Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 11:50:46 GMT

BC provincials was a 3 day meet. You definitely have time to recover and swim more than one race. It is good to do a race you don't care about before your focus event so you can get more familiar and comfortable racing. You should be able to do at least one good morning and afternoon swim in each day. Yeah, I should have added that I was not available on the Sunday, and the Friday night 1500m was the only possibility to me on that day. I did not want a 1500m, then 400m just 16 hours later. But, some responses here are causing me to rethink this. I appreciate your thoughts, thanks.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 06:57:16 GMT

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Jeff Enge — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 06:48:39 GMT

An aside: I signed up as an independant at this meet. Some friends from a local club were there, and they were shocked that I was a) independant, and b) doing only one event. They implored me to join their team for next time, and they strongly suggested that I do multiple events for next time, plus relays too. Now, that might be a lot of fun for some people, but I am convinced that one event per meet is best for me. I just feel that several hard efforts within a short timeframe is a recipe for injury. And I want to put my eggs into one basket. I want my focus and energy to be aimed at one race, not spread out over several. Am I alone in feeling this way? Am I a miserable grinch? Hmm. If you are in decent shape and properly warm up and warm down, there is no reason that doing more than one event a day should he risky. I'm much more of a sprinter, but I find I start running out of gas around the fourth race in a typical Masters meet session. So for me that means my meet sessions are best at 2 individuals and 2 relays.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

sickfish — Sun, 28 Apr 2019 01:12:41 GMT

I've found that I do much better if I focus on one individual event (well, two): the 50 and 100 fly. However, relays don't seem to affect this. I can just wing them. They're fun, low pressure, and actually they help take the edge off the anxiety in my individual events. Of course if they're right before the 100fly I'll probably say no way. People understand.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 14:43:33 GMT

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 14:30:21 GMT

The full results are out, and as I suspected, the split times show that I started way too fast and got slower and slower. I was 3:19 at 200m (my pr is 3:15!!), and 3:39 for the second half. OUCH!!! I'm glad that I got this mistake out of my system on the first meet. :)

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 14:11:37 GMT

Congrats! Glad you enjoyed yourself.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 05:06:39 GMT

Thanks ElaineK. Yes, it's thrilling to get a starting point, even if it was much less than pretty. 6:58 is where I began!! Where shall I end?? :)

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Elaine Krugman — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 11:38:21 GMT

Thanks folks. Sub 6:30 by the end of this year? Sub 6:00 at 60 (2022)? :) Congratulations, Skuj! Aren't you glad you did the meet? As for your goals, GO FOR IT! :cheerleader:

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:23:02 GMT

The good: I decided on Feb 21, 2019, that swimming is my new drug. 7 weeks later I found myself at BC Masters 400m freestyle, nervous and relatively clueless. But I desperately wanted to do a meet in 2019, so that I could have a starting point. I'm so glad that I did this. I learned so much. I can't wait to do it again. I'm eagerly setting goals for next time. The not so good: I had a rather silly swim. I was too nervous, and too quick on the first half. I was trying to keep up with the lady in the lane next to me when I should have been thinking only about my race. Consequently, I died on the second half. It was a gigantic struggly mess. I swam 6:58, and I'm willing to bet that I can swim 6:48 in the training pool next week. (Anyone want to bet?) But I'm not going to beat myself up about not having a perfect first race. DOING this was the main thing. I am happy.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 11:26:30 GMT

Thanks folks. Sub 6:30 by the end of this year? Sub 6:00 at 60 (2022)? :)

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

flystorms — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 10:08:54 GMT

Skuj the best part of every race is that you learn something from it. Great job getting out there and so now you have a personal best to beat next time. :applaud:

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

sickfish — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 01:42:17 GMT

Congrats!

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:25:22 GMT

Aaaaaaahh!! I'm so happy and relieved. (Sorry.....I've been very whiney and stressed in this thread, with my newbie fear, registration issues, and injury scare.) My shoulder strain is now under control. I swam a 3:15 200m yesterday. The heat sheets are out for BC Masters, and I can see that I'm nearly a "middle of the pack" kind of guy. I belong!! :) I'm really looking forward to this. Thanks everyone for your patience, understanding, and support. I lurk many threads here and learn so much.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 16:27:21 GMT

I'm so depressed. This is quite painful. I can pinpoint the pain to a fingerprint sized area in the front of my right shoulder. I'm very restricted in what I can do with my right arm. I see physio tomorrow. In retrospect, I am almost certain that what caused this was a very bad/weird stroke after a dive when still submerged. Damn. 9 days to the meet. I suppose it is safe to say that my newbie-excitement bubble has burst. Injuries teach us things. I shall learn from this.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 11:59:10 GMT

Dr Simon Conde at Fit Chiropractic And Sport Therapy worked miracles for me today. He even thinks that I can try a test swim on Sun/Mon....but....I dunno..... We'll see what happens. Basically, I have a rotator cuff strain. Now look, I'm willing to admit that once I had to quit running, I was a wee bit over-eager to compensate, and get ready for this first swim meet within a few short weeks. Going forward...... I shall swim 5 times per week. I shall swim 5 times per week. I shall swim 5 times per week. I shall......

