July 2011

Due to some volunteering at EMU this weekend, I'm training on my own.  Once again, I wish I was laying low and enjoying my taper but I've committed to a little harder work this weekend than I anticipated with U.S. Long Course Nationals only a few days away.  Today I did some backstroke sprints and worked on my 100 pace.  I'm not feeling sharp and I'm really questioning my taper.

For those who have asked how I'm feeling about Nationals, I've responded that I've set some very realistic goals.  I will be racing backstroke outdoors in the California sun, an experience which is very foreign to me.  I had enough trouble racing indoors with a wacky ceiling in Montreal.  I find myself wishing the meet was indoors with some straight lines I could stare at during my race.  I'm excited for the meet in general, it will be a new experience and my second big meet with Club Wolverine Elite.  Now time for some sleep.

Today we did a short main set of 3 x 38m on the 10 minute.  The first was no equipment, the second was with fins, the third was fins and paddles.  The "38 meter" part was really just to get a full speed turn, we were being timed for 25 meters.  My first swim, with no equipment was from a dive (backstroke start).  I had a good start, underwater kicking and flipped, my feet touched in 12.0 seconds... pretty darn good for 25 meters, in practice.  My second swim was with fins on.  I flipped in 10.6 seconds.  Not bad but I still have lots to improve upon regarding leg strength.  My third 25 meter swim I decided to turn into a 50 meter swim.  I had fins and paddles on.  I don't get much additional speed out of wearing paddles, but they can't hurt.  I went from a push (due to the paddles), cranked it up a bit and touched in a 21.9.... not too shabby.  Not that it means anything really since no race ever  includes equipment.  I still like hearing those fast times though!

I slept for a combined 20 hours yesterday.  I think that means I was overtired during the meet.  Sunday was a "lost day", I got nothing accomplished at all.  Since the meet I've viewed the times I achieved a little differently.  Although I was very unimpressed with my times during the meet.  Taking into consideration that they were swum while severely overtired and on the verge of exhaustion, they're actually fairly impressive!  I know I can swim much faster, but I learned some important lessons, broke a state record and still got to see some Masters Swimmer friends while I was there.

I chose to try to swim a meet, and aim at some national/world records on 4 hours of sleep after a very long work day and 4 hours of driving.  I was falling asleep on my way to the meet, laid down and passed out twice on deck and had two really bad swims.  I scratched my last two swims and went home.  The whole day was a very bad decision on my part.  I'm beyond tired, my eyes are bloodshot and I'm literally falling asleep while writing this.

50 Free LCM: 24.41
50 Back LCM: 27.23

I will learn from this experience.

I had a great morning.

As usual, Saturdays are "race pace" days. These sets are swum at or near "all out" speed. After some warmup we did a few burst speed drills and prepared for some 50's and 25's long course meters. Todays set had a fun twist in that we could take our pick of any tech suit in the equipment room. Although I loathe the full body tech suit era of swimming since it ruined all records, this was a fun set... why not!

I grabbed a full body Speedo LZR made in 2008 and proceeded to spend 25 minutes putting it on and adjusting it. I don't miss those kinds of distractions at meets. These days I just throw my brief on and don't give it another thought. Anyway, I will say this, never have I seen so many simultaneous smiles on deck! When you suit up in something NASA helped develop, you feel like superman.

We started out with a 50 back at your first 50 pace within a 100m race. I had a good start and cruised to a relaxed 26.2 second 50m time. I heard that time and smiled... it was the fastest of all the backstrokers.  My lifetime best in the 50m Back is a 26.64 shaved and tapered.  It's the time that earned me my first Masters Swimming World Record.  Next we moved onto some 25m swims.  I held 12.0 seconds on all of them.  The set was over after the 25's. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't bust out a fast 50 for fun. Luckily the coach extended the set and had everybody swim a 50 for time! I got pumped up for this one. We were told to race each other.... and win. The coaching staff is great at motivating us to race.  I was up against 4 guys with olympic trials cuts.  As I looked to my left and my right, I realized that there wasn't a shadow of a doubt whose hand would hit the wall first today. It was one of the first times I visualized the win. We had three coaches getting times just in case. We jumped in the pool and got ready to race.  I had a great start and pulled a lead on 3 of the 4 swimmers by the breakout. I knew I could run down anybody at this point. I was catching water like crazy and watched the splashes from the other swimmers fade as we neared the flags. As usual I ran out of steam in the last 15 meters but I still managed to hit the wall first!

