UCLA SCM Meet Wrap Up

**Update** If you're looking for results from UCLA on 18OCT08, they can be found here.

Speedo Jammer, flip flops, t-shirt and a Fedora... ahhh swim meet fashion

I swam at UCLA this morning and it was a good time but my body is aching! My last 3 events were in a very rapid succession and I almost couldn't get myself out of the pool after my last event. The pool at UCLA was a lot smaller that I had expected and thanks to the excitement of parent's weekend it turned out to be much more difficult to find than expected. The nice part about it being all walled off the way it is is that it had enough shade for everyone that wanted some to hide from the sun. So hopefully I shouldn't be all crispy tomorrow like I was after the Davis meet.

My first event was the 100m fly and I was really apprehensive about swimming this race. It used to be my go to event in high school but I haven't actually swam a continuous 100 fly since high school! I've been doing a lot of work on my fly when I practice I just haven't been doing any distance over 50 yards. I feel I did really well in this race, I lead my heat the whole time and finished in 1:13. The last 25m was incredibly hard however. My muscles in my upper chest felt like they were on the verge of failing on me! I was very glad to be done when I hit the wall and pleasantly surprised to see that I beat my seed time and won the heat. My friend Robin served as my official photographer today and got a lot of great pictures of splashes. Taking pics of butterflyers is kinda hard. She got much better as the day went on :)

My second event was the 50m free. It went well, I hit basically the same time as I did in Davis of about 30 seconds. I really want to get that under 30 soon! The 100m free didn't go as smooth as I wanted it too. I was really running out of juice at this point. I was shooting for 1:05 but came in at 1:08. I know I can do a lot better, I just couldn't get those extra couple of seconds out today. The last event was the 50m fly which was literally minutes after my 100m Free. Everyone was super tired because I think everyone in the 50 was also in the 100m free. I lost about .5 to 1 second off my time in Davis on this one and almost couldn't get myself out of the pool afterwards. They were a little behind on results toward the end of the meet so I won't have my exact results until they get posted online somewhere. I was also supposed to do the 100m IM but I just didn't have the energy to do well in it so I dropped it.

After the meet me and Robin went and explored Westwood a little bit and had some well deserved lunch. Tonight were off to get some Korean food and then try to find some metropolitan excitement for this evening.

If you can't tell which one is me in the pictures, look for the bald head and the farmer's tan, apparently I'm the only person in South Pacific Masters without a luggage quality tan

The pool at UCLA


50m Butterfly


Making a Turn during the 50m Fly


50m Freestyle


Trying to keep up during my 50m Free


A little more butterfly

Leaving for LA Tomorrow

So tomorrow after work I'm making my way towards LA so that I can swim at the master meet at UCLA on Saturday. I've made plans to couch surf again but this time with a known quantity. I know my friend Robin's place has a couch bigger than my brother's whole apartment turned out to be so there shouldn't be any emergency hotel reservations going on this time around.

Tonight I just swam, no real distance on my bike besides just going back and forth to work. In the pool I mainly focused on turns and going fast. I did a whole bunch of 25's from the middle of the pool as a sprint with a focus on the turns. I alternated between freestyle and butterfly. My flip turns are feeling really good, I just have to fight the urge to breath right off the turns. I think I sufficiently pushed myself in my workout seeing as I felt like I was going to have a stroke by the time I was done.

Hopefully I'll be able to swim a little bit at my friend's place tomorrow night to stay loose. Apparently her condo micro city has a olympic size pool somewhere. I'll try and update the blog on Saturday with my meet wrap up.

All Signed Up for UCLA

I sent in my entry form for the UCLA SCM meet coming up on the 18th of October. I'm going to swim the 50 free, 50 fly, 100 free, 100 fly, and the 100 IM. In the 50's and the 100 IM I want to beat my times from Davis. In the 100 free I want to hit around 1:05 or better and in the 100 fly I entered a 1:15 but I want to be under 1:10... we'll see how that goes... my ultimate goal for both is to break a minute.

Tonight I hit the pool more to cool off than anything... it was super hot today man, ocean breeze be damned it was pushing 100 here in Grover/Pismo Beach.

Warm Up
300 free
100 kick

2 x 400

100 kick
200 free

1500 yards

I had to do some stuff this evening so I was unwillingly out in the car instead of riding my bike - I really hate driving. The counter guy at the gym called me out though - "not riding your bike tonight man?" I let him know we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow :)

Pedaling and Rescheduling

This weekend didn't really afford me much of a chance to hit the pool. I did get in a really good ride on my bike up the coast through Pismo and Shell Beach. I don't know what it is about the super spandexed up people that ride bikes. They don't smile or acknowledge your general presence. I had a small group of roadies behind me and I let them pass, no hellos or thanks yous. Turns out I didn't need to move anyways. I stayed right on them till they turned a few miles later even though I wasn't wearing $200 of cycling gear and I was rocking Vans instead of clip in bike shoes.


View Larger Map The view from my ride

A little extra excitement for the day... I got a notice that the UCLA meet was moved to the 18th from the 25th which is actually pretty awesome for me because I was going to have to be in LA anyways on the 19th. You can check out the meet info here.

I'll be back to my aquatic grind tomorrow.