner, so this 8:51 min/mile pace is actually good for me, with or without having done a swim and bike ride first! Miles 1-2 went very fast and I felt good. On miles 3-4, I started dragging and I wanted to be done. After the turn-around point, I saw Dan and he had a smile on his face. He asked me how I was, and I told him I wanted to be done. He wasn't too far behind me, so I reasoned that it was quite possible he would pass me and finish ahead of me. I decided that if he did that I would not try to out-race him like I sometimes try to do. On miles 5-6, only the knowledge that I would soon be done kept me going. I started to feel exhaustion set in, but it wasn't to the point where I would have to stop. I knew I could do it. But if Dan were to pass me, there was nothing I could do about it except cheer him on.

In the end, I led Dan by a little more than a minute. But out of a 162-minute race, that's statistically insignificant. It's great we are so equal in our abilities, and it makes every race we do together extra exciting.

I am feeling very tired at the end of the Pittsburgh international-distance Triathlon.

Penn Trafford Recreation Commission Triathlon

Race: sprint triathlon
Date: 15 June 2013
Location: Penn Township, PA
Time: 1:08:51.2
Overall Rank: 123 out of 202
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 13
Results: http://smileymiles.com/2013/RES13%20PENN%20TRAFFORD%20TRIATHLON.htm

PTARC Sprint Triathlon 2013.
Yesterday's triathlon was my 6th solo race in my triathlon "career." Back in 2011, this PTARC triathlon was my first. So now I can compare the two races to gauge my improvement in the last two years. The event included a swim of 200 yards in a pool followed by an 11-mile bike ride followed by a 5K run. Yesterday I finished in 1:08:51.2 which was 10:27 faster than I did in 2011 (a 15% improvement). Yesterday I came in 4th out of 13 in my age group; in 2011, I was 13 out of 13.

Swimming:
Dan and I shared a lane for the event. He quickly passed me but I stayed fairly close behind him the whole time. I am not used to sharing a lane with anyone so I find it distracting. I am thinking more about my position in the lane than about the quality or speed of my swim stroke. A separate issue is the flip-turn. I don't have a lot of control about where I end up in the lane after a flip-turn, so instead of fishtailing around in the lane behind Dan I just did open turns. I didn't feel good about the swim.

T1 transition went really smooth. I wasn't cold, either, which was a big concern given the temp was in the 50s.

Cycling:
Dan was coasting down the first hill so I passed him almost immediately. He told me later he was unsure about the upcoming intersection and whether the policeman there was saying "stop" or "go." Dan trailed me the whole rest of the bike race. I hardly ever looked back to see where he was, but I knew he was always close. I think I managed my energy really well, as I maintained a quick pace but didn’t burn out too early. There were only two spots in the latter half of the bike course where I coasted for a few seconds in order to rest my legs. My average speed on the course in 2011 was 14.9 mph. In 2013, my average speed was 18.2 mph. Of course, I have a faster bike now than in 2011 but my body is faster, too!

The bike segment was fun because I like to bicycle and I find the course scenic and interesting. One thing that was hard this year was the fact that riders were so spaced out, I had no one in view ahead of me for most of the ride. I had to rely on my internal motivation to keep going fast, rather than push hard due to a competitive wish to beat the person in front of me. Dan was close behind me somewhere, but having a competitor behind you isn’t as motivating as having a competitor in front of you.

I’m trying to resist comparing Dan to a persistent disease that won’t go away—there was always the risk that I would have to “deal” with him again!

Dan finished his ride only seconds behind me. This is significant because it turns out that about 2/3rds into the bike segment, I passed a woman on a mild uphill section of the road. Her steering was shaky, as it gets when you are riding very slow and having trouble maintaining balance. I called ahead and let her know I was about to pass her on the left. I think she was wearing headphones though, so it may be that she never heard me. I gave her about 6 feet of buffer as I passed. I never thought twice about passing her until at the T2 transition, Dan caught up with me and said “that woman you passed? Yeah, she crashed. I stopped to make sure she was OK.” (Her injuries were superficial and she told Dan to go on)

I wondered for the rest of the race whether I had done something wrong. Dan tells me I did not cause her accident. Apparently she lost control after I passed her but not IMMEDIATELY after I passed her. My compliments to Dan for stopping to help. My compliments to him also for catching up to me so fast afterward. He really had to work hard to make up the lost ground. Would he catch me in the run segment?

