AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet (scy)
Date: February 3, 2013
Location: Franklin, Pa.

I am elated to have done two events today that I had never done before: 200 butterfly and 200 backstroke. Let me set the plot. Frankin, Pa. is 2 hours from home and I figured I would be antsy the entire drive. But I wasn't. At the pool I swam a 500-yard warmup prior to the start of the meet. It felt easy and fast. I got out of the lane pool and spent time in the separate warmup pool to keep warm, all the while I was talking with someone from another team. Still not nervous. Then I realized they had opened up a sprint lane and I wanted to do a practice dive. It was perfect. My first event, the 200-yard butterfly would be in about 15 minutes. I ate a package of fruit snacks and drank some water. This was not because I was nervous; rather, I hadn't eaten anything in a couple hours and I wanted a little boost of sugar for the impending great feat of swimming that I thought might just kill me. Yes, now I was nervous. But I was only kidding about the dying part. I knew I wouldn't die. I just wanted to make a good effort on this swim without having mini-disasters like goggle failure or muscle cramps spoil my initial attempt at this incredibly grueling goal. The 200-yard butterfly is viewed as the toughest event in Master's swimming (though plenty of people do it).

Event #1: 200-yard Butterfly
Time: 3:30.42
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2

My dive at the start of the 200 butterfly looks good but I lift my left leg up, causing me to plunge too steeply into the water.

My water entry started out well but doesn't look so good now.

The first 100 yards was soooo easy. I can't believe it! My spilt times show I completed the first 50 yards in 41.19 seconds and the second 50 yards in 47.88 seconds. Maybe I found this easy because I really can swim these shorter distances harder. My 50-fly and 100-fly swims are indeed faster than the pace I was putting forth, but of course that is part of the strategy to go a little slower so you can last longer. My third 50 yards took 57.43 seconds to complete, and my fourth 50-yard segment took 1:03.92. Obviously, I was unable to maintain the pace I had started with, and by that last 50 yards I had terrible form and was struggling to bring my arms out of the water. But I didn't care one bit. I did the 200-fly. I finished, and I didn't have to hang on to the wall at any point. I didn't swallow water, my goggles worked great, and no muscle cramps. All my teammates were cheering me on and it felt good (Dan deserves special mention because he swam this event simply to keep me on pace and support me).

Event #2: 200-yard backstroke
Time: 3:07.91
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3

This event was fairly late in the meet, so I had plenty of time to recover from the fly. My backstroke start was poor (but I don't practice it, so no surprise), but my stroke was strong and efficient. It felt leisurely, in fact. I was holding down my stroke rate to conserve energy and this seems to have worked well. My split times were much more equal: 44.86, 46.57, 51.10, and 45.38. I definitely sped up on that last 50 yards because Kim was in the lane next to me. Kim and I had spoken briefly before the race and we talked about how I would beat her, but not by a lot. Therefore, I was quite challenged to see that she was keeping up with me for the whole swim. I did not want her to beat me, so I sped up as fast as I could on the last 25 yards. I actually thought I beat her by half a body length, but I must not have punched the wall as well as she did. She beat me by a third of a second. She was pleased and grateful that I had provided a challenge to beat--in a way similar to what Dan had done for me on the 200-fly. It always ends well, doesn't it? I beat my seed time by 15 seconds, so i am happy with this swim. However, I need much more experience with the timing of my turns. Sometimes I turned too soon and sometimes too late. In fact there was one turn where I flipped over long before I was at the wall, so I immediately flipped back on my back to take another stroke. That would have disqualified me if any official was watching. Please don't tell!

Event #3: 25-yard butterfly
Time: 14.76 seconds
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2

Why not more butterfly? I had a great dive and dolphin kicked for quite a distance. My dolphin kick needs work, but today it seemed to get me to where I wanted to go. I then did butterfly strokes as fast and strong as I could and I felt I was doing my best work. My time was 0.05 seconds faster than my personal best. Despite it breaking a record for me, I thought I was going to break that record by a greater amount. Next time I am sure I will!

To sum, I had a great, great meet. Friendships there are part of it, and my performances are the other part. Happy.

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 1650 Postal Swim

Race: 1650-yard mile swim
Date: December 8, 2012
Location: Greensburg, Pa.
Time: 25:07.20
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 6 (estimated based on previous year's results)



Our Master's Swim team and a few friends from another team met at our home YMCA and did the mile swim event. Dan was in the lane next to me and he seemed to be holding back in the beginning. But as expected, he eventually started to move ahead and lapped me toward the very end. Good swim, Dan! My time of 25:07.20 was more than 2.5 minutes faster than last year. I am very pleased. This swim made my day.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters Swim Meet (scy)
Date: November 18, 2012
Location: Greensburg, Pa.
Celebrated the day with a swim meet at Greensburg YMCA. I started the meet by singing the national anthem. Lots of folks would be nervous about that, and I was. But I didn't figure I would embarrass myself any more than normal; I'm already walking around half nude in a skin-tight swimsuit! I swam in four events and had extraordinary success.

Event #1: 100-yard IM
Time: 1:16.00
Age Group Rank: 6 out of 6
In the 100-yard Individual Medley I swam it in 1:16.00, breaking my old personal best of 1:19.30. (Despite this, I was still the slowest swimmer in my gender-age group).

Event #2: 50-yard butterfly
Time: 34.00
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 5
In the 50-yard butterfly, I swam it in 34.00 seconds. This was about half a second slower than my personal best, but it felt really good.

