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.