Running segment:
After the swim and the bike ride, I now had a 5K run. My T2 transition went smoothly, though I look forward to changing my laces to the elastic kind, which will save a few seconds of shoe-tying. I grabbed a GU for a bit of fuel and consumed this slowly during the first mile. I don’t know whether it is a psychological or physiological thing, but in the past this has boosted my energy level and today’s race was no exception. Overall, I ran at an 8:20 min/mile pace and finished this segment in 25:50.2. The race course in 2011 was quite different (easier, in fact), so I can’t compare my times. But looking at my five previous triathlons, this was the fastest pace I have ever run.

I did have to walk a few steps in the first half mile because my calf muscles were cramping. This has been a chronic issue, but not recently. I’ll have to work on that.

So where was Dan? He usually beats me in a run. The cross-country running course double backed on itself in several places, so I could see Dan was just a few seconds behind me throughout the race. He’d catch up at some point, but when? I wanted to stop. I was tired of running and the course wasn’t much fun because it was just looping around ball fields in unmown grass. There was a place where a volunteer called out “almost to Mile 2!” and I thought “darn! I thought Mile 2 was a long time ago.” Eventually the course took us down to the high school track for one quarter-mile circuit. Surely this is where Dan would catch me. I ran in the second lane from the inside, giving him (or anyone else) room to pass. But no one did. Finally, Dan started to make his move. I heard him get closer. I stepped up my speed. Then in the last curve of the track he started to sprint. But since I anticipated that he would do that, I started sprinting as soon as I heard the change in his cadence. It was a stroke of good luck that I was in the second lane from the inside of the track. Dan was attempting to pass me on my left. But as we neared the finish line we saw that the chute that you run through was on the right side of the track! I headed right for it with Dan basically at my left elbow. But there was only space for one to go into the chute and I hit it first. I was actually surprised to see the final race results that put Dan 1.2 seconds behind me. It seemed that he was just a fraction of a second behind me.

Given that he had to stop to assist a cyclist who crashed behind me on the bike course, Dan deserves the 4th place age group finish that I received. But life isn’t fair sometimes, and his loss to me by 1.2 seconds is insignificant enough that I view it as a tie. I will only brag in jest that I beat him.

MS150: Escape to the Lake

Event: Bike MS
Date: June 8-9, 2013
Location: Bike ride from Harmony, Pennsylvania to Conneaut, Ohio.
Time: 9 hours over two days

Day #1

This was a fundraising ride for the National M.S. Society.  I received sponsorship from 15 people totaling $520. My friend Dan and I and more than a thousand other riders left Zelienople, Pa. and traveled to Meadville, Pa. on the first day (81 miles). We stayed overnight on the Allegheny College campus and then traveled to Conneaut, Ohio to complete the trip on the second day (another 64 miles). Total distance was 145 miles in just over 9 hours of riding over two days.

Me and Dan after lunch on Day 1

I had a great time and felt fine during the ride, but I must admit that since we did this same ride last year, the novelty of the event was not there; Dan and I knew we could accomplish this feat, and we knew what the ride was going to be like. It was probably the most exciting thing I did in all of 2012, but I really can’t say that for 2013 because the sense of newness and mystery was not as present. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable weekend and I am glad I did it!

This year’s ride did differ in a few ways from 2012. First, we started earlier each day and kept toward the front of the crowd. I think we were in the second wave on Saturday and the fourth wave on Sunday (groups of 150-200 riders are released at the starting line at 10-min intervals). The early start on Saturday meant there were fewer riders at rest stops and fewer on the road as we traveled. Since Dan and I maintained a faster pace this year compared to last year, we also arrived at Meadville earlier in the afternoon and had more time to enjoy the activities there. Here is a comparison of 2012 with 2013:

• 2012: Average pace was 14.4 mph on Day#1 and 15.5 mph on Day#2
• 2013: Average pace was 15.3 mph on Day#1 and 16.8 mph on Day#2

By the Miles, Day 1

Mile 2: It is blasted cold (60 degrees)! I should not have taken off my jacket and packed it.

Mile 8: Some of the cyclists have turned on their rear lights. It is mesmerizing to look at the flashing light patterns for too long. Also, some patterns of flashing are more eye-catching than others.

Mile 10: First water stop; Dan and I were feeling good and decided to skip it.

