Living Large

• On: 01/19/2010 13:26:26

I love the winter.  Ah, no sillies, not the weather, I love the winter because it is SWIM SEASON!  And, well…I like to swim in case you don’t know that.  And, better yet, I like to swim with friends.  And, EVEN better, I like to race swimming.  Now, I am not the fastest sometimes, but I sure as hell try very hard.

I have only been back in the water since mid- December and only back at normal Masters since 1/1 !  So, I am a little bit out of shape.  But, I will say that I have miracously retained that fitness from last year and I am just not able to get to full blown top end speed yet.  The question is:  Will I ever??  Ha…my crazy swim lane mates who are super fast in the sprints would probably say, “NO!”

Well, that is true and better than the alternative. 

On Friday night and Saturday we had a local swim meet here.  I decided to swim the 1000 on Friday night and not swim in the meet on Saturday.  I was a very bad girl last week and due to my in-laws being in town, my birthday weeklong celebration, I had to work all weekend, so NO meet for me – other than Friday night.  Secretly, this was fine with me…I would prefer just to do anything over the 1000.  The 1,650 is my favorite (mile) swim race.  So, the other shorter stuff is fine – but ahem…not my love.

I did not rest for this 1000 – I DO rest for the big meets and State meet…but this was not a bigger meet, so I even did TRX/PT with Kate in the AM – and the meet started at 6pm at night.  I picked Karen up at 4:00 and we were on our way.  Of course we were like 1,000 hours too early but that was good as we had time to chat and stretch and think about getting into the water.

Swim meets are run in heats.  Nevermind I told one of the girls they were waves – she just looked at me (errrr….triathlon on the brain)…They typically go slowest to fastest.  And, we have counters.  We have counters because if you have ever swam an all out throw up effort in the pool – you can not count…so, there are plastic HUGE cards that the counter keeps track of:  1, 3, 5, 7, 9 are the numbers all the way up to 39 or ORANGE card (last 50) for the 1000.  It helps tremendously.  And, a lot of pressure for the counter!  Anyway, we had a ton of our team there – over 30 swimmers just for the 1000..that doesn’t include the other teams, so that was fun!

I crack myself up b/c I do not wear a swim long speed suit (the ones they will ban here this year) but I wear my Team USA speedo speed suit I race Triathlon short course in when not in my Kiwami….and of course my pink cap/goggles.  Anyway, I watched everyone and waited.

I was in the last heat.  And, the fact that I was in lane 3 with the fastest guy (co-ed for the 1000) of the day – his seeded time :  10.40.  Do the math – that is a 5.20 at least for each 500. Yep!  NOW that is fast.  I was over a minute behind him.  There were 2 other girls in this heat and 5 other men.  I do not tend to race the men.   For whatever reason, unless I needed them to swim off of, I ignore them.  I have no grand illusions of swimming anything near that time he posted.  So, instead I focused on the gal in the next lane.  She was seeded just about 10” behind me.  And, that was 10” too close for my taste. 

I get up on my block after massive stretching and a previous warm up and practices diving off the blocks ….and there it was – the silence, the “swimmers to your mark” and the firing of the gun!

YES!  I am in my happy place! I GET TO RACE and swim hard!  Ok, Jen DO NOT screw this up.

I see that lane #2 girl is about ½ arm length in front of me.  But, I was going as hard as I could.  I would NOT let her out of my sight OR out of my reach.  SHE was only beating me on the flip turns (she is a pure swimmer of course) and I would catch up with her and this went on for 600 yards!  YES that hard…she is a 500 girl (clearly) and she was TOUGH.  I would not let her break me.  I was focusing on breaking her.  And, I had my little magic weapon in my lane…I only get faster as the distance goes on – NOT slower.  I was hoping she was the opposite!

Around the 600 mark, I had to control myself..b/c I was fighting the urge to vomit.  It is one thing to swim a max effort 1000 in shape – it is a WHOLE other thing to put a seed time in that you THINK you can do IN SHAPE and show up a bit out of shape.  TSK TSK on me – that’ll teach me.  But, of course, as I am swimming I am NOT thinking any negative thoughts.

I was only thinking one thing:  I really wanted to win at all costs.  If I beat her, I would win the ENTIRE meet (female) not just the Age Group.

I dug so hard that I thought my shoulders and lats would explode.  THEY were burning so bad I had to focus on pulling my LEFT arm out of the water.  I gasped in and out of turns – I barely could kick off the wall…lactate acid was pulsating thru my body.  I was suffering like a dog.  Thank goodness my face was buried in the water.

At 650-700 yards I started to make up some time.  And, I still had one more itty bitty gear left. I knew that unless I missed a wall on the flip turns, I had her.  IT was an inch she gave me (not by choice) – but I could tell underwater that her elbow was dropping and she was fighting her form.  I “ran” with that…and “took off.”  I put my head down and FINALLY around 700y got into my groove and swam smoother and better and effortlessly now.  I was in the zone.

I pulled ahead of her.  I was so internally excited – but never ever think a race is over until you cross that line!  We all know that.  I  put  my head down and kicked (what a novel concept) hard as I could into the wall.  I beat her!  I beat her by about 10”.  Just like we were seeded.  And, 10” in the pool is a ½ pool length gap.  I was seeing stars. I had to gasp to get air and put my head down to compose myself and not vomit.   I congratulated her – it was a very good race.  (the other girl in the heat was 50-75y behind us).

I cooled down and then went home…I ate some white fish and green beans Jerome had saved for me and was able to kiss the kids goodnight and then I sat down and told Jerome, “I am going to bed.”

I woke up on Saturday AM absolutely starving, nauseous still AND my toes hurt so bad I had to massage them out before I got out of bed.

I worked so hard that my body was still so messed up 12 hours later.  THAT my friends is how I am rolling in my 39^th year!  Living large and living full !