New England short course yards championships

Another year, another SCY championship meet at Harvard. This year actually seemed tougher even though we didn't have Elliot with us (he was at our house with his Grammie). I think now that he probably kept me distracted last year so I didn't get nervous.

My swimming hasn't improved much since last year, which was a bit disappointing, but I know what I need to work on. I swam in 16 events again (including 4 relays) and set 4 PRs (100 back, 200 back, 100 IM, 50 breast).

Photo courtesy of my teammate TJ (I'm on the left):



I just have a few moments so some quick notes from the weekend:

- It felt super weird to drop off Elliot at day care last week Friday and then stop to buy coffee beans at Barismo on our way home while wearing matching track suits. Well, it was weird for me. Ed thought it was the best thing EVER.

- It's been a week since the meet ended and I still feel hungry constantly because my body still seems to think I'm competing even while typing emails at my desk at work.

- Exhaustion during the meet led to a dazed state in which I stared into space between events rather than reading all the magazines I brought. It also led to the extreme overuse of the word "awesome."

- I had several goggle issues at the start of my events. Let's hope I never have to do a 400 IM again with water-filled goggles. I was so blind that I couldn't see the flags or the wall, which led to wild zig-zagging during the backstroke and no flip turns.

- We saw some guys from Maine set all four men's 75+ relay records. Super cool!

- Our team, Minuteman Andover, was neck-and-neck with our rival team, Cambridge, for the whole meet. It came down to the very last relay. Our head coach, Rich, looked super nervous the whole time. We won!

Team photo taken by my teammate Jill's husband.



Photo taken by coach Rich at our celebratory dinner, where I inhaled someone else's chocolate cake while waiting for my entree. For some reason wearing just the matching jackets felt okay. :)

Swim meet at BU

'Cross season ended, and a week later, I got a cold. Then one week after that we had the New England Short Course Meters Masters Championship at the BU pool. I was sick enough that I missed several practices leading up to the meet and felt totally unprepared.

Ed's mom was coming out to take care of Elliot on Sunday (12/12), but he came with us to the pool on Saturday. I thought he would get bored after a few hours, so I only signed up for a few events in the morning.

Foggy lens due to temp change from car to the deck of the pool. :) For contrast, here's Elliot at the same meet last year.



Inevitably, someone scratched though and I ended up staying later and swimming breaststroke on a mixed relay team in mid-afternoon. Our coach "wore" Elliot in his carrier so Ed and I wouldn't have to do a quick handoff during the relays. I wish I had a photo. Elliot loves Coach Rich.



Are these track suits more Royal Tenenbaums or Sue Sylvester?



Ed kindly made this so we could keep track of our events.



Ed and I both swam lots of events, making up for our relative lack of swimming skill with lots of volume. There were a lot fewer people at this meet than at the one we did at Harvard in the spring, so events were much closer together and we didn't have much time to rest. I was hoping to PR in all my events but only did it in the a few (but Ed kept up his streak of PRs).

I was really dragging by the time I got to my last individual event, the 400 IM. My teammates all stood around and cheered for more than 8 minutes as I completed the event at roughly half the pace of the reigning world record holder. Amazingly though, I got first place points, as there were no other women in my age group swimming the 400 IM. I then proceeded to almost miss the final relay, which I didn't realize was right after. Oops! I made it through my part (I think it was a 50 breast).

Everyone on the team contributed great swims and our team was the highest scoring large workout group at the meet!

We celebrated the team's win with the traditional dunking of the head coach.



This award plaque is so shiny that it is illegible. Big Al, the team captain, will be wearing this as a belt buckle at the Minuteman winter party.



Merry Christmas from the Royal Tenenbaums!

Concord mini-meet

I decided to take a rest week last week, but wasn't really successful. I was short on sleep after three days of going to a conference in Cambridge, plus I went to a few swim practices. Then I fell down and entered a swim meet, where I proceeded to miss most of my seed times. But it was good to get an idea of what I need to work toward for the big meet at BU in December. There were just a few mixed heats of each event, so handing off Elliot got to be pretty exciting. Ed and I were each in 5 events and two of them were the same. The meet organizer was very nice and put us in different heats but the same lane, which meant that I leapt out of the pool at the end of the 100 breaststroke and the 200 IM and grabbed Elliot so Ed could get on the starting block. Good times.

Swim meet video

Ed and Elliot made it into a video about the New England SCY Champs! Look for them at around the 1:20 point.

Swim meet

I did my first swim meet since 1996 last weekend. Ed and I competed at the New England Championships (short course yards) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Elliot came along and was so good. He watched most of our events from the end of the lane. It was pretty cool to be swimming the breaststroke while seeing my two favorite guys cheering for me.