Mile 20: I decide to entertain us by yelling “yaaaaay” as we ride over any bridge and “toooot” as we ride under any bridge. I tried to maintain this the whole weekend, but I forgot sometimes. Dan and surrounding riders were probably glad I missed some bridges and underpasses.

Mile 22: First stop at Moraine State Park. We had just finished a 7-mile long hill. At the stop, Dan and I got chatting with one of the volunteers. She doesn’t really understand how the MS150 ride works, so we answer her questions. How strange it is to have done this before and know all the answers to her questions.

Mile 38: Second rest stop. Already? I was feeling great. I enjoyed the fruit cup snack at the rest stop.

Mile 42: Dan spots someone riding a yellow GMC bike. He rode the MS150 last year on that model so he has a certain nostalgia and perhaps empathy for someone using that bike. His new bike, a Scott, is a very sporty and attractive bike.

Mile 53: Lunch stop at Lakeview Middle School. It is 11:20am and we have been snacking at every rest stop so I don’t feel very hungry, but you know me; I ate well anyway. The grilled chicken sandwich was great. We ate indoors here, just like last year. Except this year we chose to eat indoors to keep warm. Last year we ate inside to stay in the shade.

Volunteers at every rest stop had great spirit. It made the ride extra fun.

Mile 67: Rest stop at a neighborhood park. This one was sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods and their staff was extremely kind and wanted to do anything for you to make you more comfortable. I’m half-way serious in saying that if I had asked for my own pepperoni pizza, or a Jacuzzi, or a private massage, they would have found a way to help me.

Mile 71: A water stop after a big hill. At least, it was supposed to be a big hill. I remember being challenged by it last year, but I was in better shape this time.

Mile 82: Finish line at Allegheny College.

 

After this first day of riding, we got our dorm room key, dropped off our bike in the gym, picked up our luggage, took a shower, and changed clothes. By this time it was 3:45pm and we walked over to the beer garden and bandstand. The beer wasn’t to our taste and neither was the band. There was no crowd of people to watch, either, so we just sat quietly and slept with our eyes open. We headed to dinner at 4:30pm and satisfied a hunger we didn’t know we had. We took an hour to walk around the Allegheny College campus, and then around 7:00pm we went back to the dorm room and put on swim suits. The campus pool was open and we had planned to go for a swim to loosen our muscles and get refreshed. There were a few other cyclists playing in the diving well, but we had the swimming lanes to ourselves and we swam 750 yards. Looking back on this swim, I think it was the highlight of my day. It felt good psychologically to know that 80 miles on a bicycle had not depleted my love of exercise nor my ability. Dan and I also kept the same swimming pace (thanks, Dan), and this was just like our behavior on the bike, since we were often side-by-side on the road. I hadn’t thought much of this at the time, but now it seems poetic that two good friends were so inseparable over the course of 80 miles on a bike and 750 yards in a pool. Poetic. Or something like that.

Bicycles stowed for the night at Allegheny College

 

Day #2

This is part 2 of 2 about a fundraising ride for the National M.S. Society.  Having already ridden 81 miles on June 8, my friend Dan and I and more than a thousand other riders began the next day at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., to travel to Conneaut, Ohio (another 64 miles). 

We arrived at the starting line at 7:10am and just missed the release of one wave of riders. This put us in the front row of the next wave, released around 7:20am. I loved being at the front. There were exactly seven people in front of me and we maintained a tight pace line for the first 8 miles. I closely drafted the rider in front of me until midway up a hill and at that point the lead riders left me behind, as I found I could not climb the hill as fast as them. I discovered that following other people was easier than setting my own pace, so I tried to find other cyclists to follow throughout the day. This worked pretty well, but I tended to pass a lot of people on the uphill segments so I usually had to pick out a new person to follow after every hill. Dan and I found it really fun to pass people. It’s not that we are super-competitive. It’s just having a bit of “traffic” to go around makes the ride more dynamic.

By the Miles, Day 2

Mile 0: At the starting line there were a couple riders with memorable adornments on their helmets. This provided some entertainment throughout the ride as Dan and I made fun of them. But honestly, we were making fun “with” them since these creative cyclists intended to stand out in a comical way.

Mile 2: Oh my goodness, it is colder this morning than yesterday. Good thing I kept my jacket on for this part of the ride.

