the17thman

It's The Results. Don't Look!

The results are up from this weekends SPMA meet at UCLA. First a few  facts about the meet from the USMS website LINK:

Meet Statistics
38 teams represented.
228 swimmers entered.
686 individual event splashes, 2 DQs, 137 scratches or no-shows.
30 relay event splashes, 1 DQs, 1 scratches or no-shows.

Hmm...2 DQ's and 1 Relay DQ!  Wowser.  I didn't even see any officials on deck.  Seriously I don't think anyone was looking for two handed touches or anything.  Oh well.

As for my swims.  Well here is the one good one:

Event:     800 SCM Free

Heat/Lane:     Heat 7, Lane 8

Seed Time:     10:12.36

Final Time:     9:49.82


Splits
 Leg      Cumulative      Subtractive
 1      33.86      33.86
 2      1:09.91      36.05
 3      1:46.64      36.73
 4      2:23.41      36.77
 5      3:00.43      37.02
 6      3:37.54      37.11
 7      4:14.73      37.19
 8      4:51.97      37.24
 9      5:29.26      37.29
 10      6:06.54      37.28
 11      6:43.14      36.60
 12      7:20.58      37.44
 13      7:57.85      37.27
 14      8:35.32      37.47
 15      9:13.18      37.86

And now for the bad swimming...

Event:     100 SCM Back

Heat/Lane:     Heat 5, Lane 1

Seed Time:     1:07.75

Final Time:     1:12.18

Splits
 Leg      Cumulative      Subtractive
 1      35.36      35.36

Another one...

50 Back      
H6 / L1      
34.69

And last and very least...
Event:     100 SCM Fly

Heat/Lane:     Heat 5, Lane 8

Seed Time:     1:08.57

Final Time:     1:12.36

Splits
 Leg      Cumulative      Subtractive
 1      34.04      34.04

Funny either I was the only person in my age group to swim the 100 Back or luckily they had a worse day then me as I came in 1st in this event.  Oy!

A Few Pictures From Saturday On Deck

I took a few pictures with my iPhone at the SPMA swim meet at UCLA on Saturday.  Here are a few of them.

Ahh...morning on deck.  They had a pretty cool score/time board.

 

Then it was time to turn in my event card.  Yeah I sandbagged my times.  Added 20 seconds to my 800 and 1 or 2 seconds for everything else.

 

Next up is Rob from Robaquatics LINK after doing a sprint 25 during the second warm up.

 

After my 800 I switched from my Blueseventy suit to my Splish suit.  So pink and shinny!

  

But I wasn't the only swimmer in pink.  In this picture you can almost make out the guy in lane three with the pink suit. 

  

After the 800 Free, 50 Back, 100 Fly and 100 Back I decided to scratch the 50 Fly.  But I still had to swim the 50 Fly in the relay.  Here I am waiting for this damn day to end.

  

Ahhh...tacos!  Done and Done!

 

Race Report

So yesterday was the USMS SPMA SCM swim meet at UCLA.  I guess that would be the USMSSPMASCMUCLA.  The meet was held at the new pool complex which is amazing.  Although I did have a few issues.  The locker rooms were too small, the water was a few degrees to warm and the pool itself is great but they didn't have the best lane lines.  I thought the pool was a bit choppy when I was swimming and those big wave busting lane lines would have made it an even better pool.  But damn it's a nice pool with a nice setting on campus. 

I got to the meet pretty early and warmed up as soon as it started.  I didn't warm up that much as usual.  In fact I think I warmed up way less then usual.  I figured I'd warm up closer to my heat.  With the 800 being first I gueestimated I'd have an hour between warm up and my heat.  I wore a pink splish bathing suit for warm up.  Sparkle Sparkle!  A few heats before mine I went and put on my blueseventy nero comp suit.  With the hot sun beating down on me I soon discovered I had put the suit on too early.  Oh well.  I got in the water and did a few laps to cool off, warm up and adjust my suit.  Then I had to pee so I had to get back in and re-adjust my suit again.

As I got on the blocks I was a bit upset that we didn't have a chance during warm up to dive off the blocks so I'd have a feel for it.  So I slowly edge my feet with little baby steps till I got to the end and slowly went down with my arms for the start.  I gotta admit I was nervous of making a false start.  Once in the water I had a pretty descent start and streamline.  I did feel a bit to deep so I made the mistake of looking up to see.  The first 250 felt great.  I didn't feel like I was going to fast and actually thought I could pick it up a bit.  I haven't seen my splits so who knows if this was the reality of the moment or just something in my head.  I stepped it up a little bit for the next 200.  Then disaster hit at 450 SCM!  On my 19th lap I seemed to be taking in water.  Swallowing water when I was trying to catch oxygen.  It wasn't a big deal at the time but another 200 meters and disaster came calling with dry heaves.  It was like my body was going into shut down and rejecting the water I had swallowed.  I was dry heaving and the flip turns were becoming the time when I just thought I was going to toss my cookies.  Turn after turn.  I was dry heaving while I was swimming so breathing was getting tough.  So much so at one turn right before my flip I picked my head out of the water as if I was doing butterfly.  I did that on 2 turns.  Finally with about 5 laps to go the turn of hell happened.  As I was flipping over the dry heaving became a not so dry heave and chuncks flowed down my face as I was flipping over.  At that moment my turn came into a freeze frame and I had to decide if I was to go on or just stop.  I pushed off the wall and just prayed that I could swim these last 5 laps.  I was still dry heaving all the way on every lap.  I was getting tired, worn out and stressed out.  I kept thinking I can just stop now.  No big deal.  When I got to my last 50 I pulled myself together and tried to go as fast as I could.  On the last 25 I figured I just needed to get to the wall and then I could puke as much as I wanted into the gutter.  When I finished I was shocked at my time.  9.49:82.  That is three seconds faster then my fastest 800.  Wahoo! 