I didn't know how to come up with seed times, so I went to my local pool and swam all the events in one afternoon. It was only three weeks after I'd started swimming again (Elliot was 11 weeks old), so my times were so slow that I considered not entering. But I worked really hard leading up to the meet and blew away my seed times. Out of almost 1100 swimmers, I was the 9th worst seeder. :) I swam in 12 events (100 IM, 200 IM, 400 IM, 50 Free, 50 fly, 100 fly, 50 back, 100 back, 200 back, 50 breast, 100 breast, 200 breast). I also did 4 relays. It was exhausting. The overall distances per day were pretty short compared to what we do in practice, but it was tough to sit around all day (12 hrs on Saturday -- humans are not meant to be damp for that long) and get up every so often to do a very short, intense race. I'm sure holding a wiggly baby for half of that time didn't help either. It was so humid that Elliot's feet got prune-y.

I was pretty excited when I beat Ed's time in the 200 IM, but of course he shaved 20 seconds off his seed time when he swam the event after I did. This is just like xc skiing -- I get him to try a new sport, and then he gets better at it than I am. :) US Masters Swimming was giving a prize to all heat winners in the 200 IM. Ed and I both won our heats and got very nice USMS polo shirts that make us look like USMS employees.

Elliot was so interested in what was going on that he barely slept on the first day, but fortunately he was ready to nap a bit on the second day.



My guys!



Me with Elliot and our teammates' baby Annika. We swim for Minuteman Masters, so these are the Minutebabies! I found out a few weeks ago that one of the swimmers in my lane is pregnant and heard earlier this week that another woman in our lane is also pregnant. Exciting!



Here I am doing my favorite stroke, breaststroke. I really enjoyed swimming the IMs and fly as well.

Go Minuteman Swimming!

Today we cheered for Ed at the 2009 New England LMSC Short Course Meters Championship. I made Elliot his own Minuteman hat. Ed swam in 8 events, had 8 personal records, and didn't have any last-place finishes. We'll be back tomorrow to cheer some more!



Edited to add a new photo from day 2. Seven more PRs for Ed!

August

This month has gone by in a blaze of humid discomfort. Here are a few things we did.

I made myself a Mad Men-atar and have been enjoying season 3! I made one for Ed too.





Ed bonded with his sister Liz's dog, Micah, during a quick visit to the in-laws in CT. I knew that pocket was good for something.



A couple of weeks ago, we watched the Gran Prix of Beverly crit. It was fun to see some friends from racing and we scored a bunch of great deals at the Craft sample sale.



I got to see Matty B at the crit!



We've been riding together a bit. This was taken after a short ride around our town last weekend. And we've been swimming with Minuteman Masters. The bump is really slowing down my freestyle (Ed is faster than me now), but my fly, breaststroke, and backstroke seem thus far unaffected.



And of course, we've been trying to keep Miss Betty in fresh cardboard. Nom nom nom!

Swimming, swimming, in a swimming pool

So, I went last night to try out Minuteman Masters on new swimmer orientation night. I thought there would be more talking/touring, but instead we did a shortened workout (probably 1500m). Of course I should have gotten in the pool for a few weeks in advance to get ready, but instead this was the first time I'd swam (with the exception of a few days in 2003 after my shoulder separation) since 1995/96. Because I am a procrastinator like that.

Back then, I swam for a few months for the age-group team at Hickam AFB, where I was the only swimmer old enough to drive. I also swam briefly during my freshmore year in college with the age-group team that practiced at the same pool as the Univerity of Hawaii team. I was never fast enough to get out of the slowest time bracket in any of the events, but I remember really enjoying it.

I think the practice went pretty well, though it took me a long time to feel comfortable breathing. Things got better after the coach helped me make small adjustment that stopped the "OMG I'm drowning" feeling during backstroke. There's nothing like being in a group to make you push yourself. There is no way I would swim 1500m or do stroke drills or use a kickboard on my own. I'll probably sign up officially next week. I'm very slow but my stroke mechanics are okay. Though we didn't do fly and I'm pretty sure I will need to relearn that from the ground up. Not that I was ever able to swim more than 50 yds of fly at a time anyway.

The practices are at Hanscom AFB, which means I have to drive at 14 mph everywhere to be safe. The Air Force takes traffic safety VERY SERIOUSLY.

I'd totally forgotten what it's like to exercise with my upper body. I could barely lift my arms after we were done. In fact, I think my left pec is actually SWOLLEN. Ow.