2008 USMS Long Course National Championships

Except for the heat it was a great meet.There was a scare when Phil Whitten collapsed at the wall at the end of the 100 BK and didn't seem to be breathing.Fortunately he was revived and last I heard seemed OK. Unfortunately the last event didn't end well for me.My 200 MR appeared to have broken the WR.I was on top of the world for about 30 min.until I went to pick up my medal and found we had been DQd.Major bummer(I'll get over it in a year or two.)Our flyer lost his goggles,miss timed his finish and our free gut left early,Oh Well:doh::doh::censor::censor:.

By the way,the big winner was Kastaway Swimwear.The were selling Blue 70s and almost everyone bought one it seemed.

One new thing I tried at Nationals was to vary my breathing pattern in the 400 to help with pacing. I startied with a low level of perceived effort and less frequent breathing, and finished all-out breathing every 2 strokes, and my splits were fairly even except the first 50. My breathing pattern by 100 was every 4, every 3, alternating 3-2, and finally every 2. Here are my splits www.usms.org/.../swim.php Leg Cumulative Subtractive 1 36.67 36.67 2 1:16.40 39.73 3 1:57.38 40.98 4 2:38.24 40.86 5 3:18.09 39.85 6 3:58.40 40.31 7 4:39.21 40.81 8 5:18.46 39.25

Rick Colella swam a 5:14.01 in the 400 free. The thing is he swam it IM. The national and world record in the 55-59 age group is a 5:17 by Jim McConica. I'm assuming Colella's swim won't count as the world record because it was technically a 400 free, is that right? He also set world records in the 200 *** and 200 IM.

Unfortunately the last event didn't end well for me.My 200 MR appeared to have broken the WR.I was on top of the world for about 30 min.until I went to pick up my medal and found we had been DQd.Major bummer(I'll get over it in a year or two.)Our flyer lost his goggles,miss timed his finish and our free gut left early,Oh Well:doh::doh::censor::censor:. That sucks!

That is insanity ... IF my understanding is right than the WR counts for the 4 free but wouldn't for the 4 IM.

I just figured out what you were saying. It would not count as a WR for the IM because he did it during the freestyle.

What the heck is Team Hot Tub? Or do you have to be a member to know? :) Kirk, I had the same reaction when I found out the group around me were all THT members. I didn't notice what secret handshake :cool: they used to recognize each other. (I was given the same explanation that SwimStud gave.)

I just figured out what you were saying. It would not count as a WR for the IM because he did it during the freestyle. Yes, exactly. I suspect he couldn't make it down until Saturday and that's why he did it. I saw him in the warmup pool before the swim and he said he left Seattle at 4:00 a.m. to drive to Portland. David Margrave brought up an interesting point about swimming an IM during a freestyle race, though. The rules specifically state "Some part of the swimmer must break the surface of the water throughout the race." In other words, a legal breaststroke is not necessarily legal in a freestyle race because your head can completely submerge in ***!

I saw someone wearing a Team Hot Tub t-shirt (Jim Matysek I believe). What the heck is Team Hot Tub? Or do you have to be a member to know? :) A subvert group of USMS folks (and others) on Facebook...I really don't know what idiot came up with it... www.facebook.com/group.php