It was so inspiring I almost feel compelled to go write a poem, a tribute if you will.
While it was a great swim, I can't help but feel as if the last great bastion of reason has now fallen. What could be next? Lindsay making thinly veiled personal attacks? My, I hope not.
Back to reality now....
Great swims posted here. I suspect it was a very fun meet for you all.
Rich - I commented in your swims on the other site. but after someone (was it Jim) commented on your backstroke, just thought I'd add this about the 50 back. The start was different. Watch Fortress' start, it is very good, almost flawless. Same for the turn. Your kicking is way too big and splashy. Read Donna's comments about the kick on Fort's swim. The kick should be very tight and rapid with the toes just barely breaking the surface.
My backstroke start was dunk and push off...that's why it looks odd--I was not risking a back strain at Zones lol.
I thought I did great to catch up with the other guys on the SDK and breakout around the same point LOL.
The turn cracks me up though. It's like...roll....flip...ask for directions to the other end...push off etc lol
Great job Rich! You seem to be improving at a very fast rate. Keep up the good work. Once you get off the blocks faster, you'll really crank out a good 50.
Nice smooth fly Muppet. It looked good on the video.
Fortress, great swim.
Very impressive, Leslie. I also don't think the finish was bad, but is better evaluated by somebody seeing it in person.
Flattery will get you everywhere. ;) You guys all made my day with your kind posts!
Peter:
My team was sitting in the bleachers on deck near lane 8 right by the starting blocks, so they were in a good position to see the finish. Coach and others said close call, but I probably should have taken another stroke. I lunged and felt like there was nothing there and in my brain went "oh sh*t." But no matter. I will swim it again in ... in October. LOL. I watched it again. I think the biggest weakness was my breakouts. I looked like I was in a hurry to breathe. How can I fix that, Donna?
I posted this on the other zone video thread, so thought I would put it here with everyone else's.
I just got to watch Swimstud's videos from Zones. First, I want to say this: for a person who has only been swimming for several months, I don't think I could perform that well. Sure, starts, turns, and stroke need more work, but everyone's does. And it is apparant that our friend here is taking people's advice and working on everything.
Having said that, I think Rich's backstroke start had more comedy than the turn. The turn is just slow right now because you haven't done a ka-zillion of them yet and truly figured out the stroke count from the flags to the wall. And you probably already know that when the buzzer goes off, you should let go of the backstroke bar :rofl:. And don't just push off the wall, but thrust yourself backward and upward. This, too, will come. When your back start becomes more correct, you will then have a problem all of us backstrokers do: preventing our feet/legs from slipping down the wall.:rofl:
I will add this now after reading and forgetting you have a back problem; no wonder you aren't entertaining a more correct backstroke start; I had forgotten about your awful back. sorry about that.
On your backstroke technique, the thing that struck me the most was your knees are breaking the surface of the water but not all the time. They need to be kept underwater at all times. By breaking the surface, it causes a "bicycling" effect which you don't want and it prevents the kick from coming from the hips. I was looking for something in particular in your backstroke armstroke; I think I saw (sometimes only) the back of your hand entering the water instead of the pinkie-finger entering first. Not sure about this, but I thought I saw that. And if the back of the hand enters first, your catch will be very delayed, most probably when your arm gets parallel to the shoulder instead of in the beginning of the hand/arm entering sooner via pinkie-finger.
I'd say you are a good candidate for the back; you need a bit more technical help and backstroke laps. Improving back will only make your 100IM faster.
My last comment: I was more wowed than I thought I would be. Great job!!
And Muppet's breaststroke is very smooth; wish mine was. I'll go look at the 200 fly now that Muppet did.
donna
At popular demand, I uploaded some photos from the colonies zones dinner to a public photo sharing site on the web. So have fun commenting, but note that we all look happy. So do not disrupt this state of affairs! You will quickly realize that Dave "Chaos" Barra looks better without a flashlight stuck under his face.
flickr.com/.../
Thanks for the great advice Peter and Donna! Unfortunately, I don't get to practice starts very often. There's often an annoying cone there. But I'll try to be Mindful. And I can obviously always work on my breakouts on turns. What fun! The number of SDKs on the start seems to vary somewhat depending on how well I get off the wall and how deep.
Flattery will get you everywhere. ;) You guys all made my day with your kind posts!
Peter:
My team was sitting in the bleachers on deck near lane 8 right by the starting blocks, so they were in a good position to see the finish. Coach and others said close call, but I probably should have taken another stroke. I lunged and felt like there was nothing there and in my brain went "oh sh*t." But no matter. I will swim it again in ... in October. LOL. I watched it again. I think the biggest weakness was my breakouts. I looked like I was in a hurry to breathe. How can I fix that, Donna?
There are actually two reasons for your backstroke breakout to be as it is. The first is either over-excitement to surface, breathe, and start racing/swimming, and the second one is your hands/arms angle too much directly upward or skyward when you decide to surface, thus causing you to pop more straight up than forward. The way to avoid this is to work on how it feels to gradually angle upwards, not all of a sudden. And to make sure that your hands do not angle upwards for that will cause you to surface the same way. I think we all get used to some "digging" with our hands and arms while doing SDKs, but at the moment we want to surface, we must think about our hand/arm position and feel the feel when we get closer to the surface. When ready to surface, hands/arms angle somewhat upward but not too much. You can start this before the lane line turns red because it is a gradual upward movement. I was pretty good at this one because the only thing I swam for 30 years was backstroke. I might suggest that when you do kick sets with your monofin, slow it down so you have the breath control for longer underwater turns and practice this. It really comes about pretty quickly with "mindful" :eek: practice.
Gosh, like anything else, it is much practice, experimentation and "feel."
You are working your SDK's very hard, Leslie, of course you're anxious to breathe; it also is possible that your brain was sending panicky little messages that you might be too deep, surface please! (you weren't too deep).
I think that will be the hardest thing to work on further with the SDK's: extending your effective range so you break the water into a very assertive stroke pattern (also knowing for sure before a race how many SDK's you can normally take comfortably). In a way, it is like the breastroke breakout, you can bail too early and sacrifice easy distance and milk it too long and kill your momentum. You are well along the road already.
At popular demand, I uploaded some photos from the colonies zones dinner to a public photo sharing site on the web. So have fun commenting, but note that we all look happy. So do not disrupt this state of affairs! You will quickly realize that Dave "Chaos" Barra looks better without a flashlight stuck under his face.
flickr.com/.../
Thanks for the great advice Peter and Donna! Unforunately, I don't get to practice starts very often. There's often an annoying cone there. But I'll try to be Mindful. And I can obviously always work on my breakouts on turns. What fun!
Geat Photos Les! Thanks for posting them.
