Monday, February 6, 2017

Split times of the 500 free at AMYMSA Franklin

I had a master's swim meet yesterday and had a great time. In my first event, the 100-yard freestyle, I broke my old personal best by 2.02 seconds, lowering it to 1:03.57. That was an awesome feeling! My other events went well, too, including the 500-yard freestyle, which I finished just 2.4 seconds shy of my personal best. However, I wasn't necessarily wanting to set a record in that event. Instead, I have been working on my pacing. I tend to go too fast in the beginning and then tire out at the end. This is apparent in the graph below, with a steep increase in the time it takes each successive 50-yard lap in the pool (10x50=500 yards). I have plotted three of my swims from the 2016-17 season. In each swim I have slightly improved my pacing so that the line is not as steep. My faster and more experienced friend Daniel Pruzinsky has better pacing, as evidenced by the fourth, flatter line in the middle. I want to be like him, so there is more work for me to do.

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Sunday, February 5, 2017

AMYMSA Franklin

Race: Masters swim meet
Date: February 5, 2017
Location: Franklin, Pa.

I enjoyed this meet a lot. My mood was certainly buoyed by my first event of the day, the 100 freestyle. I swam it in record time, 1:03.57. This shattered my old personal best of 1:05.59. Part of my success (maybe) was that "fast man" Dan was right beside me and I use him to pace myself. The other part of this success was simply that I have not swam this event recently, making a large improvement more likely. The last time I swam the 100 freestyle was in January 2016 when I swam it in 1:05.64. I have to go all the way back to December of 2014 to find that 1:05.59 record that I broke. Note to self: swim this event more often!

My second event was the 100-yard breaststroke. I have now swam it 3 times this season and today's swim was the fastest at 1:23.00. However, this is only an improvement of 0.58 seconds from October 2016, and it is 3.14 seconds slower than my personal best of 1:19.86 set last year at Spire. Dan was in my heat again, but one lane over, and I didn't look for him. Note to self: practice breaststroke more.

My third event was the 50-yard freestyle. I swam it in 28.84 seconds, which is 0.46 seconds slower than my personal best of 28.38, set at Spire last year. I am confident I can lower this again at Spire at the end of this season.

My last event was the 500-yard freestyle. I swam it in 7:06.76. This was 2.4 seconds slower than my personal best, set last year at Spire. I have swam this event three times this season with the goal of improving my pacing. I have been mildly successful. The STDEV of my split times today was 2.48 seconds, compared to the 4.04 seconds calculated from split times in October. The goal is to get this as low as possible, so I'm heading in the right direction.