The head coach read off the times at the end of the pool from slowest to fastest. It went... 27.5...... 27.3..... 27.1...... 26.2..... and there was a pause as he examined his watch, in a slightly confused and surprised way and read.... Doak.... 25.3. I smiled as he double checked his watch. A moment later he looked at me with an expression I've never seen him make. His eyebrows went up and he widened his eyes in an intentional look of amazement and said (as he smiled)... you're feeling good aren't you? I smiled and said... yes, great actually.

A 25.30 is insane fast for me. That's 1.3 seconds faster than my lifetime best! That's 1.24 seconds under the Masters world record in the 30-34 age group (which was Iset during the tech suit era). And 1.49 seconds faster than i swam the 50 back at the Ohio State Grand Prix in 2008 while wearing a Speedo LZR suit. The same meet I swam a 57.00 in my 100 back.  I've looked at this time and even tried to discount my success today... like, perhaps they were slow starting their watch, or maybe the suits make a 1.0 second difference, etc.  No matter how I slice it.  I'm damn fast (for me) right now.  I feel fantastic and I've even started mentioning that I'm probably in the best shape of my life.  My stroke changes and 2 solid months of training with a great team and coaching staff is paying off.... 25.30... wow.

I had a great morning.

I'm really enjoying the significantly lower workload lately.  We're doing a maximum of 2,000 meters a day, it's been great!  Coach Mike Bottom took this picture of one of the "social kick" sets, in which the only goal is probably just to get the blood pumping.  It really is just talking and kicking down the pool.  Gotta love taper time.

I've been largely out of commission since returning from Montreal.  I've been attending practice but haven't been able to put my head underwater more than about a foot before the water pressure becomes unbearable.  Yesterday I was feeling slightly improved and decided to join the team for some race pace work.  I did a total of about 3 dives during the set.  I immediately felt the extreme (6 feet of water) pressure on my sinuses and head but had no idea how much I would pay for it later.  An hour after practice I started feeling my head start to hurt.  It became a migraine in no time.  I tried medicine but nothing could stop it.  It was a tough night of sleep, or lack thereof.  I woke up countless times only to finally sleep a few hours before my alarm rang for morning practice.  I stopped by a drug store before morning practice and got a recommendation from the Pharmasist on what to take.  I showed up late to practice, just in time for the kick set which is a prime time to ridicule anybody who is late with a bit of verbal abuse (all in good fun).

I limped through the morning workout and took it easy for the most part.  Although I wish it were faster, I've been able to hold :34's on the 50's kick LCM without too much effort.  I've come a long way.

Time conversions are always entertaining.  They always spark a good conversation about whether a swimmer is a better long course or short course swimmer.  For fun I ran the conversion on my 100 Backstroke LCM time from this past weekend.  My 57.60 long course seems to convert to a 48.09 short course yards.  A short course time like that would mean I'm currently the fastest short and long course swimmer I've ever been.  Like I said, the conversions don't mean much, but seeing that made me excited to swim some short course meets this fall and see where I stand!  If I'm welcome to stay on the Club Wolverine team past the end of the summer, I'll continue to train with them daily but the meet availability will be far less than it is in the summer since it will be the college season.  To my knowledge only one meet occurs between August and January which is the short course nationals.  This means I'll have an opportunity to drop in some Masters meets and benchmark my progress!

As I mentioned on my first day in Montreal, I was feeling a little under the weather.  I felt fairly good during the meet, not 100% good, but strong enough to race.  During my last day in Canada I started feeling pretty lethargic and the sinus and headache hit me pretty hard.  I was able to swim in Ann Arbor today with the team but it was very painful.  I wasn't able to put my head more than about a foot under water without it feeling like my head was being crushed in a vice.  I was unable to do any dives due to the sensitivity to pressure.  I felt like a wimp, but I did every yard the other swimmers did, just did it slower.  I gave the coaches a heads up on my condition and they were understanding and accomodating.  I'm glad it's hitting me now instead of Nationals next month, ideal timing really.

I had a horrible 50 Free and touched in a 24.4.  Everything about that race felt weird, I wasn't tired, just confused about the new stroke, didn't trust my freestyle.  I need more practice.  I took 10th place overall.

My 50 Back was even worse.  I had a bad start, decent underwaters but NAILED the lane line at the 25 meter mark, enough to put a big scrape down my back and arm as well as slice my finger open.  I tried to recover and churn it over to finish the race, from the video footage, I actually gained on the leader and touched in a 27.33.  It was actually a good time considering I basically came to a dead stop at one point in the race.  I took 5th place overall.

