Looking like a super hero in my borrowed tech suit.
No, that is not a Rice Crispy treat behind my back, why do you ask? ;)
My last post here was my entry times for State, and then I never followed up on that meet. The meet itself was April 9-11, and I swam on the 10th and 11th. Those dates mark one month after being hired for the job I'm now working, and my life was in a lot of upheaval back then. As such, even though I had a lot going on in my head about the meet, I never got to write it down.
I think possibly my favorite parts of the meet were the three relays I swam on. When some of us were talking about doing the meet, my friend Kristi said we should do a medley relay together. Courtney said she'd only want to do the free leg, and Kristi said she'd take fly, so, given what was left, I volunteered for back. Interestingly, a new girl - Sara - had joined our team just that day of practice, and she was planning to do the meet, so we got her to take the breaststroke leg.
I was horrified that I was going to ruin the relay with my terrible backstroking, but we started practicing the exchanges, and I learned how to do a backstroke start (and figured out if I wear a nose clip I can swim backstroke WAY faster, since I don't have to worry about getting water up my nose), and it turned out to be awesome! Our relay got DQ'd at the meet (Sara did her breaststroke pullout incorrectly), but none of us cared because it was SO FUN. I'm pretty sure I'd never gotten anywhere close to a :43 mid backstroke 50 before and I was over the MOON about it. It was a great first race of the meet for me.
The rest of that day I had 50 free (improved my time by just over 4 seconds since Loveland, -4.27), 100 IM (-1.67 seconds), my first individual 50 back in competition (three seconds slower than the relay, but I think I got 5th in my age group), and then another relay - 200 mixed freestyle. Which was tons of fun, again! Sara and I got to swim with a couple of our fast guys, and we had a great time with it. I swear, I will never, ever say no to being on a relay. Wee!
Sunday actually started with another relay, 200 mixed medley. This time they had me swim the anchor, and I was nervous as hell. But! My friend Leigh Ann loaned me one of her tech suits (an older Speedo) and I felt so amazing in it. I'm pretty sure I'm not a good enough swimmer to really notice a difference, but it made me feel awesome, like a super hero. The fabric is so thin, you sort of feel naked in it, except for the part where it's compressing your body and pulling on your shoulders. It fit so well that I was worried I was going to rip it during a flip turn or something, but it flexed and moved and I can't even describe how cool it felt in the water, how perfect my streamline seemed. And when I got out, it was like being hit by a cold breeze, the way it held water against my skin. It's too bad they're illegal now, because it was sort of intoxicating, wearing it. I'd love to get to do it again. I wonder if those new kneeskin suits that are legal feel anywhere near as sweet at that speed suit. Not that I have the $375 to get one, but at least it's cheaper than the full length ones.
Anyway, long story short, that 50 free felt like my fastest race EVER. The annoying thing is that, somehow, they didn't get my split. Nate (the butterflier on the relay) may not have touched the timing pad hard enough or something (even though there are lane judges who are supposed to record the splits with stop watches), but our splits got smooshed together as 1:01.28. The closest I can get to estimating my split is to take his individual 50 fly time (27.19) and subtract it from our combined split to get 34.09, which is one 1ooth slower than my split on the 200 mixed free from the night before. It felt SO much faster, though. I just wish I knew for sure what I went.
After that, 50 breast (-4.09), 100 free (-2.14), and 50 fly (-4.69 - which amazed me because, even though the DU pool felt really fast, I was so dead tired by the time I swam my 50 fly that I felt like an inchworm on the second 25, not hardly moving at all on each stroke). I was definitely ready for the meet to be over, though I totally would have swam the last 200 free relay, if they'd been able to get me on one. I finished the meet with a huge bruise on my right shin from climbing in and out of the warmup and competition pool, and I was truly sick of warming down from things, hehe. The pool at DU is awesome, though, and we had swanky timing pads and I felt like a legitimate competitive swimmer. I'm really happy with how I did, getting ribbons in every individual event I swam in except 50 fly, and dropping at least a second and a half off every event I did in Loveland.
Here are the final results:
200 Medley Relay (2:52.58 // my split 43.63)
50 Free (34.94)
100 IM (1:38.16 // splits 47.93 / 50.23)
50 Back (46.20)
200 Mixed Free Relay (2:04.74 // my split 34.08)
200 Mixed Medley Relay (2:26.47 // my split ~34.09)
50 Breast (48.31)
100 Free (1:16.38 // splits 37.75 / 38.63)
50 Fly (46.37)
I'm really excited for the meet my team hosts in October, The Pumpkin Plunge! I'm thinking of adding 100 back to my event list for this one, and maybe I'll lose my mind and signup for the 200 IM too. We'll see. ;)
There are a few other things I want to blog about here - the 2.4 mile open water event I did yesterday, plans for the future, discussions about being healthier - but I think I'll put those into their own entries.
