4 August 2022
When I entered US Masters Nationals, I wasn't sure if my work would actually allow me time to breakaway to compete on Thursday. With that in mind and the fact that I prefer to start a meet, whenever possible, with a "fun" and "no expectations" race, I just entered the 50 fly. While I did suit up with a tech suit, speed cap and my badass Magic5 purple mirrored goggles, I only clipped down, but did not fully shave down for that race. My intention was (and will still be) to shave Friday morning ahead of my first "real event," the 400 free.
Despite myself and those good intentions to keep this as pure fun, I couldn't help but setting a goal - to get under 30 seconds. I don't race long course a lot and the last time I swam the 50 fly was 6 years ago when I had gone 29.22 at a Pacific Masters meet in San Mateo, California. My swim from SCM in May of 29.14 converts, according to SwimSwam's "classic converter," to 29.83, so I thought it was feasible.
I still went to the blocks with my mind light and easy, nerves essentially nill. Other than going too deep on the start and having to take something like 8 underwater dolphin kicks (not the strongest part of my race) instead of 4-5, the race felt good. However, unlike earlier this year when I swam a 100 IM in SCY in Houston with a goal to go under 1:00 and produced a smile-inducing result of 59.99, today I was just on the other side of a magic time barrier: exactly 30.00 ...
... which still made me smile and laugh ... and wonder ...
... maybe I should not have clipped my fingernails and maybe I should have fully shaved down!
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