Noosa Challengers LC Swim Meet 2013

A great meet at Noosa today. Sunny and pretty warm! A good contrast to the cold wind and rain of late.
Very happy with how I swam – swam very well during the start of the day, and consistently for the last few races of the day.

In short set 2 new personal bests – in the 100m freestyle by a small margin, and the 50m Butterfly by a very large margin. Finished first in all my events except the 100 free and had a great time.

100m Freestyle
Felt really good and finished 1:06.58 – breaking my old personal best of 1:06.74. Taken since Pan Pacs last year to break that so was a great start to the day.

50m Butterfly
A race I didn’t really need to be so worried about. I did slow down slightly in the last 10m but no dying moth!. I finished 34.83 breaking my old dying moth PB of 41.67. Butterfly feels so good when you are doing it right and keeping the momentum up. Looking forward to continuing to work on it before worlds next year!

200m Freestyle, 50m Freestyle, 100m Breaststroke towards the end of the day all went well, swam very close to my PB times. Probably my last individual breaststroke event for awhile, and my 200 back next week will be my last event in that for awhile too. Going to focus primarily on swimming distances and events i’d like to swim at worlds next year. Was blown away by the improvement in butterfly. So lots more freestyle and butterfly in my future. And I will be nominating for the 100 fly at the caboolture meet in June

Was great to see so many people again from other clubs and a lovely day in the sun with my teammates <3

Albany Creek Ducks Short Course Meet

A great meet at Albany Creek today. A great contrast to last year where it was raining, windy and freezing.
A beautiful sunny day. I finally got the better of Heather McDonalds shenanigans – I offered her a hug in the water so that she would let go of the block. Perfect. Once in the ‘hug position’ I dropped in the water and took her with me haha.

The only thing I would have changed in the lead up to today was to get more than 6 hours sleep last night. But even still have done very well today!

Came first in age group as well.

25m Butterfly – 14.89
Was very happy with the 25 fly. Only one breath and wasn’t absolutely stuffed when I hit the wall – a good indication I might do better today in the 50 fly than I was expecting. Set a new PB from 15.71 set at states this year down from the 17.77 I did in 2012. Technique greatly improved thanks to coaches help this year.

50m Backstroke – 41.94
Around where it would normally be. start and turn and technique felt good – stroke count isnt as fast as I would like. Something to work on to get it under 40 secs.

50m Butterfly – 35.76
A race I’ve been stressing out about all week. First time I’ve swum the 50 fly with no dying month. Slipped on the block on the start (so slippery!) so that did hinder me a little bit. After that though was very happy about 10m to go started breathing almost every stroke but didn’t feel like I was dying so very pleased. Will keep giving it a go at meets in the future! Was a PB down from 39.66.

Video — http://youtu.be/GRRDxtpwxYE

(I’m in Lane 6 – 3rd lane from the far side – white cap)

50m Freestyle – 30.80
Was starting to feel very tired at this point. At little disappointed by not being below 30. Some extra sleep may have helped here.

100m Freestyle – 1:07.82
Again feeling very fatigued – was hoping for a mid 1:05. However was told my 50m split time was a high 27 seconds – best I have ever done for 50m, I need to do 28.20 Long Course for Montreal Worlds next year. Now feeling more confident about it!!

4x50m Mens Freestyle Relay – Split 29.92
Relay was a lot of fun – and was glad to see my split was better than my individual 50 event. Was very pleased to shower and change afterwards – zonked.

Noosa 3.8km OWS

It was a beautiful day for an OWS with so many of my swimming friends – from Noosa & Aqualicious.

The swim out was very chaotic with a mass wave start. When we reached the first turning buoy around 5 people swimming on top of me trying to pull me under water. Once we got past that and started spreading out it was much more calmer.
The swim out and around to tea tree bay before the U-Turn started was quite tough – maybe something to do with the tides.
The swim back was a dream after we finally did manage to turn around. The turn on the map was essentially a short U-turn. However when we turned to swim out to sea (should have been for 50m) we kept swimming further and further out. Every time I put my head up to sight the buoy for our turn back where we came it never seemed to show up. I think we swam about 500m+ before we finally did turn.

One person recorded 5.1km on GPS and 2 recorded 4.5. Someone told me this morning at training that one of the buoys broke loose. We suspect it was that turning buoy. 4.5km sounds more like how it felt.

Had a great finish with a good strong kick. Finished in 1hr 15min 54sec placing around half way through the event. Where I would expect and was very pleased. It was a fabulous backdrop to swim in, flat as and could see right to the bottom for the whole swim.

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Masters Swimming Australia National Champs – Day 4

Competition has all finished!

Today had 400 free, 100 free and 50 breast + 50 breast in a medley relay.
After the 400 free hit a wall energy wise probably the weight of that event and the previous 6 events.
Finishing well in the 100 free used up what was left of my energy and swam OK in the 2 breaststroke events.
Very pleased with how things have finished up at SOPAC. Just a fantastic meet.

