the17thman

Me, Maybe, I Think

It looks like someone my built, hair, goggles, suit and that odd stance of mine.  Also part of the same series of photos that I found myself in this suit on the bench.  So I guess it is me.

More Photos of Me

Trying to stay in character is a bitch.  You try walking on your hands on knees on a bulkhead!

I'm hiding in the back lost in my own world.  In front are my teammates smiling it up.  I'm the very back row leaning against the wall.  

Once again i'm trying to act aloof as my mates smile it up for the camera. 

Pink Flamingo Relay: Paris & The Poodle

here are some photos from MetroWeekly

Pink Flamingo Relay Photo

Okay if you look to the right you see Coco the poodle on deck ready to jump in water.

thanks to Orien's Picasa Web Album

A Coaches Role

The real title of this post should be "A Coaches Role At A Swim Meet" but even before going to a swim meet a swimmer should be having conversations with his or her coaches.  Before I do move forward with this post which I'm sure will illicit some comments I want to say I try to do my best not to air any of my teams dirty laundry in this blog.  I comment from time to time about things but try to keep individuals out of this blog.  As I ramble on in this rant i will do my best to stick to my rules of not airing dirty laundry. 

Before heading off to swim this past weekend on my very last workout our Tuesday night coach asked myself and the other swimmer heading to the meet what events were we swimming.  We both had planned to swim the 400, 800 and 1500 SCM freestyle.  My lane mate is what I call a serious swimmer as he knows what pace he needs to do and plots out each swim way before changing into his swim suit the day of the race.  Me, well let's just say I swim to I puke.  No thinking just try to go as fast for as long as I can go.  Pacing, what is that?  Well that Tuesday night one week ago the coach had us do 3x100's on a very slow interval trying to hold the same pace on each one.  Looking back I think in the last month or so I've done a few sets with pace work.  After we completed that set the coach told me and my lane mate to do that set in warm up in the morning and later before our event. 

When I got to the pool Thursday morning it was empty enough to dive in and do a quick warm up before hitting my 3x100's pace.  I felt okay but worried about holding the pace I wanted.  That pace was really a made up pace based on my Gay Games time in 2006.  I didn't know if I could do it since the number I came up with to keep on pace with was my average pace from 2006.  After warm up and before my event the coach of Thursday was talking to my teammate and lanemate from Tuesday.  We were both in the same heat and he was talking about what pace he wanted to do.  The coach and my teammate worked out a whole system of how he would do it.  Seeing that he is normally a faster swimmer of me and his 1,500 time was 20-30 seconds faster than my fastest time which was from Gay Games I knew I'd just follow him.  When the coach asked me what I planned to do I replied "to stay no longer than 25 meters behind him".  She laughed and I told her I was serious. 

So the event begins.  I jump in the water and feel strong.  Wearing the Fastskin legging really helped me on  streamline.  I don't know how to explain it to you swim with them.  My legs just really felt tight and strong.  I was pushing off the walls and kicking so strong which is so not my style.  The first 600 I was always a body length or so behind my team mate.  Being in lane 8 I could see my coach giving my teammate the waving of the arm to pick up pace.  I kept thinking if he is off pace than I can't be doing so well either.  I was pretty sure being only a body length behind him meant that I was doing a great pace but if he was off pace than maybe not.  I tried to keep confident and not let any bad or negative thoughts in.  I learned that from my teammate Dan.  Dan is the 1,500 king as he's done it 5 or 6 times (1500 SCM or 1650 SCY) so far this year of 2008.  In fact I listened to him a lot this year about swimming the event and learned a lot.  Also my lanemate has counted for me several times and have pointed out a few things I needed to work on.  So really between G and Dan I was thinking this 1,500 out.  I tried to keep swimming in the middle of the lane and not get into the circle swim habit which slows you down.  I made sure no matter how tired I got to keep those arms tight and streamline with a butterfly kick.  Yes, once or twice I forgot to kick but all in all my turns were 80% better than normal.  After the 800 mark I pulled ahead lap by lap eventually finishing ahead of my team mate by 20 seconds.  Basically I did his 1,500 time and he did my 1,500 time.  He had a bad swim, I had a good one.  It happens. 

