Swimvitational 50 Free

I had a great morning swim in the 50 free which was probably the result of a decent night of sleep, some food and being utterly ticked-off at my performance yesterday. I dropped almost half a second in the 50 Free from a 24.20 a few weeks ago in Santa Clara to a 23.76. I never guessed I would even be close to an Olympic Trial cut in the free but it's looking within reach. I would Time Trial it and attempt to drop below the cut of 23.49 but due to a scheduling conflict I can't be in Omaha during the 50 Free at the Olympic Trials. Instead I decided to Time Trial the 100 Back today after the Prelim session.

The conclusion I came to after my 50 free was that it seems like I need an initial competition swim to warm up for a good competition swim. Typically my initial swim is the 50 free, which warms me up for a good 100 back. This meet the schedule was reversed and I had to swim the 100 Back first, which didn't go so well. We'll see how this 100 back time trial goes and determine if my theory is sound.

There was an interesting moment here during heat 7 of the women's 200 IM. Let me bring you up to speed on some pre-race rituals:

There are 3 main "I need to do something to draw attention" pre-race rituals:

1. Clapping while on the starting blocks
2. Spitting water while on the starting blocks
3. Making a noise or shouting while on the starting blocks

Very rarely do you see #3, it's just not cool to shout something while others are trying to focus. However, there is ALWAYS a strong distribution of #1 and #2. I don't quite understand it, but I guess once a swimmer sees a faster swimmer do something silly, it just sticks. Then it becomes ritual. Before heat 7 of the women's 200 IM we had 6 clappers. I'd say I normally see 2 MAYBE 3 clappers. But we not only had 6 clappers (out of 8 swimmers) but these were the types of clappers that all felt like they needed to clap LAST. This meant that they all clapped... paused (amazed that there was another human with the same great idea) then clapped again. It quickly turned into a estrogen war of last clappers. It drew a few laughs from the stands as they slowly gave up the fight one by one in hopes of someday starting the race. Perhaps you had to be there, but it was a little comic relief during a fairly uptight scene.

100 Back time trial is soon, here we go.