Are you implying that I owe him a beer because of his 200 ***? Obviously, you are unaware of my 200 *** embargo. Erik deserves all the beers. He had a great meet.
Plus, Erik and I are no longer in the same age group. I wish him all the best in all his events in 30-34 (except the sprint breaststrokes). ;)
I didn't see them in person, but swims of the meet had to be the battles between Roque Santos and Kirk Stackle. The 100 *** was probably epic. Wish Kirk had been able to do the 200.
I was referring to your Karnaugh gridge :D
Sure, they're Jazz Hands'. Very impressive. Obviously, doing speed work has some aerobic conditioning effect!
Check out the Jazz interview on floswimming!
At the end of the day... our young Jazzy anchored his relay in a 20.3 ish 50 free!
That was off my stopwatch which I had the gut feeling to pull out of my backpack at the last half of his team mate's leg.
Good thing since the team mate jumped and their relay was DQd.
Jazzy has speed.
I know a lot of swimmers this age cannot afford this. A lot of "pups" on our team borrowed B70s from older swimmers. Some of our 20-somethings just got married, are working on masters' degrees, etc. Lots of reasons for not purchasing. I shudder to think what some of them would have done WITH the suit, b/c they were REALLY fast without it.
I stand by my earlier, somewhat more lascivious, and evolutionarily derived theory about why pups at the peak of their fertility would not want to cloak themselves in neck to ankle swatches of black neoprene.
We'll just go with that then. :LOL:
I would also like to comment on my 200 fly, since it was mentioned.
That was the event on my entry form with the little 6 next to it. I haven't swum it in 10 years. I was told by everyone to just go easy. That I did, and it didn't hurt. I do think that I should have been DQd, b/c I think I went past 15m on the start (I only took 5 strokes on the first lap, I think). Whoops. It was close I'm sure!
I could't swim the 400IM, 200 br, or 100 bk on Friday as my daughter had a Mother's Day Tea in Kindergarten. I'd gladly lose my spots in the TT for that. We had a great time at the tea and then she came with me to the meet. I'm really lucky to have her. :angel:
Bill is an absolute animal...I've had the pleasure of knowing him for years. He trains just like he races...all or nothing with no fear what-so-ever of the "vertical" realm of this particular stroke/event!
Paul, you absolutely correct about Bill. In 1999 at the Long Course Nationals in Minneapolis which I believe was a year before you started back swimming in masters, Bill swam a :57.79 in the 100 Fly in the 40-44 age group and set a World Record. I am not sure what the old record was but it was even faster then the :58.03 that Mark Spitz did when he swam his comeback at age 41.
When he swam the 200 Fly, everyone that was watching knew he was going for the World Record and I believe his seed time was 2:08.00 and when he swam everyone watched with awe in how he was taking out this race.
He split :28.83 at the 50, :32.11 for the next 50 at 1:01.11 for the 100, and :33.76 for the next 50 at 1:34.87 for the 150. The announcer was going nuts and everyone in the stands and deck was witnessing this great swim. His closest competitor was Joe Rhyne, who was at 1:04.00 at the 100 and 1:38.50 at the 150. Nobody was really paying attention to him at that point. At the 150 turn, Bill was kind of slow coming out and you could see he was enduring a lot of pain. But we see this a lot with great flyers like Specht and they usually snap out of it in the last 50 or last 25 but not on this day. The announcer stopped talking about the world record and you could sense this was just pure survival and just get the win.
He started to go vertical with about 25 meters to go and you could see Joe Rhyne starting to catch him and he went by him with about 15 meters to go. He was fighting fatigue bad and it was like everyone watching could feel his pain. He could barely get his arms out of the water and there was nothing left at the kick. Rhyne's last 50 was a :34.16 for a final time of 2:12.66 and Bill's was a :40.01 for a time of 2:14.88 but watching the race and seeing him go vertical seemed like he did :44, so his lost by 2.22 seconds wasn't as bad as it seemed. When he got out of the pool and went to the warm down pool he looked completely exhausted.
The 100 back was the very next event and he was seeded first with some very tough and rested competition. He had Scott Shake and Fritz Lehman and they were both ahead of him at the 50 and with 25 meters to go but some how he found a way to sprint past them with 5 meters to go and win the event by a very slim margin. When he finished, he got a standing ovation from the crowd in the stands and on the deck not so much for this event but for how he recovered and didn't let that 200 Fly effect him is this race. I think everyone that saw those races learned something that day and even though he would not want to remember this race, I was impressed with how he handled this adversity.
I noticed that the one group not primarily wearing the most advanced suits were the young women(18-24&25-29).Almost all of them were in regular lycra suits.
I wonder what the evolutionary psychologists would have to say about this.
18-29 year old, highly fit women have a choice to
A) swim faster in body-obscuring neoprene burkas
or
B) swim slower in body-revealing spandex body huggers
Hmmm. It makes you wonder what they are really competing for at this stage of life...
Bill is an absolute animal...I've had the pleasure of knowing him for years. He trains just like he races...all or nothing with no fear what-so-ever of the "vertical" realm of this particular stroke/event!
Outside of my teammates at the time, Bill was one of the first masters swimmers I ever met, more than 20 years ago. He's a great guy and an awesome swimmer.
I watched several very exciting heats of the men's 500. The fastest heat of men 45-49 was a good race, with six men at 5:05 or under including our host Fresnoid. They all looked smooth and strong, but the guy who won was especially remarkable because he kept up a furious kick the entire way to finish in 4:46. Then the top heat of men 40-44 was outstanding, with three finishing under 4:43. The top 10 in 40-44 were all under 5:00.
Several forum regulars medaled in today's open water mile, too. The conditions were fabulous--almost too nice. Perfect temps in the water and out, and no chop or current, so you barely even had to sight. I was really glad I stayed for it, because I would so much rather swim a mile in a lake than in a 25Y pool!
That one guy was a full lap ahead of the rest of us. But check the splits to see who went from 5th to 3rd in the last 50.:D
I was watching! I tried to congratulate you in person, poolside, but people you already knew had your attention. So now: :cheerleader:
(I so do not look like that.)
