Videos | Rob Aquatics Masters Swimming Blog

2009 Pacific Masters Champs, Day 1 Wrap Up

200 Medley Relay Action!

Today was day 1 of the PMS Championships for me and day 2 for distance type people. We got to the pool around 8:00 and the place was packed. There were people everywhere around the pool and then there were a lot of people that set up shop outside the fences in the park area that surrounds the aquatic center. Heidi and I found a corner inside the fence that looked like it would have shade most of the day.

The competition pool itself was really nice and there were 2 other pools in the complex. One was set up for warm up/warm down and the other was a kiddie pool with a slide that was closed off to us old people (boo). The meet was very well run. With as many swimmers as there were there you would expect trouble, but the hosts did an excellent job of keeping it moving. They’ve even posted results already which you can see here! **UPDATE: you can get full 3 day results here.

My first race of the day the 100 fly. Unfortunately I showed up to the meet waaay too early and had to wait until around noon to actually swim. I knew this was going to happen, but I have an unstoppable need to be on time. The meet started at 8:30 and I was there at 8. Anyways, after a nap and my second warm up I got myself behind the blocks. In classic masters fashion the guy in the lane next to me shook my hand and wished me good luck. I really enjoy the friendliness of total strangers at swim meets… Anyways… I honestly didn’t feel like I was having that good of a swim. I really focused on doing as much kicking off the walls as I could because it just felt like my arms weren’t all there today. I had Heidi take some video of this race for me and you can see that she loses me every once and a while because I surface so much later than the rest of the guys in my heat.

Amazingly I managed to beat my time from Santa Clarita! I swam a 59.16 which brings my best time down from a 59.94. This swim checks off butterfly goal number 1 – break a minute again. Now I need to move on to butterfly goal number 2 – beat my 100 free time (58).

Waiting for my 100 IM to Start

Now that I had my first event out of the way the next two came pretty quickly. My 100 IM was good, but not great. Each leg seemed pretty decent, but I do think I took too many breaths on the freestyle. I came extremely close to my best time, but I’ve been stuck at 1:05 for a while now. This is the 3rd race in a row that I’ve swam a 1:05 something. Eventually I want to get this event down around a minute. I also got some video of this race, feel free to pick it apart :)

Last up was the 50 fly which was great except for an epic streamline failure on the start. I hit the water and my hands came apart a few inches and fluttered all over the place totally sapping my momentum off the blocks. I still managed to pull out a 27.05 which is pretty good for me despite the huge mistake at the beginning of the race.

I have 3 more events scheduled for tomorrow (50 breast, 200 IM, and 50 free). The way my body is feeling right now I’m not sure if all 3 are going to happen. Plus it’s supposedly going to be like 90 degrees in Pleasanton tomorrow! We’ll see how far I make it. As usual I got some pictures, here are a few extra shots from my day:

The Competition Pool, they ran two courses side by side

Me and Heidi trying to hide in the shade

Getting my game face in place :)

2009 UCLA SCY Meet Wrap Up

**UPDATE: Results are now posted here.

Picture courtesy of Tony at the SCAQ Blog

I swam at UCLA for the second time today and I had another really good swim meet. I swam 4 events and swam 4 personal best times. I’m on a bit of a roll at the moment. Every swim starting with the CalTech Pentathlon has been a personal best time. I don’t know how long I can sustain my streak, but I’m pretty stoked with how things have been going lately.

The meet itself was run really well, but there are a few quirks to UCLA meets that you should be ready for: 1. The far wall is not only a bulkhead, it is invisible. All of the “T’s” are worn off and you’re basically turning against a white wall. I made a fair number of too-close-to-the-wall turns today. 2. The middle of the meet goes really fast. I don’t know what it is about the way the events are ordered but the meet seems to fast forward and if you don’t pick your events carefully you could end up swimming with very little rest between events. 3. Shade is virtually non-existent! Bring a hat, sunscreen, and long sleeves.

