2009 Charlotte Ultra Swim

Watching it again, I think he has to be encouraged. 1) Middle of training 2) after a 6 month training break 3) not suited up 4) switching technique several times MID-RACE 5) not shaved and he went 49.04 For the sake of reference, he went 23.31/24.2 for a 47.51 in the relay in China, breathing every stroke using his "loping" style. Tonight he went 23.82/25.22 for 49.04 Obviously it is tough to tell if he is getting faster since he is just 3 months into this after a huge layoff, but it is clear from those splits he still has his endurance (although not quite where it was in China). He had the fastest 2nd 50 by .17 over fred, .56 over Berens and a second+ faster than most of the others. From my point of view, he has to find some way to get that opening 50 right at or just under 23.0 because..... Bousquet was 22.33/24.8 when he went 47.10 Bernard was 22.35/24.59 when he went 46.94 Sullivan was 22.48/24.76 when he went 47.24 Sullivan was 22.44/24.61 when he went 47.05 So just needs to get out faster, maybe a target split for him would be 23.0/23.9 or 22.9/23.9.... But he has to have more speed going out or he has no chance, no matter what style of stroke he's using.

Phelps' 100 free looked terrible going back and forth between recovery styles. Having said that, he managed to come in second. Yeah, it's like he was trying to be a "real sprinter" by emulating a popular sprint style even though he wasn't comfortable with it.

www.universalsports.com/.../media.dbml day 2, cant find day 1 =[

100 fly 53 Mike Ross 41 Bluefish Swim-NE 56.62 59.04 26.82 59.04 (32.22) 100 bk 45 Mike Ross 41 Bluefish Swim-NE 1:00.29 1:00.88 29.05 1:00.88 (31.83)

It was really cool to see a 30 year old in the final heat of the 800, Ricardo Monasterio. Last year, he was ranking 17th in the 800 LCM and 65th in the 1500 LCM according to the SWIMS Database. It just goes to show you that 30 somethings can be competitive in the distance events.