Tomorrow morning is my very first swim meet. I'm very nervous but it was time for me to finally see what I could do in competition versus practice. There are so many things that can go wrong like forgetting to exhale well under water, running out of steam during my 100 free, forgetting stoke mechanics, diving too deep, etc. I don't care how i do compared to others, I'm competing with myself. I always imagined my race times would be faster than my practice times and I know i will be very disappointed if that's not the case. Any words of advice on how to mentally approach this wold be greatly appreciated. Like you wet the bed in your first meet but it got better in subsequent meets:D.
One other question; how do I control the depth of my dive on entry. I rarely every get to practice dives because our pool doesn't allow dives off the blocks unless with the team/coach. So I can only practice it off the pool edge (my masters team doesn't do much start practice). Should I arch my back on head and trunk entry or angle my hands up? If I dive too deep (I hardly have a superb dolphin kick to compensate), I'm toast. It's pretty much hit or miss with me now.
Thanks.
OK, so here was my IM. My back stroke was a disaster, killed my time. I think my coach was correct when he once told me that the back stroke is the most important segment of the IM; can make or break your race. I was experimenting for a couple days with something he taught me; trying to imagine illegally carrying a basketball while dribbling. I actually did much better when I went for a swim today, not sure what happened in the meet. I also don't normally bicycle kick like this, but I kind of went brain dead in this event. I'm pretty confident I'll beat 1:23 my next time around just by not crashing into the lane line:), but any advice on other areas to work on is greatly appreciated.
www.youtube.com/watch
Thanks for all the support and help from folks before and after the meet. I felt on top of the world after this, mainly because I overcame my fear of competing and just did it. I learned a lot about myself. Masters swimmers are some of the nicest people I've ever encountered, both in the forum and at the meet. I have tremendous admiration for the older swimmers who compete, many of whom absolutely smoked my times despite having like 30 years on me.
OK, so here was my IM. My back stroke was a disaster, killed my time. I think my coach was correct when he once told me that the back stroke is the most important segment of the IM; can make or break your race. I was experimenting for a couple days with something he taught me; trying to imagine illegally carrying a basketball while dribbling. I actually did much better when I went for a swim today, not sure what happened in the meet. I also don't normally bicycle kick like this, but I kind of went brain dead in this event. I'm pretty confident I'll beat 1:23 my next time around just by not crashing into the lane line:), but any advice on other areas to work on is greatly appreciated.
www.youtube.com/watch
Thanks for all the support and help from folks before and after the meet. I felt on top of the world after this, mainly because I overcame my fear of competing and just did it. I learned a lot about myself. Masters swimmers are some of the nicest people I've ever encountered, both in the forum and at the meet. I have tremendous admiration for the older swimmers who compete, many of whom absolutely smoked my times despite having like 30 years on me.
