A little help from NASA and an unofficial lifetime best

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.