My first event of the day was the 200 IM. I’ve only swam this event once at the end of the Pancake Pentathlon in San Diego. I was ridiculously tired when I swam that race. I finished in a 2:35, my goal for this meet swimming it as my first event was a 2:25. As usual I went out too hard in my fly. I know you’re not supposed to, but it’s my best leg of the race. My backstroke felt pretty good and much straighter than my backstroke in the 100 IM at Santa Clarita. Breaststroke is where I usually start to lose it. I did much better at holding my breath for the pull downs, but still not as well as I could have. I jammed through my last 50 of freestyle with my lungs burning and I touched at 2:27. Not quite my goal time, but I’m not going to get mad at an 8 second drop. Plus I won my heat by a good amount. Not that winning a heat buys me anything, but I feel like a winner if I win my heat :)

Next up was the 50 free. At the last meet me and Tony from the SCAQ Blog tried to get into the same heat so we could race each other but it didn’t work out. This time no effort was made and we ended up with just 1 lane in between us. My friend Robin got some video of the race. Tony is in the middle of the pool and I am closer to the camera. It’s a little hard to make people out because the video isn’t of super fantastic quality.

I feel like I got a good start. I really try to get the most that I can out of my time underwater dolphin kicking, and I was the last guy to break the surface. My last 50 free was a 25.87 and I took about 8 breaths. Coach Nancy got on my case a little bit about breathing too much. This time around I think I only took about 4 breaths and I finished at 25.49. So… she was right… I need to breath less and I’ll go faster. I beat Tony this time, but he was faster than me at Santa Clarita. I have a feeling we’re going to go back and forth with this event for a while.

Right after my 50 free I was in the 100 breaststroke. Yay back to back events. I know better, but I wanted to swim the 100 breast just to see where I am at. Plus since it’s not a big event for me there’s no pressure to perform. I can just get up and swim. It’s pretty liberating to be able to race without actually caring about the outcome every once and a while. My breaststroke is awesome until I actually breach the surface, then, not so much. I really focused on pull downs and tight streamlines. Almost to the point of DQ-ing. I was aiming for a 1:11 (a number I arbitrarily picked out) but I went a 1:13. Not what I was shooting for, but still a 2 second drop from my previous best time.

My last event of the day was the 50 fly. I was kind of nervous about this event because I really didn’t think I could match my current best time. I was really tired at this point and my arms were all tightened up. I got behind the blocks early and started clearing my head and getting focused on my race. I was in the last heat and there were some fast dudes in it. I decided that I really needed to do the best that I could to keep up with these guys. My start was decent and again I was the last guy to break the surface. I swam 7 strokes down and 10 strokes back. I managed to go a 26.89! I was stuck in the 27′s and 28′s for quite a while, so to hit 26 was pretty exciting for me. I really just want to keep chipping away at this thing until I’m a more serious contender in my age group. There’s guys in my age group swimming 23′s and 24′s in the 50 fly… I would like to join them before I age up. I also got some video of this race, I’m in the lane closest to the camera.

Honestly I wasn’t expecting to swim this well today. I thought it would be a mid-season blah kind of meet, but every race was solid and my times were good. Now I need to start getting ready for the Pacific Masters Championships later this month!

2009 Santa Clarita SCY Wrap Up

**Update: Results have been posted here

We had a great crowd today!

I had an extremely good day at the pool today! I swam 4 personal best times, hit 2 of the USMS national times that I’ve been chasing, got to see a bunch of my favorite swimmer people, and I hit my biggest goal for this season… I broke a minute in my 100 fly!!!! But more on that later.

I drove down and back the same day for this meet, it’s about a 3 hour shot each way. Normally I would have stayed the night somewhere but Santa Clarita is just close enough to home to be a reasonable day trip. This was my second time swimming at Santa Clarita. I’m really impressed with how nice their facilities are. This time we swam short course yards across the 50m pool. Overall the meet was really smooth and I’m really impressed with whoever was responsible for posting results to the web. My swims from today have already posted to My USMS Account on the USMS web site! Super fast! You should really sign yourself up for this if you haven’t already, it’s a really convenient way to follow your times, grab copies of your USMS card and other stuff like that.

My first race of the day was the 100 fly. I have been fixated on this race since the Cal Tech Pentathlon and I’ve been talking about breaking a minute in this race pretty incessantly. Going :59 in the 100 fly has been my overriding goal since I came back to swimming. I had decided that today was my day. Now I had to actually do it… I was in the last heat of the 100 and we were all seeded pretty closely to each other. When we got on the blocks I was pretty amped up. I felt really good off the start. I wore my TYR Tracer Light and it really rewards a good streamline. I hit the wall first at the 50 with a 27.50 which was only .25 slower than my best 50 time. I’ve had problems with my 2nd 50 a lot because I tend to gas out. In practice I’ve been doing tons of butterfly to build up my tolerance, I think it’s starting to pay off. I felt strong through the whole 3rd 25 and I faded a little on the last length but not too dramatically. I touched the wall at :59.94, a new lifetime best not just a grown up best time, and finished the heat second overall. I won my age group but I think there were only 2 of us there in 25-29. When I finished the race I could feel that I broke a minute but I couldn’t see it! The way the tents for the timers were set up certain lanes couldn’t see the board. When I finally saw my time I was ridiculously happy. I wasn’t tired anymore, just stoked beyond all belief. This is also about a second below my national cut for my age group, so I just bought myself an extra event at nationals (you can swim 3 events without qualifying, anymore and you need to make the times).

