Swim meet with Triathletes

Dear reader(s) know that I have a bit of a laugh occasionally at triathletes’ expense. What with swimming with pull buoys during 2-mile open water swims, or standing up and walking in the shallows. But today I got to experience triathletes at their sportsmen’s best. And that made me very proud to be a coach.

Today was DC Tri Club’s Swim Meet #3, postponed back in November due to water temperature. (haha)  The meet was held at Catholic University indoor pool, a cool little six-lane SCY pool, with a movable wall that separates the diving well (not big enough to make a 50m pool, sadly). Since today was Sunday, the parking lot and the street parking was free and available. The drive there went through DC, parts I hadn’t driven yet, and through the beautiful CUA campus. Oh, to have rich parents.

About 30 DC Tri club members and coaches signed up for the 10 events (not counting the relays):

  1. 400 free
  2. 50  back
  3. 100  free
  4. 50  breast
  5. 100  IM
  6. 800  free 
  7. 50 free
  8. 100 back
  9. 50 fly
  10. 200 free

The meet only cost $12 and you could swim up to 4 events. So of course, the cheap bastard I am, I signed up for 4 events. Yep, you guessed it, I signed up for the 800, 400 and 200. And, bonus event: 50 fly. But, recall that there were only 30 swimmers total, so the time between my 50 fly heat and my 200 free heat was the time of one heat of 200 free. OMG, I was tired. Then, upon completing the 200 free (heat 2 of 2), my fellow coaches came up to me and said, “Guess what Mike? We need you for the coach vs. board relay.” Crap.

OK, so times. My first event was the 400 free. Wow did I hurt. My arms felt like they did when I first started this LCHF diet. D-E-D, dead. My goal for the 400 for 6:00. I managed to beat that at 5:46. So far so good. Thankfully I had much time to rest between the 400 and the 800. There were 2-3 heats of each event, so I had a good 15-20 minutes before the 800.

For the 800, I decided (well, had decided a couple weeks ago) to treat it like a 4×200. I thought I’d go out fast in the first 200, medium in the 2nd, start to build the 3rd, then all out during the 4th 200. Well, I certainly went out fast. Or at least felt fast. Then I kept fast in the 2nd 200. And I felt good. The 400 didn’t feel as bad as the 400 I had swum first. I really wish I’d been able to check the time at my 400. It started to hurt after that. In fact, when I had 200 left, I couldn’t push it yet. I was leading my heat, so that was okay. But when I had 100 left, I pushed it. Really, it was the last 75 that really flew by. 12:12.  Way faster than the 15:00 I was aiming for. Very happy.

Next was my 50 fly. The fly was delightfully easy, thank God. Just one lap felt so nice after all the previous laps.  0:39-something. The only problem was the 200 free right after. That didn’t feel so good. I figured I’d swim something like 3:05 or so. Nope! 2:44. So happy. And happy to be done. Except for the relay.

OK, so the relay. There were only 3 board members there. So that meant the relay would be a 150 free relay. Yeah, weird. Even the timers started looking around for the 4th swimmer. Anyway, we coaches destroyed the board members, w00t! 1:27 for our 150 free. Way to go team members, Jules and Bryan.

2 thoughts on “Swim meet with Triathletes”

  1. Dude, I’ve done tris for over a decade. Pull buoys are not allowed in USAT races. WTH are you talking about?

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