Short Course Yards Championships 2015 - From now until present it's all from memory. 3/28-29/15

Well, the USMS Short Course Yards Championships was at TAC this year and since I'm training for an Ironman, I figured I would try the distance freestyle races for the first time. I was going to try the 1650 Free once in college. You know, those meets you are either going to win or lose no matter what you do? I remember asking coach if I could try it and, as I recall, she said something like "there's really no good reason for you to do that," or something like that. So, this was the first time I ever raced anything over a 500, and even that I hadn't raced officially since Freshmen year in high school. My best time then was 7:00, but for the fitness challenge in swimming in college, I was able to swim that much faster, something like 6:25. Side note: I'm realizing I need to get more pictures of myself at meets and races, as I don't have any for many of them.

Okay, back to Champs. This was a two day meet. Day 1 for me was the 1650 and 1000 Free races and the 400 IM. Day 2 was the 500 Free. It's a lot, but I remember being excited and ready for it. All except for the counting. I had to find myself a counter. I've counted for friends and teammates in the past, and I know it's not the most fun job in the world, but it's greatly appreciated. I made a new friend that day. Amy, she offered to count for me, and I was so grateful. We got along so well. Spoiler alert, we're still good friends and it feels like we've known each other for years. I love making friends like that.

1650 Free, I have no clue how to swim this race. Go out a pace I can hold and put everything I've got left into the last 100? No idea. I think that's roughly what I did. I may have tried to stay with a teammate for a bit, but I know that didn't last long. I felt like I had a pretty descent race. It helps that I didn't have anything to compare it to. I finished in just under 21:28. 500 split was 6:21.72 and 1000 split was 12:55.69. Now I at least have something to shoot for in the 500 and 1000. The 1000 was next. Shooting for under 12:55.00, although given that this race was right after the 1650, I was still happy with my 12:56 finish 500 split was 6:28.78.

400 IM, a race I've swam many times. Obviously it won't be anywhere near as fast as in college, especially since I hadn't been working on stroke as much as I should have been in practice. I took the race slow and steady. Focused on not getting DQ'd by doing a one arm fly stroke off the wall or something. It felt good, just slow. Overall I was okay with my time of 5:34 (PR is like 5:10 or something in that ballpark).

500 Free, day 2. As I mentioned before, this was my first time racing the 500 Free since high school, and I dropped 50 seconds from that, so not too shabby. Overall time was about 6:10 (a 1:14 pace). I'm sure it helped that it wasn't on the same day as the other two distance races. I'm thinking I could possibly get under 6 min with a bit more training, so maybe something to work on after Chattanooga! Also of note, this is my last meet in the 25-29 age group. Next year I'll age up into the 30-34 age group (which is also what I'll be in for IMCHOO).

Looking back at the results from the meet, I apparently also swam the 50 Fly and the 100 IM, neither of which were all that wonderful so I won't bother with those results here. I did some relays too, but can't really remember much about what/how I did in those.