Thursday, November 20, 2014

Race Report

Thought I would give a little race report on how the swim meet went this past weekend.  My sister and I headed down Friday after she was done work.  Saturday we did a bit of shopping and I got a few Christmas gifts.  Finished the day off with a trip up the CN tower in the evening. 
I didn't know really what to expect being my first master swim meet.  I went in with more of a few personal goals of times I'd like to hit being a couple weeks out from my race and based on times I've been swimming the past couple of years.  It's hard not being a sprinter as the longest race offered was a 400 and I could never sprint to save my life.  I usually would only swim the 200fly but I chose to do the 50fly as my first event just to get something in before my other races.  I was seeded in lane 1 so not ideal for being able to see where everyone else is but I'll take what I get.  First time starting in a while and it showed as I was pretty late getting off the blocks but made up ground on everyone but one guy and finished second in 29.3  I'm in lane 1 on the far side of the pool in the video.

The 400fr was up next and this one being the longest was the one I was most interested in seeing how I would do.  There was a couple of guys seeded only a couple seconds behind me so figured they would push me pretty good.  I wanted to be under 4:30 as I hadn't been in a couple of years.  I took it out pretty hard to try and put some distance between me and the two other guys but hoping they would stay with me enough to keep pushing me.  I put a good 10-15m gap between them by 200m and that's the way it pretty much stayed the rest of the race.  I wish they had stayed a bit closer as I feel like I let up a bit at the end but still finished in 4:24 so was satisfied with that.  This is the last 75m's or so of my 200


After a 2 hour break 200fr was last and by this point I was shivering as the pool deck was so cold.  I over heard some people saying they were having a hard time controlling the heat either it was way too hot or too cold and that day it was too cold.  People in the stands were wearing their winter coats.  Going into the meet I had said anything under 2:08 I would be alright with but after my 400 I set the bar a little higher.  Thought I could maybe hit 2:04 but ended up with 2:05 but still alright with that.  Overall it was good to be back in the pool racing and having fun again. 

I leave in two weeks today for Palm Springs for my 70.3 and I feel like it's coming pretty quick.  Only about another week and a half of hard workouts before a bit of a taper leading into the race on Dec 6th.  I did a bit of speed work on the treadmill in my new race shoes on Tuesday 5x2min at 11.0 and it actually felt pretty easy.  I feel like I have the speed right now for a good Olympic distance race so just hoping the endurance is there for the 70.3. 
New race suit came in yesterday.  Thanks Olivier for setting me up with this beautiful suit.  I wanted some light colors to help with the heat in the desert and these are some of the fastest suits in the world.


   

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