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.
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Thanks, Elaine! You did great as well! Don't worry about your 100 ***. A meet with that many events that goes that quickly is tough to do. You were a lot fresher for the 200 ***, as evidenced by the fact that your 100 split in the 2 *** on Saturday was faster than your 100 *** on Sunday. :) That's happened to me before a couple of times when the long distance free is the first event of the meet and the 400/500 is the last event of the meet. The physical and mental fatigue takes its toll.
Even though Saturday was a wash except for the 400 IM for me, Sunday was better (except for the 100 free). I swam the 500 free as a hard 2nd warmup, and ended up swimming my Auburn time. I think giving myself permission to relax my swim helped me to go faster than I expected to go. Which means that I've not been relaxing the 500 enough at the beginning. I think that if I had actually raced the 500 I would have gone maybe 5-6 seconds faster at most, and I wouldn't have had good races afterwards. Probably the main difference in my pacing if I had raced it would have been that I would have built the 2nd half of my race instead of just the last 50. But at what cost?
The 200 IM was about 15 minutes after I finished my 500. I ended up swimming only three seconds over my best (B70) time from St. Pat's last year, and 3 seconds better than my Auburn time from last month. I was hoping to see a drop since I've been training more IM for the 400. The 100 free was about 15 minutes after that, and that race wasn't great as I couldn't ever pick up my speed (and should have also taken it out faster, as I wasn't all that tired when I finished... but then again I am not a sprinter). 200 back was so much fun -- I LOVE that race but even more LCM... ended up going 1:17/1:18 for my 100 splits and the entire race felt great, and I had a personal best -- 2 seconds below my Auburn time. Given that I have been told that the 200 back is supposed to hurt (which it never has the half dozen times I've swum it -- except maybe the last 50), I would think I have more room to improve there as well.
I feel like I need to focus more on IM and backstroke rather than distance free right now. Like many of you, I'm sure, I tend to overthink races, splits, results. etc., and it really gets into my head. And since I have events that I am dropping time in and have the potential to drop more, that's what I need to be doing to keep my sanity. And this is masters, after all. It's supposed to be fun, right? :)
Thanks, Elaine! You did great as well! Don't worry about your 100 ***. A meet with that many events that goes that quickly is tough to do. You were a lot fresher for the 200 ***, as evidenced by the fact that your 100 split in the 2 *** on Saturday was faster than your 100 *** on Sunday. :) That's happened to me before a couple of times when the long distance free is the first event of the meet and the 400/500 is the last event of the meet. The physical and mental fatigue takes its toll.
Even though Saturday was a wash except for the 400 IM for me, Sunday was better (except for the 100 free). I swam the 500 free as a hard 2nd warmup, and ended up swimming my Auburn time. I think giving myself permission to relax my swim helped me to go faster than I expected to go. Which means that I've not been relaxing the 500 enough at the beginning. I think that if I had actually raced the 500 I would have gone maybe 5-6 seconds faster at most, and I wouldn't have had good races afterwards. Probably the main difference in my pacing if I had raced it would have been that I would have built the 2nd half of my race instead of just the last 50. But at what cost?
The 200 IM was about 15 minutes after I finished my 500. I ended up swimming only three seconds over my best (B70) time from St. Pat's last year, and 3 seconds better than my Auburn time from last month. I was hoping to see a drop since I've been training more IM for the 400. The 100 free was about 15 minutes after that, and that race wasn't great as I couldn't ever pick up my speed (and should have also taken it out faster, as I wasn't all that tired when I finished... but then again I am not a sprinter). 200 back was so much fun -- I LOVE that race but even more LCM... ended up going 1:17/1:18 for my 100 splits and the entire race felt great, and I had a personal best -- 2 seconds below my Auburn time. Given that I have been told that the 200 back is supposed to hurt (which it never has the half dozen times I've swum it -- except maybe the last 50), I would think I have more room to improve there as well.
I feel like I need to focus more on IM and backstroke rather than distance free right now. Like many of you, I'm sure, I tend to overthink races, splits, results. etc., and it really gets into my head. And since I have events that I am dropping time in and have the potential to drop more, that's what I need to be doing to keep my sanity. And this is masters, after all. It's supposed to be fun, right? :)
