AMYMSA Allegheny Valley

Race: masters swim meet
Date: October 1, 2017
Location:

Event #1: 100 IM. My fly was good, but the backstroke--oh boy--do I need to work on that. My legs sank, despite my head being in a good position and my efforts to contract my buttocks during my kicking. Shannan says I need to concentrate on raising my hips, so I will work on that. My finish time was 1:16.49, which was 0.9 seconds slower than Dan, and about 4.7 seconds (6%) slower than my personal best. My quads were burning a little after this race, so I know I put an appropriate amount of effort into it.

Event #4: 50 Fly. Dan and I were in the same heat and we talked about strategy. I said my speed would depend on whether or not I took a breath during this swim. I did, in fact, go without a breath for the first 25 yards and I took about 3 breaths on the return. If I had skipped just one of those breaths I would have beat Dan, since he beat me by 0.01 seconds. My finish time was 32.18, which was 2.1 seconds (7%) slower than my personal best. Danise says Dan was well ahead of me at the turn and I just about caught up with him in the last 25. I wasn't aware of any of that, but I know that my rhythm felt better during the last half of my swim. I concentrated more on my kick during that time, and less on my arms.

Event #9: 200 Free. There was lots of talk before this race about what a difficult race it is. You can't sprint the whole time, but it's not a long distance, either. I went fairly confident that I would pace myself well. I have a long history with this distance--I've done it a lot at meets--and I do a lot of these distances in practice. I was in heat 1, lane 6. This made it hard to judge my pace because the people next to me were much faster. Anyway, I finished in 2:32.52, which was 4.7 seconds (12%) slower than my personal best. Given this result, it appears I went slower than I could have. I am not surprised. I was not extraordinarily tired or winded when I got out of the water. I did feel some lactic acid circulating through my body (a queasy stomach feeling), but it didn't last long and was probably just from sprinting the last 25 yards. I had more fuel in the tank and I should have burned it.

Event #10: 25 Breast. I had a good race until I swallowed water during one of my strokes. It is terribly hard to get air after that because with each successive breath my timing was off and I kept getting more water in my mouth. Oh well. My result was 17.16 seconds, which was 0.18 seconds (1%) slower than my personal best. This record will definitely fall sometime this season.

Event #11: Mixed Medley 200 Relay: I had the freestyle segment. There were no splits so I don't know how I did. I felt really good, though, at least after a lousy dive.