Frankly I could have gone home happy at this point, but I had the momentum and I knew there were some more good swims in me.

Next up was the 50 free. This was supposed to be the ultimate swim blogger show down between myself and Tony from the SCAQ blog but the heats were cut right between us. I was in lane four of my heat and he was in lane 8. Next time I guess. Even though we didn’t race each other we both swam personal bests! I trimmed a few hundredths off of my last swim at Cal Tech which I’m pleased with. Tony dropped a few tenths off of his time. He put in a pretty solid swim and he was really excited when he finished. After touching the wall he checked out the board, made sure he saw what he though he saw and yelled out “PB!!!!!!!!” and promptly went into a best time delirium. Ultimately Tony squeaked out a win in our not-in-the-same-heat show down. I didn’t get any pictures from that race but I do have 1 or 2 down below of Tony swimming the 100 freestyle which was also a best time for him! High 5 buddy!

Tony (scaq.blogspot.com) and Ahelee get ready to square off in the 100 free

100 free in action

Event number three was the 50 fly. I’ve had my targets set on a 27.23 all season. I keep almost getting it but not quite. I figured if my 50 split in the 100 was a 27.5 today I had to be able to hit it this time. I tried to get myself in the same place mentally as I was earlier in the day while I waited for my heat. A lot of the time I kind of play music in my head, if that makes sense. When it’s race time I’ve got more of a heavy metal type of sound track going on. I was so ready to go when I hit the block that I almost lost my balance before the beep, luckily I held on and didn’t false start. I think Patrick from Rosebowl was the only person that caught the tilting besides me. I swam my race as hard as I could focusing on getting as much as I could out of my streamlined dolphin kicking and I finally got my time down under my goal in this event as well. I swam a 27.10 which is a personal best and a .15 drop from my last meet.

After the 50 fly I had a whole bunch of time to watch my friends swim and talk with some people I only get to see every couple of meets. The people really are one of the best parts of going to the meets. Everybody is always so cool. After my 100 fly I had 3 or 4 people I haven’t met before come up and congratulate me on my swim, how cool is that?

After hanging out for an hour I had to get back down to business and swim one more event, the 100 IM. I had such a good 100 IM at CalTech I figured that I should swim it here in Santa Clarita too to try and duplicate or beat my time. I had a volunteer videographer (thanks again Kathleen) catch the whole race for me. I swam right next to Ahelee so you see her pop into the frame every once and a while.

My 100 IM filmed by Kathleen, thank you!

I feel like my first 25 was really good and my backstroke wasn’t that bad but I drifted really far towards the lane line. I probably added 1.5 seconds taking the long way to the other side of the pool. My breaststroke felt alright and my freestyle was solid. I beat my time from Cal Tech by about 2 tenths of a second for the 4th best time of the day!

I’ve been on a roll this month. Every swim at Cal Tech was best time and every swim in Santa Clarita was a best time as well! This definitely helps my motivation problem that I was having earlier in the week! I’m not sure what April holds for me just yet. I’m definitely planning on being at the SPMA Regionals in Mission Viejo for at least one of the three days, but I’m not sure if I’ll be at UCLA or not. There’s a triathlon here in Arroyo Grande that I might sign up for just to do the open water portion. The Olympic distance triathlon has a 1500m swim in Lake Lopez which would be good prep for the USMS 1 mile open water national championships going on the Monday after USMS SCY nationals in the pool in Clovis.

Cal Tech Pentathlon Continued…

**Update: Results for the 2009 Cal Tech Pentathlon have been posted, you can view them here.

Like I said earlier I didn’t really break out the camera today but luckily a few of my friends did! Joel from the17thman captured video of two of my swims on his flip camera. This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen myself swim on camera. I’ve been busy watching it over and over to pick apart what I can of my swims. My first two observations 1) My freestyle hand entry is kind of weird 2) I need to shave my head before I go into public :) I took both of the swims and edited them together into one video and uploaded it onto YouTube, check it out.