The Backstroke Lane

Backstrokers unite. We know every detail of the ceilings where we train unless it's the sky which is ever changing. We SDK every day. It's breath taking. We go forwards in reverse. We get to flip over on turns. We gotta stay on our back. We swim back. We kick back. Aaron's the man YouTube- Aaron Peirsol gets title and new record, from Universal Sports YouTube- Aaron Peirsol Late Night Appearance/Interview (8.28.08) What did you do in practice today? the breastroke lane The Middle Distance Lane The Backstroke Lane The Butterfly Lane The SDK Lane The Taper Lane The Distance Lane The IM Lane The Sprint Free Lane The Pool Deck
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  • Sorry, Elaine, I can't comment on your backstroke videos. Can't see them here at work. Your comment to the thread reminded me that I have a question about backstroke starts. I swam in a local meet a week ago, 100fr, 100bk, 50fr, 50bk, in that order. I swam a SCM meet back in October, and just down-converted my times to SCY to get seed times for this meet. I've been pleased at the (apparent) progress I've been making with backstroke in practice, and thought this meet would be a good test to see if I could capture that in a race setting. My first three swims were in lane 5, the last in lane 4. (This is significant.) I hopped in for the 100bk got set, and .... EPIC FAIL .... the pad felt like it had oil on it. I slipped badly and basically had to start from a dead stop. Needless to say, I didn't beat my seed time in the 100. The time came for the 50bk and I was seriously considering just pushing off from the wall. When I hopped in though and brought my feet up, the pad in this lane (4) felt much stickier, so I did a normal backstroke start, had no trouble, and did, in fact, beat my seed time. Here's the question: Should I have said something to the meet officials about the pad in lane 5? I'm not a very experienced meet swimmer. I had no idea if the pad in lane 4 would have been as slippery as the one in lane 5 until I got in for the 50, so I figured initially that was the way it was supposed to be and I was just a doofus for not being able to get off to a clean start. (I had no problems with the pads in the SCM meet - a different pool). What's the proper protocol here? Skip
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  • Sorry, Elaine, I can't comment on your backstroke videos. Can't see them here at work. Your comment to the thread reminded me that I have a question about backstroke starts. I swam in a local meet a week ago, 100fr, 100bk, 50fr, 50bk, in that order. I swam a SCM meet back in October, and just down-converted my times to SCY to get seed times for this meet. I've been pleased at the (apparent) progress I've been making with backstroke in practice, and thought this meet would be a good test to see if I could capture that in a race setting. My first three swims were in lane 5, the last in lane 4. (This is significant.) I hopped in for the 100bk got set, and .... EPIC FAIL .... the pad felt like it had oil on it. I slipped badly and basically had to start from a dead stop. Needless to say, I didn't beat my seed time in the 100. The time came for the 50bk and I was seriously considering just pushing off from the wall. When I hopped in though and brought my feet up, the pad in this lane (4) felt much stickier, so I did a normal backstroke start, had no trouble, and did, in fact, beat my seed time. Here's the question: Should I have said something to the meet officials about the pad in lane 5? I'm not a very experienced meet swimmer. I had no idea if the pad in lane 4 would have been as slippery as the one in lane 5 until I got in for the 50, so I figured initially that was the way it was supposed to be and I was just a doofus for not being able to get off to a clean start. (I had no problems with the pads in the SCM meet - a different pool). What's the proper protocol here? Skip
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