AMYMSA Champs at Spire

Race: Masters swim meet, championship
Date: April 8-9, 2017
Location: Geneva, OH

This past weekend was my Master’s Swim Association Championship Meet at the Spire Institute near Geneva, Ohio. I had a good feeling going into the meet; I thought I was going to do well because I felt prepared and strong. I even posted to Facebook the day before we left, saying “I’m going to kick butt at champs!” This ended up being completely and undisputedly true.

Event#3: 100-yard Individual Medley
I swam this in 1:11.78, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set in February 2014. I kicked this old record good, lowering my time by 1.98 seconds, a decrease of 2.7%. My friends report I was first in my heat at the halfway mark but my competitors caught up during my breaststroke. This is ironic because I had made plans about my butterfly (“use a smaller kick and faster stroke rate”), backstroke (“kick fast and keep my hips up”), and freestyle (“take fewer breaths”), but I didn’t have a strategy for my breaststroke. I thank Arianne Winkleblech for helping me improve my backstroke kick in practices last month.

Event #5: 50-yard Butterfly
I swam this in 30.06, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set in November 2014. I kicked this old record good, too, lowering my time by 1.52 seconds, a decrease of 4.8%. I have reinvented my butterfly stroke this winter, making my kick smaller and increasing my arm stroke rate. I could do this consistently during the first 25 yards in practice, but I had had limited success at the 50-yard distance. Today I did the new stroke the whole distance. I actually placed 2nd in my age group, beating out the reliable powerhouses of Daniel Pruzinsky and Ben Mayhew. Ben was gracious and supportive, while also expressing great surprise. Me too, Ben. Me too.

Event #8: 100-yard Butterfly
I swam this in 1:12.50, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set in January 2013. I thought this would be an easy record to beat because I had never swum in this event since I set that old record. Surely I have improved in 4 years! I lowered my time by a whopping 7.74 seconds, a drop of 9.6%. I have more I can improve upon; I noted a bad turn at the 50-yard mark, and I started taking too many breaths during the last length.

Event #10: 200-yard Freestyle
I swam this in 2:27.86, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set in February 2016. The improvement was 0.59 seconds or 0.4%. My dive felt great and I felt very powerful until I got to the 100 yard mark. Then, I nearly missed the wall. My toe barely brushed across the touchpad and I lost all momentum. Daniel Pruzinsky and I were in adjacent lanes and while at first he and I were neck-to-neck, this poor turn caused me to drop well back from him. Not only did a bad turn slow me down, but the next 25 yards of swimming were spent thinking about the mistake and wondering if I would get disqualified (the officials at this meet were actually giving out DQs), rather than what I could do to minimize its impacts. I thank Josh Gurekovich working with me this past week on my dives.

To sum up my first day of Champs, I set new personal bests in all four events. Three of these were substantial improvements resulting from changes I made to my butterfly stroke. I did some other things differently in the last few weeks of training that may have also made a difference. I will list these later in this post.

When I was a new swimmer in 2010, it was commonplace to set new personal bests, but it has been harder to set them now that my stroke techniques have matured and the small inefficiencies that developed early in my career have become ingrained and harder to squelch. Swimming is a highly technical sport, and tiny adjustments in body placement significantly impact speed. Somehow at this Championship meet, I made a few adjustments that made a difference. My great success from Saturday continued into Sunday.

Event #13: 500-yard Freestyle
I swam this in 6:50.24, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set last year at Spire in April 2016. I kicked this old record good, lowering my time by 14.12 seconds, a decrease of 3.3%. My goals were to keep my pace steady from lap to lap, concentrate on having streamlined turns, and to stay ahead of all my competitors in adjacent lanes, since all had similar seed times as me. During the race I saw that I was leading my heat from the start, and I tried to slow down just a little so I wouldn’t burn out. I didn’t need to do this. I had practiced this swim over and over during my practices in the preceding month so I would probably have been fine going a little faster. I felt strong throughout, and I was not breathing hard, which helped me stay under the water longer at each turn. I smiled underwater when I saw the official standing over my lane, ringing the bell. This was a signal to everyone that the fastest swimmer of the heat had one more lap. Guess who that was? It was me! And I promptly got distracted by my giddiness and screwed up my last turn, right under the official’s nose. I thank Shannan for counting my laps and cheering me on.