400m Freestyle –

Was great to swim with my main competition. One in the heat before me in the same lane, and one next to me. One of my first ever side by side races. I lead from the start, only by around 5 metres. But by the 250m mark his energy must have died as by the 300m turn he was a good 20m back. Hit the wall so hard in the finish i’ve bruised the muscles in the palm on my hand haha. A great result – the old PB was 5:45 so took a lot off that! My splits vs the 800 were very similar but went faster on the 350 and 400 splits. It was an amazing feeling to see my time on the board from the water knowing i’d won the gold medal.

100m Freestyle – I swam 1:06.83 a very strong time for me, second time ever long course below 1:07. It felt like a very hard race and I couldn’t give any more so was very pleased with my time – after which the feeling of utter exhaustion had fully set in.

50m Breaststroke – I swam 42.17 – A strong time for me not too far off my PB and it felt like an absolute struggle every metre, as did the relay afterwards – my split in the relay was 41.78 – which is my fastest time recorded i’ve swum 50m Breaststroke LC so that is a fantastic result.

So to sum up the whole meet. 2 gold medals, 4 PBs (200, 400 and 800 free & the 200 breast), some very strong times in my remaining events – and had an absolute ball.

Masters Swimming Australia National Champs 2013 – Day 3

Another great day at the pool!

Arrived much later today – just before 12 – which worked out much better. I got a nice comfortable warm up and then over to marshalling for the 50m freestyle. Didn’t have to sit around for hours and hours waiting to swim!

I ended up swimming 29.75 – a really strong time for me. Consistently below 30secs now. Didn’t take the first breath until 18 strokes, then 5, 5, Wall. I was hoping for a little less than 29.75 but was only .13 off my PB so can’t be unhappy with that!

Then a bit of a rest and another warm up before the 200m breaststroke – about a 1.5-2hr gap from the 50m free race.
I was nervous and dreading it behind the blocks after feeling so awful pushing in my 100 breast yesterday.
It was a strange race for me. It felt strong the whole way, and the final 40m which im usually hurting the most felt the best part of the race. Nice long strokes with plenty of glide. I touched the wall in 3:25.38 – a PB by just shy of 6 secs down from 3:31.37. Was really happy with that. I lead for the entire heat as well so it was good for the spectators from my team.

A selfie with Tracy below from Bundaberg – yesterdays cap swapper!

4 events tomorrow – 400 free, 100 free, 50 breast and 50 breast again in a 4×50 medley relay.
Strong gold medal chance in the 400 free so bring it on – time to wipe the smiles off a few faces from todays races.

Masters Swimming Australia National Champs 2013 – Day 2

Another great day at the pool today – arriving just before 11am to catch the opening ceremony component of the meet and first things first collected yesterdays gold medal for the 800 free

Sat around for a looooong time waiting for the 200m freestyle which I swam around 3:45pm.
Got to watch more diving – Mr mitcham was back this time doing boards and some platform (3m/5m) dives.

Was very pleased with the 200m Freestyle. I split 1:09.65 and 2:29.65
A massive PB for me – my last one I set at the Pan Pacs in November of 2:35.31
Was very pleased with this.

Then mooooore sitting around to swim the 100m Breaststroke which I swam around 5pm.
Felt awful but strong swam a strong time for me of 1:33.54.

Get to go a bit later tomorrow so less sitting around waiting to swim.
The 50m Freestyle and 200m Breaststroke tomorrow + a relay.

Lovely to catch up with QLD swimmers from outside Brisbane. Tracy from Bundaberg was thrilled by our cap swapping activity. A great meet so far!

Masters Swimming Australia National Champs 2013 – Day 1

A great day today at the National champs in Sydney.

Caught the train from Damiens in Woodcroft/Doonside to Olympic Park which was reasonably easy.
Consulting a map would have saved me walking 3km around ANZ Stadium before finding out all I had to do was turn left out of the train station and arrive at the aquatic centre 200m later. Oh well!

Registered and participated in the 11:30am warm up. What an awesome pool.
Swam 3×400 free as build and finished with a couple of dive starts.
Then sat around on watched and chatted with fellow Noosa swimmers until I swam my 800m free around 5pm.

Watched 2 of the other swimmers in my category swim their races so I had an idea of the time I needed to beat to finish ahead of them, the fastest seeded was way ahead of my time so he swam after me.

Went out hard and felt very strong and fast turn after turn after turn. Managed to speed up a bit in the final 50m and had a great finish. Was very pleased to finish 11:23.84. I hadn’t swum 800m in long course before but did swim it in short course in August last year doing 11:29.62 – this was a great time.

I changed and watched the final swimmer in my division swim his 800. Was very stunned he swam way slower than the nominated time and I won! A gold medal is not a bad start to the championships at all!