Mile 14: First rest stop. I took off my jacket and stored it for the rest of the day in my jersey’s back pocket. I struck up a conversation with Sara from the Pittsburgh Triathlon Club. She invited me to do a full Ironman triathlon with her next year. I just smiled and nodded and did not want to tell her that a full Ironman was well beyond my ability…this year, next year, or ever.

Mile 27: Last of the big hills on the route. This one was long rather than particularly steep. I admit it was a challenge but my motivation to pass slower cyclists kept my brain occupied on that rather than my own muscle fatigue.

Mile 42: Lunch at Connie Lance Memorial Park was sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods. Once again, the staff at Dick’s was super-super-super polite and supportive. There was an emcee announcing what the lunch menu was, how far we had travelled, how far we had to go, and how good we were to be supporting charity. He got some facts wrong and he was overly dramatic, but it seemed heartfelt. He could have easily did a worse job and still gotten paid the same by Dick’s.

Mile 45: We heard the sickest rooster crow ever. What was wrong with that thing?!

Mile 54: Last rest stop of the trip. We probably didn’t need to stop. This time last year I was suffering from back pain due to being bent over on the bike for so long, but I was pain free today. Dan was doing well, too. Nevertheless, I wanted to be done.

Mile 64: And now we were done.

 

At the finish line we enjoyed another full meal with pizza, sandwiches, and ice cream. I found a paper plate and wrote on the back “for Maureen” and then posed with it so Dan could take my picture. I am fortunate enough to have had no family members or friends with multiple sclerosis, but some of my sponsors have been touched significantly by it. In particular, Jean W. has been very supportive of my rides these last two years and I wanted her to know I was thinking of her during my trip. Multiple sclerosis took the life of her sister Maureen. I’m glad to have done something helpful for those affected by the disease, now or in the future.

I ride because I like cycling. But if it can help someone else, all the better!

 

Pittsburgh Half Marathon

Race: Pittsburgh Half-Marathon
Date: May 5, 2013
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa.
Time: 2:02:17
Overall Rank: 4,658 out of 14,039
Age Group Rank: 2,642 out of 5,450
Results: http:

Super-great experience shared with 25,000 other runners and upwards of 100,000 spectators. We started off at a pace a little slower than I would choose due to the crowd of people around us, but it was comfortable and I was having great fun joking with others, cheering on the spectators and bands, slapping hands of perfect strangers, and weaving around the course like a sure-footed and confident ungulate. I was jubilant. My running partner Dan would probably have punched my face in as I tooted like a train while running through highway underpasses. But I do that all the time, so he's used to it.


Crossing the Allegheny River into downtown Pittsburgh around mile 4.

I stayed pain free and felt perfect through mile 6. With each additional mile, it started getting tougher to act like a sure-footed ungulate. My quads started to hurt. The reality of only getting 6 hours of sleep the night before started to creep into my subconscious and moderate my mood. I still joked around but was more quiet. Our pace decreased a bit as the cheering crowds on the sidelines thinned out on the Southside. One highlight was seeing Danise and Joanne, and Dan's family cheering for use at the bease of the Duquesne Incline. Joanne had even made signs, one of which said "Go, Jim, go!" I am grateful for our cheering squad!

Having passed our family and friends cheering on the sideline at mile 9, I said to Dan "now I don't have anything to look forward to." In retrospect this wasn't an accurate thing to say, but my point was that I was sorry we had passed our friends and no one would be cheering specifically for us at the finish line. And while the finishline was less than 3 miles away, I was starting to feel more like a plodding rhinosaurus rather than a nimble gazelle. Not only was I exceeding the distance for which I had trained for, the race course featured a long, steady uphill segment from mile 10.5 to mile 12.0.

My quads hurt with each stride, and my knee was aching a little, and the soles of my feet were feeling raw. I encouraged Dan to run ahead and not let me hold him back. He decided to take me up on the offer at mile 11.5. As I watched him go, I was at first content to maintain my slowing pace but from mile 12.0 to the end I thought "if Dan can do it, so can I." I increased the length of my stride and pushed harder. My heart rate climbed from the low 160s into the mid 170s. According to my HR monitor my maximum HR was 195 but that seems unrealistic. I haven't gotten it above 185 in more than a year.