Event #19: 50-yard Freestyle
I swam this event in 27.00 seconds, which was a new personal best, breaking my old record set last year at Spire in April 2016. I lowered my time by 1.38 seconds or 4.9%. This magnitude of improvement rarely happens in a 50-yard race; there is simply too little distance over which small changes in technique can have a cumulative effect. I really couldn’t believe what I saw when I looked at the timing board and saw 27.00. How did I do it? I had a great dive, strong arm pull, and I took only two breaths.

Event #21: 50-yard Breaststroke
I swam this event in 37.56 seconds, which ended up being 0.20 seconds slower than my personal best, set in November 2015. It’s too bad I couldn’t go 7 for 7 in terms of setting records, but the way I am looking at it now is that I’m leaving an easy record for me to beat next time. I went into the race with some mixed emotions, so my failure to swim it fast was probably a result of psychological factors instead of physical factors. Coach Josh thinks my breaststroke is my best stroke out of the four (breast, back, free, and fly). However, others whom I trust saw an issue with my head movement that could be improved. I learned about this on the day of my race, so during warm-ups I practiced the breaststroke with less head movement, and a fellow swimmer walking by my lane actually complimented me on how “smooth” my stroke was. I had not sought out this feedback, so I thought I must have fixed the problem. I think I probably did, but it was not enough to set a personal best. I don’t care. With so many fallen records in this meet, I am content.

In sum, I set 6 personal bests out of 7 events. My average improvement was 3.6%. I cannot wait to compete again to see if I can keep lowering my times. To do so, I have to figure out what I did this year that could have resulted in such success. Here is a list of things I think could have made a difference:

1. I wrote up a list of things ahead of time to concentrate on during each event. This helped me focus. Many athletes forget how important it is to mentally prepare for a race.

2. I shaved my chest and wore a swim cap. There isn’t a lot of data out there on whether or not this produces a measureable effect; it may reduce drag in the water, or it may be the placebo effect. In any case, the effect is estimated to be 1-2%, so this could account for only part of my success.

3. I asked my coach to work with me on my dives the week before my swim meet. This likely helped a lot on my 50- and 100-yard events, where the dive accounts for a significant part of the swim.

4. I sought out advice on my backstroke and freestyle kicks from Arianne a couple weeks before my swim meet. This helped my 100-yard IM.

5. I did extra weight lifting for more than a month in advance of champs. I think this accounts for a lot of success, especially in my butterfly stroke.

6. I practiced the actual events I would swim over and over during my practice sessions, even if they were not at race pace. I’m not sure I have done this in past years. My practices are usually more geared to freestyle. I know I did not change my practice volume (I did about 10 miles per month in the three months preceding champs).

7. My body weight is about the same as it was last year at this time, but I have more fat now (12% instead of 7%) and less muscle mass (42% instead of 44%). I was training for my Ironman last year; the numbers don’t lie!

8. I did longer warm-ups on Saturday before the afternoon session (500 yards); I also swam 300 yards to warm-up on Sunday morning, and another 300 yards before the afternoon session. I timed these much more carefully than usual to be within 30 minutes of my actual races.

9. I have been running long distances (5-7 miles) once a week since February. My overall mileage is no different from last year, so I can’t think of why that would make a difference in my swimming performance. Still, it’s a change of pace that is worth noting.

AMYMSA Championship Meet

Race: Masters Swim Championship Meet
Date: 5- 6 April 2014
Location: Indiana, Pa.

