With no Nationals this year, USMS said they will have virtual events. I'm not sure how this will work. VR headsets are expensive enough, how much is a VR tech suit? Do they have them at Swimoutlet?
So I entered and swam:
The good:I found an open pool less than an hours drive away. My BR felt like I was actually swimming breaststroke and 2 people complimented me on my form(from over 6 ft away). I felt like I had some power in my kick.
the bad: this was my first time in a pool since March and my first time to swim BR without a wetsuit. Kick was good, but pull was my first really hard, sprint type pulls since March and I tweaked my shoulder. Not too badly, but I have no plans to try the virtual events again lest I really hurt it. My DPS was poor owing to lack of practice and lack of the flexibility that comes from working on flexibility in the pool. I had limited time in the pool so I swam the 100 BR first after what I thought was sufficient warm up. They would not let me start from the blocks. I should have warmed up longer. I thought my time was slow, but at least I did it. Slight shoulder pain but I thought I'd be fine after a warm down. 10 min later swam the 50 BR. I thought that was enough recovery, it wasn't. Also the shoulder pain was more noticeable. Warmed down for 20 min before the 200 and my shoulder seemed mostly OK, so I swam the 200 BR. taking it out slow and being a little careful with my pulls. Not fast, but any 200 BR you can walk away from is a success.
the ugly: I found entering the virtual meet anything but intuitive. I had perviously enrolled in swim.com and integrated it with MY USMS. This did nothing as I had to down load the app to my phone, integrate it with USMS 2 more times(why did it take 2 more times, turns out if you exit swim.com to go to USMS and don't click "remember me" it doesn't. Once that was done it was only an hour and a half of getting into one endless loop after another before I finally could enter my times. Times to the second, by the way, not to the .01 sec. The placings are listed by time, not by gender and age, just by time.
I'm glad I did it as at least it had some of the verisimilitude of a meet and I really like meets. Also I found a pool I can get to when I can plan out a big chunk of time in my schedule for 45 min in the water.
So I entered and swam:
The good:I found an open pool less than an hours drive away. My BR felt like I was actually swimming breaststroke and 2 people complimented me on my form(from over 6 ft away). I felt like I had some power in my kick.
the bad: this was my first time in a pool since March and my first time to swim BR without a wetsuit. Kick was good, but pull was my first really hard, sprint type pulls since March and I tweaked my shoulder. Not too badly, but I have no plans to try the virtual events again lest I really hurt it. My DPS was poor owing to lack of practice and lack of the flexibility that comes from working on flexibility in the pool. I had limited time in the pool so I swam the 100 BR first after what I thought was sufficient warm up. They would not let me start from the blocks. I should have warmed up longer. I thought my time was slow, but at least I did it. Slight shoulder pain but I thought I'd be fine after a warm down. 10 min later swam the 50 BR. I thought that was enough recovery, it wasn't. Also the shoulder pain was more noticeable. Warmed down for 20 min before the 200 and my shoulder seemed mostly OK, so I swam the 200 BR. taking it out slow and being a little careful with my pulls. Not fast, but any 200 BR you can walk away from is a success.
the ugly: I found entering the virtual meet anything but intuitive. I had perviously enrolled in swim.com and integrated it with MY USMS. This did nothing as I had to down load the app to my phone, integrate it with USMS 2 more times(why did it take 2 more times, turns out if you exit swim.com to go to USMS and don't click "remember me" it doesn't. Once that was done it was only an hour and a half of getting into one endless loop after another before I finally could enter my times. Times to the second, by the way, not to the .01 sec. The placings are listed by time, not by gender and age, just by time.
I'm glad I did it as at least it had some of the verisimilitude of a meet and I really like meets. Also I found a pool I can get to when I can plan out a big chunk of time in my schedule for 45 min in the water.