Nearing the finish line in downtown Pittsburgh

Anyway, I made it! The last mile was easy because I was ignoring pain, the cheering crowds had returned, and I knew I was just about done. One fun thing was that full-length marathon course re-joined the half-marathon course at the end (but in separately designated traffic lanes), and as I was nearing the finishline, the actual winner of the marathon was coming through, sparking a huge cheer from the crowd. That man had completed a full marathon in nearly the same amount of time it took me to run half the distance!

Here are my official stats:
Overall Time: 2:02:17 (my split time at the 10K mark was 0:57:50; I maintained a nearly equal pace of 9:20 min per mile throughout the race.)

This runner is happy the race is over, but he'd do it again!

AMYMSA Championship Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet Championship
Date: 7-8 April 2013
Location: Indiana, Pennsylvania
Results: http:

DAY#1
I had an excellent start to the championship meet. I acheived a personal best in 4 of the 5 events I swam today.

Event #2: 200-yard freestyle relay
Time: 1:52.59
Age Group Team Rank: 4 out of X
John swam the first leg, followed by Trevor, then me, then Matej. My dive seemed really high and arched as I tried to avoid hitting Trevor at the wall. Despite the shape of the dive I did not go too deep into the water and I trucked through my 50-yard segment. I did not feel sespecially fast, but it turns out I swam those 50 yards faster than ever before. My old record was 29.66; I swam this today in 29.26 seconds.

Event #3: 100-yard individual medley
Time: 1:15.91
Age Group Rank: 5 out of 5
My butterfly segment was strong but I forgot to dolphin-kick before surfacing. My fly/back turn was weird. Other than that, I went as fast as I could and set another new personal best at 1:15.91. My old record was probably 1:18.81. I say "probably" because there was a swim where a 1:16.00 was recorded for me, but if I remember correctly it was somebody else's time and not mine. Either way, I established a new benchmark.

Event #5: 50-yard butterfly
Time: 32.43
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
This is by far my favorite event in swimming. I did this with ease, which means I could have gone faster. Nevertheless, it broke my old personal best by 1.08 seconds, an improvement of 7.6%. This swim was recorded; I am in lane 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IADQKgQF6lI&list=PLyL7N7XBHL4360OB4z7GVd7kJi8IGe3C6

Event #9: 50-yard backstroke
Time: 38.01
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
This is the only event in the entire weekend when I did not set a new personal best. I missed it by a fair amount: 1.45 seconds. My start was OK, but I was too far from the wall when I tried to turn and that caused me to lose momentum. I would probably have been disqualified if the officials were on that side of the pool.

Event #10: 200-yard freestyle
Time: 2:38.45
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
I still set a new personal best, but it was close. My old record was 2:38.86. I am still happy with setting a personal best, but it doesn't reflect the effort and planning I put into this. The strategy I worked out with my coach was to do the first 75 yards at about 80% effort. I would then build during the next 50 yards, and then do another 50 yards at 100% effort. The last 25 yards would be afterburners, hoping I'd have enough to get to the wall. This was my last race of the day and I wanted to give it everything I had. All of this sounds like a great plan but I failed miserably! The first 75 yards went so fast that I was halfway through the next 50 by the time I realized I should be increasing my speed. At that point I wasn't sure then how far I had swum. Was I on the first 50 or the second? I decided I was on the first 50. However, I was wrong. As I got to the wall at 200 yards, I thought I had another 50 yards to go. I was therefore surprised at my flipturn to see that two people to my right had already finished the race! At yard 205 I decided that it was impossible for me to be so far behind, and at yard 210 I decided that I must have mis-counted my yards and I was now the only one left swimming. I could have stopped at that point. Or I could have stopped at the opposite wall at yard 225, but I had already done half an extra lap and why not follow through with what I had begun? Believe it or not, I maintained my all-out pace through the end (but not the after-burners part of the plan), even though it didn't count. My 2:38.45 time therefore is a pretty big overestimate of my "real" time because (a) a flip turn at yard 200 would not be as fast as a streamlined finish, and (b) I hadn't even reached my full speed.

The paragraph written above is what happened in my mind. But now I see my splits. My first 50 yards took 35.14 seconds. My next 50 yards: 40.39. Then 41.05, then 41.87. I am puzzled that I slowed down by 5 seconds per lap during the period when I thought I was quickening my pace. Crazy race.

DAY#2
I had an excellent finish to the championship meet. I acheived a personal best in 4 of the 4 events I swam today.