Event #3: 25-yard freestyle
Time: 13.68
Age Group Rank: 4 out of 5
In the 25-yard freestyle, I swam it in 13.68 seconds, which beat my old best time of 13.72 seconds.

Event #4: 50-yard backstroke
Time: 36.77
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 3
Lastly, my backstroke has improved considerably--I swam the 50-yard backstroke in 36.77 seconds, which beat my old personal best by more than 4 seconds! Within the last month, my coach and I have been working on my backstroke and my IM turns, so I am so pleased to see big improvements.

Gomer Davis Pumpkin Chase 5K

Race: 5K run
Date: October 27, 2012
Location: Wilmerding, Pa.
Time: 25:24
Overall Rank: 14 out of XX
Age Group Rank: 4 out of X
Results:

My goal today was to beat my time from last year. I solidly did so. Last year I ran this in 27:37. Today I ran it in 25:24. How about that?! I also moved up one position in the rankings--4th place in the men's 30-39 age group (last year I was 5th). Congrats to my friend Dan who got a medal for placing 3rd in our age group. A good time was had by all.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: October 21, 2012
Location: Hollidaysburg, Pa
I competed in 4 events and I started strong but ended with some disappointment.

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle
Time: 1:07.80
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My first event was the 100-yard freestyle. I swam this in 1:07.80, which is a new personal best (old record was 1:09). I swam next to a work colleague of mine who I didn't know was going to be there until I saw him. What fun it was to discover something new about somebody who you have worked with for a year. Neiether of us knew that the other person was a swimmer!

Event #2: 100-yard breaststroke
Time: 1:25.29
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
My second event was the 100-yard breaststroke and I finished in 1:25.29, which beat my old personal best of 1:27. The consesus of my friends is that my turns and pull-outs still need a lot of work; otherwise, my stroke is fast. I was in lane 6 today, so I was swimming with folks who were faster than I. So I pushed myself hard on this swim. My quads were burning afterward.

Event #3: 50-yard freestyle
Time: 30.45
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My third event was the 50-yard freestyle. I swam this in 30.45 seconds. This is my second-fastest time ever, and I'm happy with it. I had almost no time to rest between this and the previous event and I was still a little out of breath as I mounted the starting block. I am sure that in a more rested state I could have taken this swim down to the sub-30 range. My quads were burning more at the end of this swim.

Event #4: 500-yard freestyle
Time: 7:27.35
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My last event was more than 30 min later. It was the 500-yard freestyle. I finished in 7:27.35, which is just a fraction of a second faster than my previous best time, set in March 2012. So on the one hand I should be pleased that I had another top performance, but on the other hand, with a whole summer to improve, I am disappointed I did not chop 10 seconds off my previous time. Plus, I didn't beat Dan, who was in the adjacent lane (I didn't really expect to, but one can always hope). My strategy was to start with a fast pace, slow a bit in the middle, and then push again for the last 100 yards. Dan kept pace with me at the beginning but he moved slightly ahead with each pool length, and I lost my fight. I stopped pushing and slowed down for about 150 yards to catch my breath. Dan never slowed down. So when I got to the last 100 yards I knew he was uncatchable. I waited another 50 yards before pushing on the gas pedal and speeding into the wall. I wasn't too much out of breath at that point, which means I could have gone harder. I hate being out of breath. But I also hate knowing I didn't reach my potential.

AMYMSA Swim Meet

Race: Masters swim meet (scy)
Date: October 7, 2012
Location: Edinboro, Pa

Second meet of the season is in the books, and I set three more personal records! After a 700-yard warmup, I did four events:

Event #1: 100-yard freestyle.
Time: 1:09.44
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
My personal best set last year was 1:09.28. I did not beat that time, but I was close: 1:09.44. The actual records submitted to the Masters organization read 1:06.85, but I believe that is an error. The timing strips were set up wrong for the first few events of the meet and the 1:06 time was someone else's time. The person who got my 1:09.44 time might not know that he actually got 1:06.85. Fortunately, it made no difference in the age-group rankings for either him or me. Apart from that issue, this swim of mine was OK but not stellar. I know I could have done better. I had three turns and none of them were close enough to the wall to provide much thrust. Had I done my turns better, my time would have been 1-2 seconds faster. Oh, and a fellow team member pointed out that I didn't attack the wall at the end; I coasted in and got out-touched by my nearest competitors.

Event #2: 50-yard freestyle.
Time: 29.66
Age Group Rank: 3 out of 3
My goal was to break 30 seconds, and I did! I was smiling for a good 30 min after this race was done, because I did it in 29.66 seconds. My old time was 30.4 seconds. In a race so short, this 0.74-second improvement is considerable. I had a great turn at the far wall to make up for the lousy ones in my last race.

Event #3: 50-yard breaststroke.
Time: 38.62
Age Group Rank: 2 out of 2
I have gone a year without improving my breaststroke times. But now I finally made progress. I swam this in 38.62 seconds, breaking my old record of 39.40. Again, a 0.78-second improvement is quite meaningful. I had a good dive, pull-out, and turn at the wall. I can't say that I was thinking about any other of my coach's pointers during the race; for example, I am pretty sure my head was up too high.

Event #4: 25-yard butterfly.
Time: 14.81
Age Group Rank: 1 out of 1
These short events are just pure fun and no one takes them very seriously because they are so short. In fact, I don't even breathe during a race like this. Anyway, because I did set another personal best, I'll make a big deal out of it. I swam this in 14.81 seconds, improving from my old record of 15.60. I may have shaved off some time due to a rather extended underwater series of dolphin kicks at the end of my dive.