Dec 2022 Swim Meet

On Dec 10 2022 I participated in my second swim meet of this year and also my second swim meet as an adult. It was the same day in which I did the Bigfoot Endurance Trail run and rolled my ankle during the run. It wasn’t causing me any issues during my swim or walking to the blocks. But it does mean I wasn’t at full strength for the meet.

When I got there, I met up with the folks from my team, of which there were a lot fewer than last time, and did a 300y warmup. Overall, I felt fine. My foot was a little annoyed with the wiggling in the water, but didn’t seem to give me any issues when pushing off the wall. I decided not to practice jumping off the blocks to keep pressure on my ankle to a minimum. Because I was actually affiliated with a team this time, I was able to participate in the relays and I anchored both the IM relay and the 200y free relay.

My first event this time around was the 100y free. Interestingly, I just about tied with my time from last time. The consistency was pretty amusing because it’s pretty hard to get the same time, down to the second, more than once in a row.

Next up for me was the 200y IM relay. I was really hoping we’d have enough folks to do one as that was my favorite part of competing in high school. Just as in many of our high school competitions, I was able to push our team up at least one place as I passed the person next to me.

Watching the other swimmers

I wanted to do a full meet (in other words 3 events) so I signed up for the 50y backstroke. I’m not a huge fan of backstroke, but I felt confident I could do it in a faster time than 50y breaststroke (where I might finish way after everyone else). I didn’t want to accidentally get disqualified, so I did a backstroke flip-turn (even though I’m not that good at them). I was pretty happy with my time of 40.35 seconds.

For my final, single event I swam the 200y freestyle again. Last time I came off the block a little too hard for my 200y and wanted to die. So this time I tried to do a slower, but more efficient stroke. I felt I was able to keep a nice, even pace. I finished a little slower than last time 2:32 vs 2:28), but I think I set a nice baseline for a race pace 200y that didn’t have me wiping out too early. I think next time in the weeks before the race I might practice my pacing and see if I can get myself to memorize a good pace for the 200y. (Since, unlike a running race, I can’t check the pace on my watch)

The meet ended with the 200y free relay. That was an awesome race. Even though we’d all swam different events, we gave it our all. Our first swimmer got us off to a good start by coming in first place for her 50y. Once again, I was able to pass at least one person as I went for the wall during my 50y. We ended up winning 2nd place in our heat.

This meet, at the Severna Park Community center, was extremely well run. It started on time and cycled through the events very efficiently. The original sign up for the race said it would end at 6p. When we got the pre-meet email, they thought it might end at 5:30p. It ended up finishing around 4:40! This was awesome for getting back home and getting dinner at a decent time.

So far I’m really enjoying the Carol Chidester swim meet series and look forward to the remaining 3 meets.

keeping warm between events in my swim parka

• Swimming