Event #14: 200-yard medley relay
Time: 2:14.88
Age Group Team Rank: 5 out of X
I started the first leg (backstroke), followed by Dan (breaststroke), then Matej (butterfly), then Trevor (freestyle). I threw on the throttle, concentarting on getting my arms out of the water as fast as I could (I have a strong stroke, but my cadence tends to be slow). My backstroke turn was not perfect but overall good. I was pretty sure I had a personal best but had to wait the entire meet before they posted the splits. Sure enough; my time was 34.XX seconds. My old record was 36.54. The great thing is that the one event yesterday where I didn't set a personal best was the 50-back, so this replaced that rough race. Our team actually won our heat. That felt good.

Event #15: 100-yard freestyle
Time: 1:06.48
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
Another fantastic race. I remember having a perfect dive; I probably didn't surface until the 15-yard mark, the legal limit. I cremed my old personal best of 1:07.80. My legs started to burn.

Event #18: 100-yard breaststroke
Time: 1:23.46
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
At this point I had had a string of great races and I wondered if I could keep up the pace. I did. I started with another good dive and some OK turns, and I didn't even swallow any water. I felt some fatigue as I got close to the end but I scolded myself not to slow down. "Streamline, streamline," I said to myself. My old personal best was 1:25.29.

Event #22: 200-yard individual medley
Time: 2:54.97
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
Once again, could I fight off the fatigue and do this race justice? Happily, my answer was yes. I broke my old record of 2:56.89. I'm actually surprised a bit that I did not break this record by a greater amount. I gave it everything I had...to the point where I felt nausous. I used to avoid that feeling, but now I look forward to it because I know I pushed myself to my limit, and that's why I race--to push myself to do more than I think I can do. The best part of this race was the fact that I was swimming neck-to-neck with the swimmer next to me (Gian P.) for the first 190 yards. Our butterfly segments were the same; our backstroke segments were the same; I pulled ahead in the breaststroke by maybe a body length; but then in the last length of freestyle he was fierce. I could see him thrashing his arms and splashing hard with his legs each time I took a breath on his side. He was frantically trying to beat me, and I pushed forward, too. Ultimately though, my effort was too late. He was already accelerating toward the wall before I was able to match his speed, and he beat me by 0.25 seconds. He and I had a friendly recounting of the event as we grabbed our towels to dry off.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet, scy
Date: March 3, 2013
Location: Indiana, Pa.

I had a good swim meet at Indiana University but not not exemplary. I swam the 400 IM, 50 backstroke, 25 freestyle, and 50 butterfly.

Event #1: 400 Individual Medley
Time: 6:46.44
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3

My seed time was 6:45.00 so I feel pretty good about my swim. I had never swam the 400 IM at a meet so there was some extra excitement and nerves going into the race. I felt my right oblique muscle tense up and my left toe cramp as I watched the heat of swimmers ahead of me. Oh boy, I thought, I hope I'll be OK. There is always some inner drama when I am competing! The swim itself was OK but not great. My butterfly segment felt easy until I swallowed water at yard 20 and spent the remaining 70 yards trying to clear my airway. I know this description makes it sound serious, but it wasn't. I've swallowed water lots of times and it's never pleasant but I swim through it. Still, it always distracts for the rest of the race. My backstroke turns were terrible, and by the time I was doing breaststroke I felt weak in the arms (but strangely, not very tired). My breaststroke turns and pull-outs were half-hearted. I even did an open turn during the freestyle segment. In sum, I swam this to get it done. Even so, I swam this faster than I ever did in practice.

Event #2: 50 Backstroke
Time: 38.28
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2

My time was about 2 seconds slower than my best time. That's not a good swim! But I only feel that way in hindsight. It felt good in the water. I think the problem was my start. The official was running the heats super fast and I felt rushed. The start tone surprised me, so I got a late start. In my head I like to "play a tape" of me swimming each race before I actually do it. It's an imaging thing that helps me prepare. I didn't have the chance to do that with this event.

Event #3: 25 Freestyle
Time: 13.29
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3

This was actually my best event of the day because I set a personal best. I was a little angry that I hadn't met my goals in the previous two events, so I plunged through this with every ounce of desire.

