Flashes of Panic

Proving once again that I am not the swimmer that I was a runner, I am only now beginning to iron out my competitive swimming season. I would never train this way, running, without a clear vision of the competition I’m training for, but even though I’ve known since November that I would swim the New England Masters SCY meet again, it didn’t occur to me until this weekend that they might have changed the order of events (it’s a four day meet across two weekends, Saturday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday, though I only swam the second Saturday last year.)

Sure enough, the men’s 500 free, which was my target race last year, is on Friday this year, which means I can’t swim it. (Can I just use abbreviations from here on? Ask if you’re confused. Thanks.) The 100 BR has also moved. I’ll still do the 100 BR, but my options on Saturday are severely limited, since I can’t swim fly and my backstroke, while functional, isn’t much fun. It looks like I may have to focus on the 200 BR, which is brutal enough to make my brother, who considers it reasonable to swim fly in the 100 FR, grumble under his breath. If I was willing to stay over to Sunday, I could also swim 200 FR, which might be interesting.

I’m toying with the idea of going in for “Distance Day,” the first Saturday, and swimming the 1000 FR. They swim that and the 1650 on an entirely different day because they’re so long (especially with several heats) and boring for those not swimming or counting laps. My brother specialized in these races in college, so he’s likely to race that day as well.

Also, I decided not to swim unattached this year; I’m registering with Maine Masters, so maybe I could swim one of the Saturday relays. They’re always scrounging the deck for relay legs.

I’m contemplating going over the Simon’s Rock Invitational on the first weekend of March. Maybe they’ll have a 500 FR; either way, maybe I can re-learn how to start from blocks, and get myself some seed times.

Now Playing: World War 24 from Love Is Hell by Ryan Adams