Saturday, April 5, 2014
I have now completed my 3rd year of swimming competitively for the AMYMSA organization. In my first two years I experienced a rapid improvement in race times as I learned to perfect my strokes. In this third year, my strokes still need some work, but I have been doing a lot more training sessions at race speeds to improve my endurance and my overall pace. I have continued to improve my times for most events this year, but only by fractions of second in most cases. My performance at this weekend’s championship meet is a reflection of this state of affairs; I set 2 personal bests (out of 7 events) and came very close to my top times in the remaining 5. Alas, I was hoping for even greater success. I am still pleased with how well I swam this weekend because I have been suffering from a fairly potent cold since Wednesday. Symptoms included sinus congestion, chest congestion, laryngitis, lethargy, and even a bout of diarrhea on Saturday morning. Sorry to be so graphic about that, but I am really proud of myself for even getting in the pool, and even more, swimming at or near my top speed for all events. I express my apologies to anyone who catches my cold in the coming days…

EVENT #2: 200 yard Medley Relay **personal best**
This event was swum by 4 male members of the Greensburg team in the order of backstroke, breast, fly, and freestyle. We agreed that I would do the backstroke segment. This was a wise choice; I swam it in 35.99 seconds, which is 0.55 seconds faster than I have ever swum 50 yards of backstroke. Unfortunately, medley segment split times are not counted when my season’s best times are posted on the organization website, so I won’t use it as a new benchmark for backstroke.

EVENT #3: 100 yard Freestyle
I swam this event in 1:07.17, which is 1.23 seconds slower than my best time. In the water, I felt pretty good about this swim. But during the last 25 yards I noticed that my arm turnover rate was really fast and I didn’t seem to be gaining any extra speed from that. In fact, I swam the first 50 yards in 31.87 seconds and the second 50 yards in 35.3 seconds. These splits are not too bad, but Shannan noted that I wasn’t stretching my arms in front of me to grab enough water with each stroke, so I burned extra energy and gained nothing from the effort.

EVENT #7: 50 yard Freestyle
I swam this event in 29.48 seconds, which is 0.50 seconds slower than my best time. Shannan complimented me on my dive; but again, I wasn’t throwing my arms forward enough to grab the water. I also found myself taking breaths when I didn’t even need them. I should plan my breaths ahead of time for the 50 free, just as I do for the 50 fly.

EVENT #10: 200 yard Individual Medley **personal best**
I swam this event in 2:52.30, beating my old personal best by 1.69 seconds. I felt my speed in the pool. My butterfly segment felt smooth and effortless; I was not especially winded when I started the backstroke. Backstroke went well until the wall where I had a sloppy transition to breaststroke. Breaststroke felt good and strong. I don’t remember much about my freestyle segment, but looking at my splits, this is where I faltered, relative to my age group competitors. I came in 4th out of 4 men in my age group. At the end of the butterfly I was ahead of Nick, the eventual 2nd place finisher. At the end of the backstroke, Nick had shot ahead, but I was on pace with Gary, the eventual 3rd place finisher. At the end of the breaststroke, I was still within 3 seconds of Gary. But my freestyle split was 42.83; Gary’s was 34.31 (Nick’s was 34.94 and Ben’s was 36.94). I slowed down at the end much more than my competitors. Despite this being a personal best for me, I can still make a lot of improvement next year.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
EVENT #13: 200 yard Freestyle Relay
Just as on Saturday, I swam in a relay with my teammates. All of us swam freestyle, though, and I was in the third position. My team never practices relays and the only time I ever do one is at champs. I am therefore a little wary of the dive, since I have to dive over the teammate who is finishing his segment as I am beginning mine. I can say that today’s dive may have been my best ever. I was in the air for a long time and traveled really far before hitting the water. Then I pressed the gas pedal. My turn was excellent and I my arm stroke was fully extended. My split time was 32.23 seconds, which is far from my fastest 50 free. Perhaps the dive wasn’t as awesome as I thought; or maybe it was my breathing. I again found myself turning my head for a breath even though I did not feel the need to breathe.

EVENT #14: 100 yard Individual Medley
I swam this event in 1:13.97, which is only 0.21 seconds off my personal best. I don’t have any specific recollections about this swim. I swam it as fast as I could, and my quadriceps were burning a little after I got out of the pool. In fact, I felt nauseated for the next few minutes. This is not a pleasant sensation, but it indicates I pushed myself beyond my aerobic limit. Anaerobic metabolism takes over at that point, and I ate a package of fruit snacks to recover from the energy deficit.