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 11:02:04 GMT

I'm working on vids!! :) Unfortunately, since today's swim, my right shoulder is very sore, and my right hand tingles. I'm very worried that I have blown this. Is it possible to hurt yourself like this due to diving?

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 09:12:09 GMT

Today I swam 400/200/100/50/25/25/25 warmup, then 3x25 hard, then 400 cooldown. The 2nd, 4th and 6th 25m were off the diving platform. I need to practice this. Plus, my PR 25m of mid-18sec, pushing off the wall, was going to fall today with a dive. The 4th 25 was IT, Man. I dove and swam hard, and I got.......mid-18sec. WTF? Clearly I'm doing it wrong. Try again!! I swam back, then got onto the platform again. The 6th one would be IT. No screwing around this time. I dove and swam hard again, and I got.......mid-18sec again. Sigh. Maybe I'll stick to the wall.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Elaine Krugman — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 06:43:46 GMT

Videos! We need videos! How else can we know what you are doing right and what can be improved? Get somebody to shoot some videos of your freestyle, open turns, and block start, ok? Post them on YouTube and post them here. :cheerleader: NOTHING has helped my breaststroke more than having my husband shoot video and posting it in "The Breaststroke Lane" thread for feedback. Allen Stark is the breaststroke guru; however, we have some great freestyle guru Forumites as well! Post your videos, and they will respond. :agree:

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 09:13:11 GMT

JPEnge, that's fascinating. Thanks. I've decided that my long term goal (ie age 60 in 2022) is to master flipturns, one very gradual step at a time. Meanwhile...... After yesterday's debacle at the pool, it was a great relief to have a good swim today. I did 400 + 4x50 warmup (8:15/:52/:53/:52/:52) + 800 bung (14:19) + 200 cooldown (4:03). 14:19 is 8sec faster than last week. My 400 splits were 7:12/7:07. Funny that my 400 PR is 7:09. (But that was 3 weeks ago. I haven't done 400 since then.) 14:19 means that I should be able to do 400 in 6:51. I seeded 6:45 for the meet. My open-turns were better today, but far from perfect. There is so much I can do to get better!!

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Jeff Enge — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 09:10:41 GMT

Ugh. I spent half the morning watching flipturn how-to videos. I got to the pool and promptly commenced the somersault with noodle drill. Then I did a series of turns at the wall, including one where I dragged my back along the shallow end bottom. Just when I thought that I was getting somewhere, it occurred to me that all of these turns had given me motion sickness. I felt like puking for the remainder of the flipturnless session. (400/200/100/50/50 warmup + 200 bung + 400 cooldown.) I was very disappointed that the 200m was only 3:18. I was hoping for 3:14-3:16 today. I'm not sure where I go from here regarding those damn turns. This was not an issue that I anticipated. I still feel like I've been on Space Mountain as I type this. Sheesh. If you're super dizzy doing flip turns, my first guess would be that you're trying to literally "flip." That's kind of a misnomer. For me, it's helpful to think of a flip turn as more of a pike movement than, say, a barrel roll. That also helps with the precision of the movement - you don't want to tuck your torso up too much because you want your body streamlined in the direction you're going to jump off of the wall as quickly as possible. TBH I don't really like open water flipping drills for people first learning flip turns because it encourages just throwing your body over like that and deemphasizes the needed precision of the movement. Anyway, there's soooo much complexity to turns, as there tends to be with movements that require a lot of precision in a very short window of time... I could wax poetic for awhile, but that's not going to help you learn them in the first place :P

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 11:28:32 GMT

I've watched a few open-turn videos now. They could have filmed me for every one of the "common mistakes" portions!! :) I will hopefully execute some GOOD open-turns tomorrow. Thanks again, ElaineK.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:21:46 GMT

Wow, thanks ElaineK. That's very helpful. I confess to not knowing what "open turns" were until now, but I suppose I have been doing them....somewhat badly! I will look at all the steps in these videos, because frankly, I cannot see myself doing flipturns anytime soon, and certainly not at this meet. I'm really taken aback by what the actual dynamics of the flipturn did to me. It will take me a while to overcome this, methinks.....and I suspect open turns are the way forward for me. Thanks again.

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Former Member — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 09:24:33 GMT

RE: Newbie - afraid of signing up for Provincial Masters Meet.

Elaine Krugman — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 08:21:31 GMT

I've watched a few open-turn videos now. They could have filmed me for every one of the "common mistakes" portions!! :) I will hopefully execute some GOOD open-turns tomorrow. Thanks again, ElaineK. You're welcome, Skuj! I'm glad those videos will help you. Go Swim offers a free subscription at GoSwim.net if you would like to see more of their videos. They will e-mail you one daily.