COMSA 2010

Well, swimming season is officially over and now it’s time to go full bore into triathlon. Not that swimming’s completely out, per se, but it’s not the main focus as it has been over the last two or so months. Now, I get to get back on the bike and work some hills (or throw on the shoes and work those runs.) I am a month away from the first A race of the season, but it doesn’t go without looking back on the swim season this year.

I only got back into swimming three years ago, so this should be my third COMSA masters champs since I started back in 2008. I will dissect this all down the best I can.

1000 Free

I first swam the 1000 free for masters in 2008, and I came in at 13:01 from a seed time of 14 and some change. (Lesson here is never to come to a time trial hung over when you’re trying to figure out your entry times.) The Tenderfoot triathlon also did 1000 for the swim, in which I entered the time of 13:01 for seeding. I came out of the water here at 14 minutes for the sake of conserving energy for the rest of the race.

This year, I entered a seed time of 13:01, and I finished the race at 12:17.57, which is a personal best overall.

The swim felt pretty straining and exhausting overall. I notice that I predominately breathe on my right side, which causes my left arm to cut through the water a little odd. (This was noticed by several of my coaches…) I was achy for the rest of the day, and I still had the 1650 to go. Thankfully, my friend Bryce was on hand to count for me, so he went and got some lunch while we waited between events.

This weekend, I went off the Paleo diet as of Thursday night and started carbo loading with brown rice and oats. I also put on five pounds. (Back to the two hundreds… GAH!)

1650 Freestyle

This is the first year that I’ve done the 1650 in a competition. 1650 yards is roughly a mile, and this year – because of IMAZ – I was concentrating on my distance events over my sprints. I entered a seed time of  26:09.00 – which is based off of an open water swim I did last year.

I’m proud to say I got a time of 20:34.52! The reason for the wide difference in time is because in the 1650, I was doing flip-turns and pushing off the wall, which gives me a little rest and a boost through the race. During the pull-out, I was doing three dolphin kicks off the wall, which helped quite a lot. I have my eyes on a 22 or 23 minute open water mile, which would put me at 44 minutes for a 2 mile. If I can get down to 20, I’ll be set. Then again, there are a lot of little factors in open water swimming that slow you down – especially when you’re prone to getting kicked in the face by other swimmers.

During this swim, I just relaxed and had a good time with it. I stretched out the stroke and went from a 6 to a 2 beat kick. I talked to the guy who runs the channel swimming group, and he said that my turns looked great, and I was staying right at mid-lane. The referee also congratulated me on a great race, since I came in first in my heat.

Coach Roger kept my splits, which were averaging about 1:12 per 100 yards, aside the last 200 which picked up a bit, and a little dip in the middle.

50 Freestyle

The first event of Saturday was the 50 free, which is always a quick, down and dirty all out sprint. I wasn’t expecting to lose much time on these sprints, since my focus has changed. I entered a time of 25.51, and got a 25.97. Less than a half a second loss isn’t all that bad.

100 IM

Next up was the hundred individual medley. I’m not the greatest short-axis swimmer in the world, by any means, and I love doing the fly just about as much as I love to run. I seeded at 1:04 even, and came out at 1:04.47. Again, another half second loss that I wasn’t too disappointed in.

50 Backstroke

I messed up my start on this one, as well as the turn. I’ve never really been able to do backstroke starts, other than when we were able to do a standing deck start back in high school. When the start was called, I dove in way too deep. Although I can kick off the wall a fair ways, it wasn’t really good that I was looking up at the competitor in the other lane. I seeded at 29.54, and came in at 31.25.

500 Freestyle

Rounding out my distance events, and starting Sunday off with a smile, was the 500 freestyle. This is an event that I’ve done all throughout my swimming life, as I’d always been able to hold a steady cadence over longer swims. This year, something just felt different about it. It’s kind of the same thing as running – a mile is only another number. In this case, the 20 lengths seemed to come and go fairly quickly.

I think I went out a little too quick on the front half of the event, although I was able to keep fairly consistent on the last part of it. I seeded at 6:22 even – I’ve been hovering right around the mid-sixes the past few years in competitions. I seriously thought, over the race, that I was going to gain time – but I actually came out in the fives! My time was 5:51.37, and it’s the first time since high school that I’ve been able to get back into that bracket. Even though it doesn’t mean anything in the scheme of things, it’s always fun coming in first in a heat, especially when you get the starting pistol on the last lap.

My triathlon coach, Aimee, was there for the 500. It was cool that she was finally able to see me swim, since we’ve been over everything else. Again, the flaw in the left arm came out because of my unilateral breathing habits on longer swims, and I wasn’t kicking off the wall as much as well as I should have. Again, Roger stated I was very consistent, and negative split the end half.

50 Breast

The breast was another event that proved somewhat problematic in my open turns. Again, I’m not a great short-axis swimmer. I also learned that you need to pay attention to which heat you’re in while waiting on deck. I was distracted, talking to another Arizona IronMan racer for this year. When heat seven came up, I asked him if he was up, and he said he was in eight. I looked at the board, saw my name, said “oh $#@&” and hopped up just as they were saying ‘take your mark’. I almost scratched, but the dive in and the actual swimming part felt pretty good, if not a little goofy from my lucky blunder.

I seeded at 34 even, and came in at 33.47. Half a second drop ain’t bad!

100 Freestyle

This was, by far, my most impressive time drop of all time! In the history of the world! I dropped a whopping 1/100th of a second! Yeah, that’s right! I was, literally, a blink of an eye quicker than I was last year! Seeded at 57.01, and came in at 57 even. Next year, maybe I can break into the high 56’s! LET’S GO 56.99!

50 Fly

Ah, my favorite stroke: well, as much as one can compare the experience of a root canal to a delicious bowl of paleo-safe frozen custard made from Almond milk. All things considered, it was okay. I got tired the last quarter of the sprint, which is only half a length of the pool. I’m not the right shape for this stroke. I did manage to knock some time off of the top, though. Seeding at 28 even, I came in with 27.76.

Relays

I did do two relays this weekend, the first was swimming the backstroke leg of the 200 Medley Relay. Again, with the sucky starts. My back split here was 31.12, which was a little faster than my actual race time. With the 200 free relay, my split was also marginally lower than my 50 Free time. The swim felt really good, too. I got 25.93 for my split, which is 5/100ths faster than my race time. My relay teams both got fourth place for their assigned age group.

Here’s to small victories!

Tags: Bryce, Coach Aimee, Coach Roger, COMSA, Open Water, Paleo Diet, Paleo Diet for Athletes, Personal Best, Swimming, Tenderfoot Triathlon

This entry was posted on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 11:58 and is filed under Competitions, Featured, Swimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.