BC Provincials Day 2 Report

Well, today went quite well also. I got to warmup late again this morning by about 10 minutes due to not paying attention and making a wrong turn despite the fact that I had driven to the pool the day before. I guess I was just not awake yet...
Anyways, I went and jumped in for warmup and I started feeling light-headed and a bit dizzy while swimming. My muscles felt fine but I felt a bit tired.. probably due to lack of sleep. Anyways, I had a nice long warmup and then got out about 10 minutes before warm up was over. I felt quite sleepy and so I had a quick rest but I wasn't able to rest for long as I was up fairly quickly for my 200m freestyle which I had decided to swim as IM. Eventually my heat was up and the starter blew his whistle. He said take your marks and we were off. The butterfly portion felt strong and controlled which was surprising as I had felt badly all warmup. The first 25 metres of backstroke I mainly used as a bit of recovery from the fly but the second 25, I sped up a bit. I turned it on in the breaststroke and then in the freestyle I really nailed it. In fact, I found I had a lot more endurance than I thought. I only started tying up on the last 20 metres. So, it worked out perfectly.
My final time was 2:50.59 which was more than a 4 second improvement from my time at Nanaimo in December.
My splits were as follows:
37.12
1:21.25 (44.13)
2:11.84 (50.59)
2:50.59 (38.75)


I had a while to wait until my next race which was the 100m backstroke. I pretty much relaxed and took it easy waiting for my race. Based upon my 50m and 200m time yesterday, I was hoping for a 1:15 or 1:16 in the 100m backstroke. Eventually, I was up for the 100m backstroke. I was swimming in lane 1 and so I had an outside lane. The starter said take your marks and then we were off. My start wasn't as good as the 200m or 50m start yesterday but it was still fairly decent. The first 50 metres felt controlled and I poured it on the 2nd 50. I think my turns were fairly good as well. I didn't really screw any of them up majorly. I have to say though that I had an incredible finish. I basically timed the finish perfectly and lunged for the wall. I ended up just getting inside my target time and so I was happy. My final time was a 1:16.92 with a 37.43 split at the 50 metres.

The last race of the day I wasn't really looking forward to but I reluctantly decided to do it anyway. It was the 800m freestyle. I was racing in the same heat as my teammate Kyra. I figured that she would beat me by quite a bit as she was swimming really well this weekend. My strategy was basically just to go in and take it easy for about 600 metres and then see what I had left. Eventually it was time for us to get up on the blocks. The starter said take your marks and then we were off. After the first 100 metres, I could see Kyra 3 lanes over way out in front and at that point, I decided to not worry about sticking with her. I pretty much swam the whole race at my own pace and I didn't really push myself too much. In fact, I kind of lost count and then by the time I realized that I had only 50 metres to go, I didn't have enough time to turn on the jets. My final time was a 11:49.77 with a 5:56.59 split at the 400 metres which means I negative split it. The funny thing was that it didn't feel like a negative split at all. Kyra finished the race I think with a 11:25.70, so kudos to her for that good swim.
Again today, almost everyone on our team had great swims. Kyra swam a 2:28.54 for 200m freestyle, Carl swam a 28.69 for 50m freestyle and Mark swam a 29.96. I was pretty impressed with those. But the swims I was the most impressed with was Scott's swims in backstroke. Wow! That was beautiful swimming... He did a 32.27 for 50 metres and a 1:10.55 for 100 metres. Way to go Scott!

Well, I have to say that overall for me and for the rest of the team, that was one of the most successful meets in a long time for everyone. I was quite pleased with my own performances and I think most people were satisfied with theirs... This is the end of the season for me. I am contemplating swimming in the summer meets to get some extra times in but that has yet to be determined.. I'll have to see how things go.