Geek vs. Gull II, or why I now idolize the Geek and have embraced TI
Former Member
The Geek and I swam head to head this weekend, matching up in the 200 and 500 (in adjacent lanes for both, believe it or not). The Geek won both, beating me by about a second in the 200 and I believe 3 or 4 seconds in the 500. He'd shed 20 pounds since we last raced and shaved (as I did), but he was not wearing a Fastskin. I did swim a personal (Masters) best in the 500, nearly 5 seconds faster than last year, and split it extremely well, but alas it wasn't enough. As the winner, he walked off with a Starbucks gift card and of course this thread.
See you in Austin in 2008, Geek.
Parents
Former Member
It's healthy rivalries of this sort that can move us to examine more aspects of how we swim and how our practice relates to our racing goals.
While the title of the thread was clearly tongue-in-cheek, there is a tie in with Terry's point about process vs. outcome. Our coach emphasizes negative splitting to the extent that he cares as much about how we swim a race as the actual time. Not only was it my fastest 500 as a Masters swimmer, but it was also the best split 500 I'd ever done (31+/33/33/33/33/33/33/33/33/32). Geek takes his races out faster than I do, so I thought I might catch him on the last 100. It was also the first time I'd raced a 500 breathing bilaterally, something I'd been training to do.
It's healthy rivalries of this sort that can move us to examine more aspects of how we swim and how our practice relates to our racing goals.
While the title of the thread was clearly tongue-in-cheek, there is a tie in with Terry's point about process vs. outcome. Our coach emphasizes negative splitting to the extent that he cares as much about how we swim a race as the actual time. Not only was it my fastest 500 as a Masters swimmer, but it was also the best split 500 I'd ever done (31+/33/33/33/33/33/33/33/33/32). Geek takes his races out faster than I do, so I thought I might catch him on the last 100. It was also the first time I'd raced a 500 breathing bilaterally, something I'd been training to do.