Event #4: 50 Butterfly
Time: 34.00
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4

This might be my favorite event in swimming but I felt tired by this point. My stroke was good but not especially strong. My arms didn't pull as much water as I know they are capable of. I think I took three breaths, an improvement from the five I took last time. My turn was late and too close to the wall. And speaking of the wall, I have finally figured out why my turns are so bad at swim meets in comparison to practices at my home pool. My home pool's walls are of a different design and in "away" pools I get disoriented about where to put my hands during breaststroke, butterfly, and IM turns. That doesn't explain my poor backstroke turns, though. I'm just bad with estimating my position as I approach.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet (scy)
Date: February 17, 2012
Location: Cranberry Township, Pa.

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle
Time: 1:07.87
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
This is 0.07 seconds slower than my best time, so this is great. At the 50-yard mark I decided to pull back the accelerator a bit so that I would have enough fuel to get through the next three events. This seems unneccessary to me now.

Event #2: 25-backstroke
Time: 16.95 seconds
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
This beat my personal best by about 0.4 seconds. My friends tell me I started late, and I know I didn't do much of a dive. A sore trapezius muscle has restricted my neck movement and I had to be cautious at the start. So an even faster time is in my future.

Event #3: 50-yard freestyle
Time: 29.86 seconds
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
This was two tenths of a second off my personal best. I am absolutely tickled to have broken the 30-sec threshold for a second time. I took only five breaths during the whole swim. I wonder what else I can do to get faster. Improving my start and turn will shave off another 2 seconds, but what then? I'll worry about that after I improve my start and turn!

Event #4: 200-yard Individual Medley
Time: 2:56.89
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
I did great, considering I have never competed in this event before. The butterfly segment felt easy but I had a lousy transition to backstroke. I started to feel just a little fatigue creep in during the backstroke, but it did not concern me. I was starting to breathe hard by the end of the backstroke and I was worried that during the breaststroke phase I would start to inhale water (I tend to do that), but I only did that once and maybe because I was so worried about it, I was ready for it and didn't let it bother me. At this point I think I was well ahead of everyone in my heat except Carol, and we were neck-and-neck. She pulled ahead by half a length at the start of the freestyle segment and I spent the rest of the race trying to catch up. I almost did! That bit of competition was good because it kept my mind off the fact that I was running out of energy. I didn't notice I was spent until I was out of the water and had to sit down for a minute to catch my breath and make sure I wouldn't faint.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet (scy)
Date: February 3, 2013
Location: Franklin, Pa.

I am elated to have done two events today that I had never done before: 200 butterfly and 200 backstroke. Let me set the plot. Frankin, Pa. is 2 hours from home and I figured I would be antsy the entire drive. But I wasn't. At the pool I swam a 500-yard warmup prior to the start of the meet. It felt easy and fast. I got out of the lane pool and spent time in the separate warmup pool to keep warm, all the while I was talking with someone from another team. Still not nervous. Then I realized they had opened up a sprint lane and I wanted to do a practice dive. It was perfect. My first event, the 200-yard butterfly would be in about 15 minutes. I ate a package of fruit snacks and drank some water. This was not because I was nervous; rather, I hadn't eaten anything in a couple hours and I wanted a little boost of sugar for the impending great feat of swimming that I thought might just kill me. Yes, now I was nervous. But I was only kidding about the dying part. I knew I wouldn't die. I just wanted to make a good effort on this swim without having mini-disasters like goggle failure or muscle cramps spoil my initial attempt at this incredibly grueling goal. The 200-yard butterfly is viewed as the toughest event in Master's swimming (though plenty of people do it).

Event #1: 200-yard Butterfly
Time: 3:30.42
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2

My dive at the start of the 200 butterfly looks good but I lift my left leg up, causing me to plunge too steeply into the water.

My water entry started out well but doesn't look so good now.

The first 100 yards was soooo easy. I can't believe it! My spilt times show I completed the first 50 yards in 41.19 seconds and the second 50 yards in 47.88 seconds. Maybe I found this easy because I really can swim these shorter distances harder. My 50-fly and 100-fly swims are indeed faster than the pace I was putting forth, but of course that is part of the strategy to go a little slower so you can last longer. My third 50 yards took 57.43 seconds to complete, and my fourth 50-yard segment took 1:03.92. Obviously, I was unable to maintain the pace I had started with, and by that last 50 yards I had terrible form and was struggling to bring my arms out of the water. But I didn't care one bit. I did the 200-fly. I finished, and I didn't have to hang on to the wall at any point. I didn't swallow water, my goggles worked great, and no muscle cramps. All my teammates were cheering me on and it felt good (Dan deserves special mention because he swam this event simply to keep me on pace and support me).

