A Swimming Weekend

I had a full weekend of swimming fun! The photo above is from Saturday's swim meet at Heritage High School. I was on the blocks for the 200 freestyle, next to my buddy Eduardo -- who I can compete with in the longer events, but totally waxes me in anything under 500.

That was kindof a fun race, though. My friend Rich Abrahams was was also in the race, and though he holds world records in the 50 and 100 distances, he and I have had some pretty good grudge matches in the 200. I was in lane 1 and Rich was in lane 5. We chatted before the race, and he said he was bummed that he wasn't next to me so we could push each other the last 50. I was actually relieved, because I wasn't planning to work it that hard, and didn't want to be tempted to go out too fast to try to stay close to him.

I did look over at about 75 yards and saw that he was several body-lengths ahead of me. "Fine," I thought, "he's completely out of reach, so I can just cruise it without any thoughts of having to strain myself." I stopped paying any attention to anyone else in the heat and just tried to keep my stroke long and relaxed. I wanted to swim the race fairly evenly, so I picked up the level of effort on the third 50 and then tried to sprint the best I could on the last lap.

I ended up negative splitting it, and somehow managed to pass by Rich without even knowing it. The time was about what I did at the State meet last year, and it felt WAY better, so I'm taking that as a good sign.



Everyone on our team swam well, and because there weren't a lot of swimmers in attendance, the meet moved quickly. In fact, there was only one heat of 100 freestyle between my 100 free race and my 200 butterfly. I was still huffing and puffing from the sprint when I dragged myself onto the blocks for the fly. It's a good thing it's legal to hang onto the walls on each turn.

Here are some more photos from the meet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent the rest of Saturday just puttering around and watching TV -- resting up for the 100 x 100s workout on Sunday morning.

We had a great turnout and an excellent effort. I don't have a final count of how many people finished all 100 of the hundreds, but a pretty good-sized group of animals cranked right through them. I know that it was the first time for several of the swimmers, and they deserve hearty congratulations for their notable achievement.

I was lucky enough to be in a lane with four other swimmers (Mike, Jeff, Jim, and Linda)...so I got to draft for the majority of the swimming. We kept up a decent pace throughout, and didn't take too many long breaks. It went by quickly, and was fun throughout. Thanks for sharing the lane, folks!

Several of us also went to lunch afterwards, and I thoroughly enjoyed that company, as well. It's good to have such inspirational and entertaining friends.

 



So, that was my weekend. In the next few posts, I'll be discussing Tanner's new album, my hideously expensive car repair, and the efforts I'm taking to get my running training back on track. It's also a busy time at the office, so you can probably expect to hear some whining about how hard I have to work, as well. Stay tuned for all of that, but in the meantime, have a great day!