I'm not a new masters swimmer nor am I new to meets, but am new to the 400 IM. Truthfully, I'm a little concerned about my ability to make it through the event legally (well, I'm really mainly afraid of the 4th 25). I'm scheduled to swim the 400 IM at a meet this weekend (Saturday). There are twenty people entered, it's a 10 lane pool, and as luck would have it I'm seeded 11th. If only one person above me scratches, I'll be in a heat where the fastest person is seeded 1:40 faster than I am, and the slowest person (besides me) is still seeded 40 seconds faster than I am. My seed time is MUCH closer to the people seeded right behind me, and I think I seeded myself as accurately as I could.
So... I am extremely anxious about swimming in this heat, as I was already anxious about swimming the 400 IM. Do I scratch to save myself the humiliation and to save some energy for Sunday's events? Or do I get lapped at least twice by the leaders, once by the next slowest person, and tick everyone off for holding up the meet? I'm already swimming the 1000 earlier in the session, and the 400 IM will be my 4th event of the day. I really have mixed feelings about this.
I was in the same situation as you the first time I ever swam a 400 IM--fastest heat, way slowest swimmer. I knew I should just be racing the clock, like everyone is telling you, but I was self-conscious about finishing last, plus I never really like seeing everyone going by me in a race. One thing that helped is that I decided that I wanted to swim just one split--breaststroke in my case, but you could pick anything late in the race--faster than someone else in my heat. That helped me swim slow enough in the fly that the rest of the race was manageable, and even fun. So yeah, I got lapped by most of the field, but I finished, and swam a smart race instead of trying to race faster folks from the get-go. And I was really proud when I looked at the splits and saw that I had indeed out-breaststroked the guy next to me who had nearly lapped me on the fly.
Just a thought--you seem to have lots of good advice on swimming the race, and I'm sure you'll have a blast at the meet, and swim an incredible IM!
I was in the same situation as you the first time I ever swam a 400 IM--fastest heat, way slowest swimmer. I knew I should just be racing the clock, like everyone is telling you, but I was self-conscious about finishing last, plus I never really like seeing everyone going by me in a race. One thing that helped is that I decided that I wanted to swim just one split--breaststroke in my case, but you could pick anything late in the race--faster than someone else in my heat. That helped me swim slow enough in the fly that the rest of the race was manageable, and even fun. So yeah, I got lapped by most of the field, but I finished, and swam a smart race instead of trying to race faster folks from the get-go. And I was really proud when I looked at the splits and saw that I had indeed out-breaststroked the guy next to me who had nearly lapped me on the fly.
Just a thought--you seem to have lots of good advice on swimming the race, and I'm sure you'll have a blast at the meet, and swim an incredible IM!
