Hey you all, so I know I haven't really posted anything on the blog in a while but I figured I would write a little bit about how my last meet went. It was my last time tapering and I remember last year I decided I wouldn't get a LAZR because I would wait until this year to get it. Well, the suits ended up getting banned and our team is broke so they didn't help us out as much to pay for the suits. Because of this I decided not to spend 40-90 dollars on a new suit and just used my aquablade from last year. I used the analogy that the color of a car is not what makes it go fast but the engine and most importantly the driver that makes rip down the racetrack when I made my decision on the suit.
This years taper also felt a little different since I swam one new event and also because I'm starting to become an old man and everything seems to always be sore, but I was able to get through it. I also had to prepare for this taper meet a little differently since it was a championship style meet as opposed to the Olaf dual meet that I've tapered for in the past. This would be the toughest meet I've swam at since I was in seven events. I knew I would have to focus on flushing out and warming up before and after every event, which are my two least favorite things about swimming. Even with this strategy I was still nervous for the meet. I was worried I would end up dying out in my last few events. I decided to focus on one race at a time and if died out, I would just go as strong as I could and hold on for the ride. I also got some inspiration from a Brian Dawkins video Pete sent out to the team a few weeks back. This helped me get pumped although I only usually did some of his rituals in my head to save myself some embarrassment. My meet ended up like this:
200 Free Relay: .25mid
50 Free .25.8 (season best, even after I slipped off the blocks)
400 Med Relay: 100 fly, 1.03 (previous season best 1.13, previous lifetime best 1.08)
200 Med Relay: 50 Breast, .31 (previous best was .33, but I'm not sure if I should count this especially since both me and Schlaef jumped early on our relay exchanges. The ref said we got DQ too but our results got posted as a normal relay)
100 Breast: 1.09 (previous season and lifetime best 1.13.5)
100 Free: 55.3 (previous season best 59.09, and lifetime best was 55.8)
400 Free relay: 54.9 (I just wanted to go sub .55 and I just got it)
I was very surprised with all my times. I knew I would swim fast, but I wasn't sure if I would still be able to go as fast as I've gone in the past especially since it didn't feel like I was going very fast when I swam them at the meet.
When I finished my last 100 Free I got out of the pool and realized I was done forever, so I said screw it and didn't cool down. It was definitely bittersweet though I will miss competing as I'm sure most of you do now. I have also accepted the fact that I will probably get fat by the end of this year since I will have no motivation to stay in shape now. If anything I'll try to keep lifting and maybe I'll be able to bench as much as Elliot and Jared did last year. The last time I benched I think I did 185 for 6 reps so look out Elliot. Well I should get back to work since I didn't do any work yesterday because I didn't get out of bed until 5:30pm only because Mark came and woke me up too. I will try to post more often on the blog.
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