Did you meet your goals at nationals?

I have to say I had a great meet overall. Masters bests in all my events, however I did leave a couple goals unattained. That's the thing about this sport, no matter what you do there's always something you could have done better! On the positive side, my 1650 free was excellent and winning my first event at Nationals was exciting! My goal in the event was under 17:30. I went 17:16, so just a hair under a 1:03 pace per 100. I split the thing absolutely consistently. I think I negative split by about two seconds. My 400 IM was also good for me at 4:28. 2:06 in the 200 fly was good and I split it pretty well. 2:07 in the 200 IM was another masters best and seeing how it was my last event of the meet it was a keeper. I placed top ten in all these events. The downside were my 200 and 500 free. Both were bests by a very slim margin, but I really expected to be faster considering how I swam in the mile. My 200 free was a 1:50.13. My previous best was 1:50.18 from 2005. I looked at the splits between the two races and every single 50 was within 0.1 second! That kind of consistency is a little crazy. I really thought I could go about a 1:48. Same deal with the 500. After swimming a 5:00.8 three weeks ago I thought I'd be around 4:55, but instead I just missed going under the 5:00 barrier (again) with a 5:00.36. In fact, the final 50 in my 500 was slower than the final 50 in my 1650. If I just could have come home as well. Also, I finished third and the winner was 4:58 (Erik Hochstein decided to go for a 200 split otherwise he would have won easily), so I feel like I could have won my second event with a good swim. Oh well, lots of "could haves" in swimming. In retrospect I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew. I swam the maximum possible yardage at the meet and swam three relays. That was probably too much and I was hurting by the end of the meet. I might have to reconsider my event selection next time. Sorry for the long-winded post. I've got a lot on my mind after this meet!

I have to say I had a great meet overall. Masters bests in all my events, however I did leave a couple goals unattained. That's the thing about this sport, no matter what you do there's always something you could have done better! On the positive side, my 1650 free was excellent and winning my first event at Nationals was exciting! My goal in the event was under 17:30. I went 17:16, so just a hair under a 1:03 pace per 100. I split the thing absolutely consistently. I think I negative split by about two seconds. My 400 IM was also good for me at 4:28. 2:06 in the 200 fly was good and I split it pretty well. 2:07 in the 200 IM was another masters best and seeing how it was my last event of the meet it was a keeper. I placed top ten in all these events. The downside were my 200 and 500 free. Both were bests by a very slim margin, but I really expected to be faster considering how I swam in the mile. My 200 free was a 1:50.13. My previous best was 1:50.18 from 2005. I looked at the splits between the two races and every single 50 was within 0.1 second! That kind of consistency is a little crazy. I really thought I could go about a 1:48. Same deal with the 500. After swimming a 5:00.8 three weeks ago I thought I'd be around 4:55, but instead I just missed going under the 5:00 barrier (again) with a 5:00.36. In fact, the final 50 in my 500 was slower than the final 50 in my 1650. If I just could have come home as well. Also, I finished third and the winner was 4:58 (Erik Hochstein decided to go for a 200 split otherwise he would have won easily), so I feel like I could have won my second event with a good swim. Oh well, lots of "could haves" in swimming. In retrospect I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew. I swam the maximum possible yardage at the meet and swam three relays. That was probably too much and I was hurting by the end of the meet. I might have to reconsider my event selection next time. Sorry for the long-winded post. I've got a lot on my mind after this meet!