After our heat we had the 200 freestyle in the 4x200 freestyle relay than that was day one.  The next morning I get to the pool a few minutes later and didn't have time to do pace work.  This was the day of the 400.  This is the dirty laundry part so grab a cup of tea or vodka and sit down.  We had two coaches who split the days.  So Friday and Saturday the coach was different.  I never got the chance to talk to the coach or in fact had the opportunity to talk to the coach about my races.  I really don't think he talked to anyone but that is not about me so who cares.  This is my blog, my swims so I want the attention.  I get a newbie swimmer to count for me.  I explained to him how you count and we watched a heat of the womens 400 and showed him how they did it.  I then told him the pace i wanted to do.  I'm so impressed with myself that i figured it out.  I told him that if I was on pace to just put the counter in the water and don't move it.  If I was going to slow to shake the counter like crazy.  He was a bit worried about it so I made it easy by giving him a round number and to only worry about each 100 of the 400.  I thought I explained how to get the splits off the board and how that after every turn the board keeps the split time up for a bit.  Well it didn't go to plan.  He shook the counter at each 100.  Yes, I did my best time but I was freaking out thinking I was way off which killed my pacing.  After my swim I had to hunt down the clipboard to see my splits.  The coach just wrote down the times off the board after each 50 but didn't do the math to get the 100 splits.  That drove me even more steamed.  Later on I swam the 50 back in the 4x50 Medley Relay.  Backstroke?  Me?  Really.  I made a stink about it and tried to make sure everyone heard it.  I'm sure the person who did the fly did a decent time but I would have been faster.  Plus my backstroke is okay and faster than most but i do have a tendency to get DQ'ed at meets due to my  bad turns.  That left me even more steamed than I was before.

Day three the 800.  Since the metro system didn't start to later in the morning which would make me miss warmup I got up and catched the early shuttle to the pool.  That gave me lots of time to warm up so I was able to do my pace sets.  Now I had the 1,500 and the 400 under my belt but at that point I had never swam an 800 SCM at a meet.  I've done 800 SCY's in practice but that is different.  The same coach from Friday was coaching on Saturday and he was pretty much awol before my event so I was without being precoached about pacing.  I counted someone a few heats before me but the way it worked he was still swimming when the heat before me in the other pool was almost done.  I called over to one of my team mates to finish counting while i ran to the locker room, put on my fastskin, jumped in the warm up pool and did a 25 before getting to my lane.  I was able to sit down for a minute as one person in the heat prior to me was slower than the rest giving me extra time.  While i was waiting i finally saw the coach on deck.  Another team mate, Dan as mentioned above, was in my heat but in the far lane.  He was in my heat during the 1500 at Gay Games so I know he can be pretty fast in these distance events.  So my goal was to keep about a 1/2 lap lead ahead of him by the 600 and keep it there.  I figured at each 100 I'd look over and judge the distance to figure out if I needed to pick it up.  Also after swimming the 1,500 two days before I had an idea of what type of pace i could keep up.  Another reason to swim at more swim meets, you learn how to swim at meets.  So off we go.  The first 200 I was at a pretty good pace.  The guy in the lane to the right of me was with me neck and neck for the first 200 or so.  After that i kept on my pace but the guy slowly fell behind.  He must have been trying to keep my pace but couldn't as by the end of the race I believe I was about 25 meters ahead of him. At least i think it was a few days ago.  So after my race i get out and look for the coach again.  I walked around both race pools without any luck so i hit the warm up / down pool.  i get out again and by this time all teh pools are warm up pools for the other events.  The coach who is also a swimmer is now warming up and i find the notebook laying on the benches.  I look and once again like a monkey all that is transcribed by the coach are the times from the board.  Dan sat with me and did the math.

Do we see a pattern here?  I then have the 100 butterfly in the 4x100 Medley relay.  After I'm done i go to Dan who tells me my split.  Later I have my 200 butterfly.  I don't have to say anything because by now you can guess that i had no pre-swim conversation with the coach.  Mind you I had a fucking incredible 200 butterfly.  Not only did I drop 3 seconds it was the first time I was thinking about my swim while i was doing it.  I held back the first 100 and slowly built each 25 of the last 100.  I came back from being behind to winning the heat and taking the Gold.

I write this post not only to vent but to start a conversation with everyone who reads this blog.  What do you expect from your coaches at a meet?  What do your coaches do for you at meets?  After a quick angry email to my fellow board members I was asked the following questions:

-What are other teams doing which our team does not do?
-What is the expected level of service from the coach?