Of course that  would be the only joy in my swimming for the day.  My 100 fly was just a mess.  It's not that it felt bad for the first 50 I was just slow.  The last 25 of the 100 fly wasn't pretty and I was just trying to get going.  I ended up swimming my slowest 100 butterfly ever and was off my best time by 5 seconds.  The 100 backstroke was in the same league.  What had happened?

I guess I can try to over think my swims yesterday.  Why were my 100's such slow swims.  I've been sick.  It hasn't been a good swim year for me since Nationals.  So many choices of excuses to pick from.  My first reaction to my swims was that I'll just not swim 100's anymore.  That isn't too smart.  Looking back I have to be happy with my 800 as for the 100's it just gives me something to work on in the pool.  Maybe I've been thinking too much about distance freestyle swimming and not enough time on fly and back.  Tomorrow is another swim day and I'll just keep at is and see how I do at Regionals in December.  This will be my last meet before I age up in swimming.  The Big 40 is coming!

Saturday Proposed Swim Rundown

Here is the run down for Saturday's Swim Meet.

800 warm-up at 8:00 a.m.
800 starts at 9:00 a.m.
1 . 800 m Freestyle
Additional warm-up after the 800
Event #2 starts at 10:30 a.m.
2. 200 m Freestyle Relay (Men, Women, Mixed; deck enter)
3. 200 m Individual Medley
4. 50 m Backstroke
5. 100 m Butterfly
6. 200 m Freestyle
7. 100 m Backstroke
8. 50 m Freestyle
8A. 200 m Medley Relay (Men, Women, Mixed; deck enter)
9. 100 m Breaststroke
10. 100 m Freestyle
11. 50 m Butterfly
12. 50 m Breaststroke
13. 100 m Individual Medley
14. 4 x 50 m T-shirt Relay (deck enter)

My plan for myself is to swim the 800 Freestyle. Then it'll be all stroke with the following tentative swims: 50 Backstroke, 100 Butterfly, 100 Backstroke, 50 Butterfly and calling all lifeguards on deck for the 50 Breaststroke. May also toss in the 100 IM for fun.

My 1650 @ 2009 USMS SCY in Clovis

I think when I posted some of my other events not all the heats were up on the 1650 from USMS SCY Nationals.  For one reason or another I decided to rip the original file from a swimming sight and flow it up on to another just in case.  Ya never know. 

So I am Heat 17 Lane 5.  Two people are at the end of my line.  My counter wearing blue and my coach getting my splits.  I came in third in this heat. 

Pre-Preliminary USMS Top 10 SCY 2008-2009

As SCY season is officially over meet results are slowly trickling into the USMS database.  The deadline for entry of times isn't till the end of June and then the preliminary Top 10 list comes out at the end of July with official Top 10 list coming out in August.  But for those of you who can't wait you can go to the USMS Meet Results Database Rankings page LINK and look up your individual events. 

I did just that thing this morning and here are my Pre-Preliminary USMS Top 10 SCY 2009 for Men Age Group 35-39:

The 1650 Freestyle - Tenth.  Ouch.  Most likely I'll be bumped out of the top ten.
The 500 Freestyle - 29th
The 200 Butterfly - 22nd
The 200 Backstroke - 20th

It's odd that more people swim SCY than SCM or am I just that much better at Meters then Yards?  At least we are done with SCY for the year! 

Best So Far SCY Swims

I just checked the USMS website to pull up some data and I checked in on my post-Nationals times.  Here is a screengrab of my best SCY times:

I will admit I was on the site looking up the SCY Top 10 Publishing Cal and the prelims list won't be up to late June. 

Fresno Bee Covers USMS SCY Nats

Since SCY was in Clovis/Fresno it was nice that the local paper did some coverage.  I'd bet if SCY or LCM Nats were in LA the LA Times would maybe print a paragraph buried in a corner of the sports section on page 13.

Here is a listing of the Bee's Coverage:

Swimming support system:
Partners tied together through sport push each other toward success at Masters. (this talked about the Millerton Lake Open Water Race) LINK

Masters swimmers add on to record meet  LINK

 Marks fall at Masters:
Athletes up to their 90s race, shatter numerous age records. LINK

2009 USMS SCY Nationals Slideshow

I didn't take that many pictures during the meet but here is a slideshow of the few photos I did take. 

My 500 SCY Freestyle Video - Heat 22 Lane 4 #usms

Just by watching this video I now know I need to work on my turns. Watch the video and you'll see why.