AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Master's swim meet
Date: 19 January 2014
Location: Allegheny Valley, Pa

Event #2: 100-yard freestyle. I set a new personal best in 1:05.94, which is about half a second faster than my old record set last spring. I now need to revise my season goal downward, since I have reached the speed that I wanted to acheive in April 2014. I felt great on this swim. I had a long underwater segment on my dive. I spent at least 50 yards doing shoulder-driven freestyle and took few breaths. My turns were timid but perhaps a little better timed relative to the wall compared to what I usually do. I was not feeling tired or out of breath when I finished the race.

Event #4: 25-yard backstroke. I set a new personal best in 16.50, which is 0.25 second faster than my old record. After a lackluster start, I trucked through the water and felt strong. I am happy to have finished well; I usually hit the wall awkwardly but today I knew where I was and reached for the finish.

Event #6: 50-yard freestyle. My arms were feeling tired by this time, but nothing too concerning. I had Shannan's advice in my mind all day: swim each event as if it is your only one--don't hold back. It was my intention to do this on my swim and I felt good about it. However, my time was 29.40 seconds, which did not beat the new personal record I set two weeks ago at 28.98. I was a little surprised, but in retrospect I think my arms started to rotate too quickly in the last half of the race and I was not pulling water all the way to my hips as I should have. I just read an article about muscle fatigue during swim races and I think my performance is exactly what the article was talking about. The arm muscles I use in pulling water toward the hips were fatigued and the brain tried to recruit other, weaker muscles to do work they were not designed to do. I've got more speed training to do to prevent this from happening again.

Event #9: 200-yard Individual Medley. I set a new personal best in 2:53.99, which is nearly a second faster than my old record set last spring. I have set two season goals for this event: first, to reach 2:52.5 by 3/9/2014 and drop another half second by Champs on 4/5/2014. I am now halfway to this goal, so I am right on track! That's exciting, since I didn't know how realistic my season goals were going to be. I had a moment of anxiety 50 yards into the race. At the butterfly-backstroke turn I almost started doing freestyle instead of backstroke. I was concerned that I was going to be disqualified, but I did not let this slow me down. At my backstroke-breaststroke turn I heard my friends cheering for me. The cheers, along with the fact that I was running neck-to-neck with the guy next to me, kept my spirits high as I started the breaststroke. But at 115 yards into the swim, I felt some doubt seep into my mind. I wanted to quit. I was slowing down and I was tired. Despite all these negative feelings, I am happy about my breastroke because I had some good underwater pullouts and I never swallowed any water, which is something I usually do as I get tired. For the future I will need to work especially on pacing, since in today's swim I started feeling exhausted soon after 100 yards. My split times were 36.18 (butterly) + 44.17 (back) + 51.14 (breast) + 41.96 (free). The last two splits are kind of embarrasing. They are way off the speeds I can usually do.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: AMYMSA swim meet
Date: 05 January 2014
Location: Grove City, Pa.

I had a very satisfying swim meet. It was not only fun but also featured some successful swims.

My first event was the 100-yard freestyle. I swam it in 1:06.60, which narrowly missed my lifetime best of 1:06.48. I loved this swim. I swam the first 40 yards without taking a breath and used the shoulder-driven style to keep up my speed. I gradually converted to a hip-driven style by the last 25 yards, and by this time my arms were fatigued so I just kicked hard and did the best I could with arms that could no longer pull water.

My second event was the 50-yard freestyle. I swam it in 28.98 seconds, beating my previous best of 29.30 seconds. I know I can swim this faster, too, since I paused a moment in the water just before my turn. I am really happy to have broken 29 seconds, and today's swim result means I have to reassess my mid-season goal for this event; previously, I had set a goal of 29.20 seconds on 1/19/2014. I have now beat that, two weeks ahead of schedule.

My third event was 50-yard breaststroke. I swam it in 38.51. This was more than a second slower than my personal best and I'm not sure why. I had long pull-outs underwater at my dive and at the wall, and I felt my stroke was well coordinated. Maybe my head was too vertical, though. Shannan thought I slowed down toward the end, and I think I remember that being true for a few strokes, but as I saw people in the adjacent lanes move ahead of me, I consciously pushed faster to try to beat them. So whatever happened was not due to lack of will. I think maybe I was just enjoying the swim too much. I expected a near-record time, so I lost my panic.

My fourth event was the 25-yard butterfly. My time was 14.13 seconds, which is well off my personal best of 13.29 seconds. Despite being quite slow today, I love this event because it is really easy for me. I don't tire out, and in fact, I don't even breathe during the swim. However, given the short distance, the dive is important and I feel that I was late. Shannan thought I stumbled on my first stroke, too.