I edited these two down as they had some coach $$$ figures in them.  I also didn't include other questions that are in the same vain.

Now I know we are Masters swimmers and many of us should know our pacing by now.  Or should we?  And even if we do we need some sort of signal from our coach to tell us if we are on pace or not, correct?  Am I whining too much? 

I only ask if I'm whining too much after tonight at practice the coach in question made a comment that several people pointed out that for all my complaining about not being able to make certain intervals I was doing really well at the meet.  Since as you can see I'm still pretty steamed I did my best not to say anything I'd regret.  I just made a flippant remark that the competition wasn't strong enough otherwise I wouldn't have done as well.  Which I don't know if that is true or not but it is better that I said that than anything else.  And to be honest I really doubt any swimmer said that I whine to much to be going doing the times I was doing. 

Rant over, for now.  Now, feel free to comment or email me about your feelings about my rant and anything about a coaches role at a swim meet. 

Riding In The Car With Teammates

After swimming a few of us were offered a ride back to our hotels by one of the locals.  Thank you!  Everyone was so nice in DC!  I'm in the middle.

Gaywired Covers IGLA

Gaywired.com has a quick little article on this weekends IGLA.  The article covers the various winners of teams in both swimming and water polo.  The main highlights are below:

Swims by Glenn Mills, a 1980 Olympian, and Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen from San Diego Swim masters, highlighted that discipline’s events, which were held at the Eppley Recreation Natatorium at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mills and Pipes-Neilsen combined to break six FINA (Federation Internationale de Natation) Masters world records. Additionally, more United States Masters Swimming (USMS) and FINA world records dropped at this meet than any other previous IGLA championship.

Mills, who raced for the Arizona Masters team, competed in the 45-49 age bracket and broke the short course worlds records for the 200 IM, the 100 breaststroke and the 200 breaststroke.

In the 200 IM he raced to a 2:13.42 finish, while he finished his breaststrokes in 1:05.74 and 2:22.68, respectively.

Pipes-Neilsen also swam in the 45-49 age division and also swam her way to three records. She broke the world masters records in the 800 freestyle (9:20.08), the 100 IM (1:06.80) and the 100 backstroke (1:05.55).

In addition to the six FINA records, 16 short course USMS records were shattered and an impressive 130 IGLA records fell. According to WonKee Moon, the meet’s Tournament Director, one of the most impressive and emotional races of the meet came when Margaret Camp set the IGLA record in the 50 mete freestyle. Camp touched the wall with a time of 1:48.20, and at 88 years of age, she was the oldest competitor in this year’s meet and set the record in her age group.

You can read the full article HERE.  Note the picture in the article is from QUAC's Swim & Ski Weekend, I think.  Just thought that was sorta funny that the article didn't use an actual picture from the weekend.  The picture in my post is of Karlyn Pipes-Nelson.  She is wearing a pink cap in the middle of the picture.   I bought one of her DVD's a few years ago at Regionals after we chatted a bit in the warm down pool.  We briefly said hi to each this weekend.  I love watching her swim as she is just a machine in the water.  She just keeps going and going with no signs of tiring.

Gaysports also has the same post as it's party of Gaywired.  You can read it HERE

Gay Atlanta Sports Blog

The Gay Atlanta Sports Blog has a post regarding the Atlanta Trouts IGLA swims.  It doesn't say much but it's the only IGLA blog post I've found so far.  Check it out HERE. 

Some Pictures

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures this past weekend.  I left that for others.  You can check out my team's blog for lots of swim photos.  The widget for that blog is to the right.  Here is a slideshow of the pictures that I did take which are mostly touristy shots of DC.

The Results

I've uploaded the pdf of all the results of the 2008 IGLA Swim Championships.  The DCAC website is going up and down today due to people trying to view results.  Click Download 2008.IGLA.Results to download the pdf.

i'd like to thank our host this year DCAC for doing a great job in putting on a great swim meet.  The pool was amazing.  The social events were fun.  Everyone was so friendly.  From your team mates giving us rides back and forth to the various events when they saw us waiting for cabs and buses to those teammates leading us from train to train when we all looked so lost in the metro stations.  Everyone really did a great job.  I've been to IGLA in Atlanta and then the Gay Games in Chicago and all I can say that this year has been my favorite so far.  Thank you DCAC and all of Washington, DC.