Flashes of Panic

Runners have a term, negative split, which means to cover the second half of a distance faster than the first half. (Unfortunately, it’s only easy to explain why it’s “negative” with calculus.) I wanted to negative split today’s race—swim the second 500 faster than the first. A careful negative split is a good way to race, because it allows you to finish fast; it’s also the best way to run the Boston Marathon, because it leaves you strong for the Newton hills. I reminded myself of that as I stretched and fidgeted behind the blocks waiting for the race. And I remembered my brother’s pacing advice, which was “comfortably fast.”

I got a good start and kept my goggles on. The first lap doesn’t count, because the block start gives you a pretty big advantage. I didn’t see the counter my brother was dipping in at his end of the pool; I think he kept it out for a few laps to let me settle. Or maybe I wasn’t looking up enough to see it; he was probably swinging it side to side, which is our code for “back off.” I was out pretty quickly, twelve seconds ahead of my intended pace at 200y, but I didn’t know that. I was in an end lane, so there was only one swimmer beside me, and I put half a length on him in that 200.

I settled pretty well, and felt quite good through halfway. I knew by the time I reached the 500y point that I was going to finish without blowing up completely, which was reassuring. I also knew it was time to get cracking. At 6:51, I was still nine seconds ahead of pace, but I’d dropped three seconds in the last three laps, and now the counter was dipping up and down, the code for “push harder.”

OK, no worries. I’m negative splitting. I started what I hoped would be a Culpepper-esque drive for the finish. Alan Culpepper, who won the Olympic Marathon Trials last February, has a way of building his pace up gradually from a long way out, so he’s at a flat-out sprint by the finish. There’s never a big move, just a continual raising of the stakes. That was how I started working: just push a little more, each lap.

That worked for about three laps. By the fourth it was clear that my lane neighbor was negative splitting much more effectively than I was. He was picking up ground on me again. I figured out afterward that he had a rival on his other side that he was trying to catch, but I wanted to hold him off. One or two laps later it was clear that I wasn’t going to manage that; I was turning faster, and actually gaining some ground on my turns, but he was just plain swimming faster, and my arms couldn’t pull all the water they could reach.

I kept pushing, though. At about 800y I realized how people could swim so hard they puked. (I didn’t; I just identified for a moment.) But just 200 to go, and I’ve done so many 200s.

I wound up with a good last 100, and finished in 13:49.18, beating my seed time by almost eleven seconds. I was, in fact, last in my age group, but with a surprise: I was 9th, not 7th, and quite close to 8th. I was seeded over a minute and a half behind, but some slower seeds had been slipped in since they printed the psych sheets. So I did both better and worse than I had expected. I was particularly pleased with my 6:51/6:58 halves; just a year ago, I swam 6:49 for a straight 500 at this meet. And even though I hadn’t managed the negative split, I’d definitely pushed much harder in the second half than I had in the first. It was a negative-split effort, even if the execution wasn’t perfect.

My brother and I, between us, scored 25 points for Maine Masters. He scored more than twice as many as I did, though: he won his (our) age group in his event.

I think I’d do it again.