EVENT #16: 50 yard Butterfly
At this point I had already proven to myself that my butterfly stroke was back (in the previous week, I had worked with my coach to fine-tune my butterfly because it had become choppy). So with confidence, I swam this event in 32.52 seconds, which is 0.20 seconds off my best time. Oh so close! But I was sick, and had I been well I surely would have set a new record.

EVENT #17: 100 yard Backstroke
Now I was worried; I had only 6 minutes to rest between the 50 Fly and the 100 Back. It was just enough. I jumped in the water with Shannan right there rooting for me. I felt good. But then the buzzer went off a little sooner than I expected and I didn’t have a good start. I ignored the stumble and sliced through the water. I started to feel tired at the 75-yard mark, but something really strange happened then. I was looking at the ceiling and I saw a wire strung over my head and parallel with my lane. I completely focused on that wire and tuned everything else out. I pondered what the wire was for, and I pretended that it was where the TV camera would be if I were swimming in the Olympics. I did not want to let down this pretend TV audience so I swam harder. I felt my legs quicken and I lurched forward toward the touch pad. I felt tired, but in concentrating on the ceiling feature I was able to ignore it. In reality, my splits show I slowed down from 39.11 seconds during the first 50 yards to 41.04 seconds during the second 50 yards. But it felt like I was going 100 miles per hour at the very end. I finished the event in 1:20.15 seconds, 0.23 seconds slower than my best time.

EVENT #19: 100 yard Butterfly **personal best**
I had only 12 minutes rest between my 100 Back and my 100 Fly. This is really rushing things, but I felt relaxed during this whole swim meet. Maybe I need to get sick more often, just to dampen my normal nervousness. I swam this event in 1:21.00 seconds, beating my old time by 0.24 seconds. I did fine for the first 50 yards, started to tire at yard 75, and then I fell apart in the last 25. I was breathing on every stroke—or at least trying to. My arms would not pull themselves over my head. I had a moment when I thought about quitting but by that time the wall was just about within reach so I took another couple “strokes” and got there. Despite my poor health and my lack of endurance for butterfly, I swam this faster than ever before. It was great to end my 3rd year on swim team with some success.

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.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: September 16, 2012
Location: Sewickley, Pa.

First swim meet of the season at Baierl Family YMCA:
Event #1: 200-yard freestyle relay
Time: 2:12.23
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
Great to have a new team member who appears to be one of the top 3 fastest people at the whole meet. I am not as fast as him, but my dive was awesome.
Event #2: 50-yard butterfly
Time: 33.53
Age Group Rank: 5 out of 7
I beat my personal best by >1 second, had a great dive and a great turn, and I only swallowed one mouthful of water (oops).

Event #3: 100-yard butterfly
Time: 1:21.78
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
I beat my personal best by almost 2 seconds despite having to pause at the midway point. I pulled myself together though, and finished the last 4 strokes without breathing.
Event #4: 200-yard freestyle
Time: 2:41.57
Age Group Rank: 5 out of 5
Arms still burning from the butterfly, I had a great dive and kept neck-to-neck with everyone in my heat for 125 yards. Then the guy next to me took off. This depressed me for 50 yards or so and then I went all-out at the end. I did not beat my personal best but it was a good swim and I'm happy.
Event #5: 25-yard breaststroke
Time: 17.16
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 3
No great expectations here since I knew I'd be tired. But I covered the distance in 17.16 seconds, beating my old time of 18.5.

AMYMSA Championship

Race: Masters Swim Championship (scy)
Date: March 31, 2012 - April 1, 2012
Location: Clarion, Pa.
 
DAY 1: I raced in one relay and four individual events.