Otherwise it was a great meet, 4 Finals swims and a National cut.  I am 0.01 seconds away from my 100 Back Olympic Trial cut!

Although I felt fine before the race, I had a very disappointing 50 Freestyle time of 24.16.  I was nowhere near the Olympic Trial cut of 23.49.  I attempted to use a new shoulder driven freestyle and failed miserably.  It turned out to be some weird hybrid of straight arm, semi disconnected left side and old stroke all mixed together.  It was ugly.  It was good enough to get 12th overall meaning I can swim in the consolation heat of the 50 tonight.  Minutes later, two swimmers in the final heat scratched, assumingly because they were afraid to swim in the same pool as me.  That means I got bumped into 10th place which means I'll be in the big heat tonight!  I will most likely abandon my new shoulder driven stroke this evening and just swim it like I always do.  I think I need more practice and more muscle to swim shoulder driven and actually have it pay off.

Looking back, I have swum a 57.xx twice in my life, both times were with a full body tech suit.  My fastest non-tech suit swim was a 58.40 at Indy in March 2008.  If I take tech suits out of the equation, I swam the fastest 100 backstroke of my life this morning.  Even with the tech suits, I swam my second fastest time ever.  Even faster than my swim AT olympic trials in 2008. This morning the pad in lane 6 was malfunctioning on the far end so my 50 split was not recorded but I hand timed it on the video and got a 27.19, the fastest split going out of my life.   I'm back, in a big way.

I don't think I'll swim faster tonight but I'll give it my all.  Historically I don't perform well in the evening session.  This morning was EVERYTHING I had to give and I just missed the cut.  I'll give it all again and we'll see what it yields.  At this point, I'm on track to swim every single race this weekend faster than I ever have before.  THAT is an amazing feeling.

Thank you to my family and friends who have supported me thus far.  I love you all.

After a brief conversation with Coach Mike Bottom, I've decided to shave for the 100 Backstroke prelims.  This is among my only remaining chances to make an Olympic Trials or National cut before the long course season is over for the year.  I really want to get a cut and stop worrrying about it and focus on training.  My other motivation is to achieve a time which I can both be proud of and will earn me a spot to remain on Club Wolverine leading up to the 2012 Olympic Trials.  Up until now I have been generally unproven as a swimmer on the team.  I find myself referencing the fact that I WAS a 57.00 backstroker a few years ago and that I haven't gone that time since 2008.  It's an unfortunate reality I hope to change.  Achieving a trials cut would make me feel worthy of being on this team.  My goal tomorrow is a 57.xx, I would be happy with a 57 anything at this point.  The national cut is a 58.29 so any 57 would get me another chance to swim the 100 back.  This pool in Montreal is a real challenge for backstrokers.  A significant portion of my effort tomorrow will be to not bounce off the lane lines every other stroke.

I just achieved a lifetime best time in the 100m Free LCM!  My time of 53.87 was even faster than my tapered and shaved time of 54.13 two years ago at Indy!  My time today was nearly a full second faster than the Eric Namesnik Grand Prix time of 54.81.  I was even more excited to see that I took it out (reached the first 50m) in a 24.61!  Obviously at the 50 I did a flipturn which means I touched the wall with my feet in the same time I SWAM the 50 Free two months ago at the Grand Prix in Ann Arbor.  That part impressed me the most.  My time in relation to the other swimmers at the meet was not great but respectable.  I took 37th out of 134 swimmers.  The top 20 make it back for finals in the evening.  It was a very fast few heats at the end, a few 50.xx and many 51.xx including a few from Club Wolverine.  I was very impressed with how my teammates swam, especially considering it was only prelims!

The downsides of my race were extensive.  All the revolutionary stroke changes I've worked so hard on during the last 7 weeks were ENTIRELY forgotten during my race.  The only part I remembered was my start.  I had a decent start but my hands broke away from each other once I hit the water which slowed me down.  I knew I would probably abandon my new stroke during the race but I was disapointed that I didnt even try some shoulder or body driven stroke at all.  My teammates and coaches all took notice and brought it to my attention after my race.  It was slightly embarrassing but I feel it's a known fact that I'm still learning the new strokes.  Overall, I feel like I sort of paniced once I started racing.  I just defaulted to what I knew best, my stroke that I've used my entire life.  It's understandable but unfortunate.

Based on my first 50 of my 100 meter race, I'm REALLY looking forward to the 50 Freestyle on Sunday!  I feel a 23.xx for sure.  The Olympic Trial cut is a 23.59 and based on my performance today, I feel it is within reach!