**Results will be posted here as they become available
The competition pool
Today was day 2 of PMS SCM Championships hosted by the Walnut Creek Masters. It’s a 3 day meet, but I just came up for the day (I miss the ocean and wanted to be home on Sunday for my Avila Swim!). Even though this is a championship meet for PMS it was more of a tune up meet for me since I still have 4 SCM meets left in Southern California to deal with. Being as such I went out on a limb and tried out a new event that I’ve never ever done as an age grouper or an adult… the dreaded 200m fly!!!
The 200m fly is one of those events that’s been on my to do list but that I am too much of a chicken to sign up for. When I was doing the web registration for the meet I decided to just put it in there and figure out if I would do it later. Eventually I made the conscious decision to tell people that yes, I am crazy and I did enter the 200m fly so that I would indirectly peer pressure myself into not “accidentally” scratch the event. I wasn’t really sure how to approach the event because I’ve never done more than maybe 125-150 yards of fly in a row before in my life. A few people asked me what my game plan was and my answer was basically “um… I have no idea… finish?”
There were only 2 heats of guys and my made up time put me in the fast lane for heat one. It was a pretty diverse heat, the ages ranged from me at 28 up to 72. Once we got up on the blocks I devised my plan, steady and relaxed. I had to turn off my sprint reflex and make sure that I spent as much time underwater off the turns as I could handle. I probably only spent like 55m of the first 100m on top of the water! Once I crested the 100m mark I was surprised that I wasn’t totally gassing out. I wasn’t able to get as much out of my walls anymore but my stroke wasn’t falling apart yet so I was pretty happy with that. I really didn’t start getting shaky in my arms until midway through the last 25m. I couldn’t believe it I actually paced a 200m race… I never do that right! Tracy, who also writes a masters swimming blog, got some pictures from the race for me that are coming soon to the internets. She sent me an early preview of the good stuff… check it out!
Photo by Tracy Barbutes Photography
So down to numbers… I finished in 2:42.28 (equivalent to a 2:25 in yards for those of you like me that can’t comprehend what meters times mean). My splits break out like this:
33.92
1:13.33 (39.41)
1:56.88 (43.55)
2:42.28 (45.40)
My steady application of power program seems to have worked pretty well. I expected to slow as I progressed, which I did, but I’m really pleased that the drops were so small. If I would have swam that first 100 the way I normally swim a 100 I would have added way more time to the back half.
So that ends the good swimming portion of my day. I was pretty much wrecked after that. After the 200m fly I did a short warm down and changed into my Finis Amphibian suit so that I could finally test it out in the water. I floated around in the warm up pool for a bit and it wasn’t really feeling right for me. It felt kind of heavy almost, I can’t explain it, maybe I was just extra tired and it was compressing on me in weird ways. Like I’ve said before each suit seems to work different for everybody, and well this one isn’t for me. Anyways, I finally raced in it and my race was a bit of a mess.
I swam the 50m breast which is a total off event for me. I call it a palate cleanser because no matter what time I lay down it doesn’t really matter, I’m still not going to be a good breaststroker! I felt okay off the start and my pulldown was good. Things started to go a little sideways when I took that first stroke to get me to the surface of the pool however… turns out I was still like 5 feet under, whoops. I had no grip on where I was depth-wise in the pool which is totally out of character for me. I ended up doing this really awkward semi vertical stroke thing that pretty much stopped my forward movement completely. It was ugly. I thought I was going to get DQed for sure. This mistake totally took me out of the race, I never caught back up. Even though there was an official standing behind my block when I finished I never got told that I DQed so I’m assuming I made it barely legal. That swim definitely falls into the lesson learned category! Yikes!
I was so wiped out I dropped my 200IM, which was plan A anyways in the instance that I actually swam my 200m fly. All I had to do was hang out and wait for the 50m fly and I would be done for the day. I took off my Finis suit and threw on a drag suit and just went swimming for a while in the warm up pool. It started getting pretty hot around lunchtime so it was nice to just be underwater for a while.
When my 50m fly came up I decided to wear my TYR Fusion Tights. I’ve swam in them before just not in a race. Technically and aesthetically my 50m fly was just fine, but chronologically it wasn’t a winner. I was like 1.5 seconds off where I should have been. I just didn’t have the energy… the earlier race and all the sunshine kind of wiped me out.
Even though I had some off races, I had a lot of fun at the meet. I got to hang out with a bunch of my NorCal swimmer friends, and I got to borrow some shade from Coach Chris and the Mountain View Masters which I’m most appreciative of. Also I gotta say the Walnut Creek Masters did a really good job with this meet. The first 10 minutes were a little touch and go while they worked on finding timers, but super smooth from there on out. Good luck to everybody swimming day 3!
I’m hoping a lot of the Pacific Masters kids decide to make the trek down to Long Beach in December for SPMA SCM Champs, I think it’s going to be a hot meet. Fast swimmers, fast pool, and possibly your last chance to break out your techsuit collection legally!
an artsy cell phone picture of the main 50m pool