(1) 200-yard Medley Relay--I started off my team by doing 50 yards of backstroke. I've been practicing backstroke recently and this paid off. I finished in 39.25 seconds, which is a personal best. Unfortunately I hurt myself on the start. I pushed off with such great energy that I pulled a muscle in my right calf. It's a chronic problem for me. I'll be OK, but it sure soured the rest of the day, since I knew I wouldn't be performing at 100% for the rest of the day. My team came in 4 out of 4 in our gender age group.
(2) 100-yard Freestyle--I was still worried about my leg, so it's not surprsing that I finished this event in 1:12.32, which was about 3 seconds slower than my personal best. I was disappointed. Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3.
(3) 25-yard Backstroke--I had to do another backstoke start here with my injured leg. I finished in 17.41 seconds, which is almost a second slower than my personal best. Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3.
(4) 50-yard Freestyle--Oh dear, at this point I was psyched out. I had hurt myself and was under-performing. That's unfortunate because the 50-yard freestyle was supposed to be my BIG event. I have been slowly but steadily improving in this event all season long, and breaking the 30-second threshold was within my grasp. My personal best was 30.37 seconds, I wanted to break this record and finish under 30 seconds. Alas, I was unable to meet this goal. I swam it in 30.91 seconds. Age Group Rank: 4 out of 4.
(5) 50-yard Breaststroke--I don't remember much about this event. I was sulking about my poor performance and didn't care so much about my last race of the day. It is ironic that I actually did very well in this event: I came within a tenth of a second of my personal best, finishing in 39.49 seconds. Age Group Rank: 4 out of 5.


DAY 2: I raced in one relay and three individual events.

(1) 200-yard Freestyle Relay--Once again, I started off for my team. This is not by accident, as I had mistakenly shared with my teammates my fear of diving into one of them during the relay (I had never done relays before). So they put me in front so that I'd be diving into an empty lane and no one would have to worry about me diving into them. I wonder now whether they will ever let me compete in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th position. So anyway, I finished my 50-yard segment in 30.67 seconds. As I mentioned in my report on Day 1, I was hoping to break 30 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle race, and I viewed this event as my second chance. I donned a swim cap for the very first time, thinking it might help me psychologically if not hydrodynamically. I got closer to my goal, but I didn't break 30 seconds, nor was my time lower than my 30.37 personal best. I felt good, though, and I was looking forward to the rest of the day's events. My team came in 5 out of 5 in our age group gender category.
(2) 100-yard Individual Medley--This event held promise. I'm pretty good at it. But bad luck was still following me. For the first time in a year my goggles fell off during my dive. I was able to slide them back into position during the butterfly segment and I thought I'd be OK, but then as I was doing backstroke I realized I couldn't see the flags or the wall. One cannot speed through the water and then not know where the wall is. So I slowed down, felt around for the wall, and with my other hand threw off my swim cap and goggles. I plunged back into the water for my breastroke and freestyle segments and I swam as fast as I could. I was determined to make the best of this bad situation and I nearly beat one of the other swimmers in the pool. But I didn't, and my time of 1:24.89 was obviously nowhere near my personal best of 1:19.30. It certainly didn't take me 5 seconds to discard my swim cap and goggles, but swimming with distractions is not going to break any records. Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3.
(3) 50-yard Butterfly--What the heck! Nothing more can go wrong this weekend, so I was no longer worried about doing well. I concentrated on having fun. I really like the butterfly stroke, so let's go! I finished in 35.23 seconds, about 0.4 second slower than my personal best. Age Group Rank: 3 out of 4.

(4) 100-yard Butterfly--This was my last event of champs, and I had to decide what I wanted to do with it. I had never competed in the event before, so I had no personal best to beat. I was also the only person in my gender-age group, so I was guaranteed a first-place finish. I had no pressure to do anything but finish. Should I do my best anyway? Given it was the very end of the meet, should I expend every ounce of energy to do well? Yes, that's what I would do. I would give it everything I had left. Butterfly is fun, and I wasn't feeling good about my earlier swims. So what was there to lose? I dove in and swam. I passed the 50-yard mark and didn't feel too bad. I got to the 75-yard mark and wasn't too winded. Oh, but the arms and shoulders started to fatigue. It became hard to convince those arms to come out of the water with each stroke. My undulations became exaggerated as my arms got weaker, and my kick started to disconnect from my arms (because the arms weren't doing their part). At 90 yards or so, I was a mess. But I made it, and my friends cheered. I finished in 1:23.58, which was 4.5 seconds faster than the seed time I submitted. I finally felt like I had won something. And then I went home. Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1.