Event #2: 200-yard backstroke
Time: 3:07.91
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3

This event was fairly late in the meet, so I had plenty of time to recover from the fly. My backstroke start was poor (but I don't practice it, so no surprise), but my stroke was strong and efficient. It felt leisurely, in fact. I was holding down my stroke rate to conserve energy and this seems to have worked well. My split times were much more equal: 44.86, 46.57, 51.10, and 45.38. I definitely sped up on that last 50 yards because Kim was in the lane next to me. Kim and I had spoken briefly before the race and we talked about how I would beat her, but not by a lot. Therefore, I was quite challenged to see that she was keeping up with me for the whole swim. I did not want her to beat me, so I sped up as fast as I could on the last 25 yards. I actually thought I beat her by half a body length, but I must not have punched the wall as well as she did. She beat me by a third of a second. She was pleased and grateful that I had provided a challenge to beat--in a way similar to what Dan had done for me on the 200-fly. It always ends well, doesn't it? I beat my seed time by 15 seconds, so i am happy with this swim. However, I need much more experience with the timing of my turns. Sometimes I turned too soon and sometimes too late. In fact there was one turn where I flipped over long before I was at the wall, so I immediately flipped back on my back to take another stroke. That would have disqualified me if any official was watching. Please don't tell!

Event #3: 25-yard butterfly
Time: 14.76 seconds
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2

Why not more butterfly? I had a great dive and dolphin kicked for quite a distance. My dolphin kick needs work, but today it seemed to get me to where I wanted to go. I then did butterfly strokes as fast and strong as I could and I felt I was doing my best work. My time was 0.05 seconds faster than my personal best. Despite it breaking a record for me, I thought I was going to break that record by a greater amount. Next time I am sure I will!

To sum, I had a great, great meet. Friendships there are part of it, and my performances are the other part. Happy.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet (scy)
Date: January 6, 2013
Location: Grove City, Pa.

Event #1: 100-yard Individual Medley
Time: 1:18.81
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4
I had a great swim meet today! It's not even that my times were that great, but I had a lousy week and I needed this success. I started off with the 100-IM. My goggles leaked on my initial dive, but not terribly so. I was well ahead of my nearest competitors at the 50-yard mark. But then in the middle of my breast stroke I swallowed water, and then more, and then a third gulp failed to get me air. Once you're in a rhythm, it's hard to break it, even if it is all wrong! I panicked and paused at the wall before finishing the 25-yard segment of freestyle. I looked over to my competitors and half of them were just starting their freestyle segment, so I threw on some power and plowed through the water on that last segment. I finished ahead of a few of them. My time was two seconds off my personal best. Not bad, considering the situation.

Event #2: 100-yard Backstroke
Time: 1:22.61
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My second event was the 100 Backstroke. I avoided backstroke all last year but now I'm really enjoying it. I guessed at a seed time since I had not done this event before. The swim felt good and I finished almost 5 seconds faster than I expected. My quadriceps were burning now, but they recovered during the 20 min before my next event.

Event #3: 100-yard butterfly
Time: 1:20.24
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My third event was the 100 Butterfly. I have been working on my butterfly stroke with my coach recently, and as a consequence I am a little less confident about it. Does that make sense? Let me explain: My work with the coach has revealed to me that my stroke wasn’t as good as I thought, so now I am working on fixing all the little problems. My work is not complete, so I swam this event with a knowingly imperfect stroke. (Of course, it will always be imperfect…). Nevertheless, I did the first 50 yards with ease and then got tired at the end. My finish was more than a second faster than my personal best. I got mildly nauseous following this swim (a sign of lactic acid buildup), so I know I put in 100% effort. That’s a good feeling, since you know you swam as fast as you could and couldn’t have done any better.

Event #4: 25-yard breaststroke
Time: 17.56
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
My last event was the 25-yard Breaststroke. I purposely chose an easy swim as my last event because I knew that I’d be tired by this time. My dive went quite deep so it took too much time for me to surface. This caused a mediocre performance of 17.56 seconds, about a third of a second slower than my personal best. All in all, I am very happy with my swims today.