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

Davis Pentathlon Wrap Up

I just got back from Davis and besides being a little sun burnt I feel really good about my races. My times weren't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination but they were respectable. (All the results are now online, you can see them here) Now that I have some real times for short course meters it will make it easier for me to sign up for the UCLA meet later this month.

I drove up to Davis Saturday morning and was at my brother's place around 3 in the afternoon. The original plan was to save a few bucks and stay at his place. Once I got there I realized that wasn't really the answer. His room was a stainless steel toilet away from being a prison cell. He offered up a gross couch in a common room... this wasn't going to work out. I in turn hit up my old friends over at Expedia instead. The Best Western was totally worth the $100 bucks instead of getting some kind of mite from a questionable couch. After I checked in I went and explored all 4 blocks of downtown Davis. The thing I like best about Davis is the full acceptance of bikes as an actual form of transportation. There were bikes, bike lanes and bike racks everywhere. I wish I could get some of that action around here!

Anyways back to the action... after an unintentional tour of the Campus I found the pool. It's really nice compared to what I'm used to. My one big complaint: no friggin shade anywhere. Davis is hot and sunny and the pool and pool deck are reflective so there is no escape if you're there on a sunny day like, you know, today. Shit. I look like Hank Hill with my shirt off because I swim indoors so I was pretty worried about this whole sunshine thing. It felt about 85 degrees and I was out there in a sweatshirt with my hood up trying to not burn the crap out of myself... it didn't work. Luckily I didn't really start feeling it until hour 4 of my drive home, tomorrow is going to be awful.

The races went really fast which was nice. There were about 9 heats per event for the women and 10 for the men and they still managed to jam through 5 events in 3 hours. My main worry was starts from the blocks because I don't have any to practice with. But once I did my first one I got over it really quickly. My starts were solid and my goggles didn't leak on me. Turns out riding 50-60 miles a week helps with jumping :) My butterfly was good, back and breast were a little not so good but decent, and my free and IM were really good for me. I still have a lot of time to shave off my times but it's a start. My 100IM in particular went really well. I pulled out to an early lead in the Butterfly leg and managed to hold off everyone else for the last 75. I got a little prize for winning my heat, a UC Davis swim cap, not particularly useful for a bald guy... but hey I like free stuff so it was cool. Plus I just like feeling like I won something.

Here's my times for the five events:

50m Fly: 31.65
50m Back: 38.10
50m Breast: 39.37
50m Free: 30.86
100 IM: 1:17

Overall I finished in the middle of my age group. Everything except my backstroke was below my seed time guesses. I'd like to get my fly and free times under 30 by the end of the year. I'm going to have to put some more work into my backstroke, I used to be a decent backstroker back in the day. Ultimately it looks like fly is still going to be my non-freestyle goto event. Not sure when I want to get brave and try to race a 100 though. I really like doing the IM too. Not sure if I'm ready to race a 200 IM but the 100 is shaping up to be a new favorite event.

Ultimately I met my swimming goals (good fly and free, avoid embarrassing myself in the other events) and I got my just rewards... sweet, sweet, wonderful waffle fries... oh how I've missed you.

isn't it beautiful?