Flashes of Panic

The results from the swimming leg of this weekend’s competitions are posted. I actually managed to score more points for the team as an individual (18) than on relay teams (56/4=14) but a 32-point total is higher than I usually manage, and that’s all from the relays. The high point list shows that the four of us from the relays were 8th, 9th, 73rd and 132nd in point scoring; with 250 men on that list, I’m slightly behind halfway on the list. Together, we scored 340 points (plus a few more from the other three in a third relay) out of 1410 scored by our team. That only got us fourth; we beat Connecticut, but couldn’t take down two New York teams.

The 50m splits from my 400m swim are illuminating; if you ignore the first one (which includes a block start and is therefore artificially fast) there’s a little bell curve in there. I was telling Joe on Sunday evening that a 400m swim is not unlike a mile run, and my 100m (two-lap) splits show it; when I run a mile, the first lap is pretty quick, the second and third progressively slower, and I pick up for the fourth. The 200m looks pretty much the same, but on four laps instead of eight; I pretty much blew my chances of hitting my seed time in the third of four laps. Clearly, I need some endurance before I try to do multiple races in one day again.

Our club records for the 100-119 age group are 400m free relay, 4:35.65, and 200m free relay, 2:00.70. Unimpressive as those times may be, they’re probably not going anywhere until Zach can recruit some more fast young guys; we totaled 116 this year, so next year we’ll be too old.