[Breeze]

2020 Speedo Southern Premier Meet - RESULTS

Bear
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Day 1

# 10 (d1/s2): B Open 200 Free (1:45.91) - opened with a personal best 100 free time of 50.99, but the back half was way off his typical time coming in at a 58.37. So he posted a 1:49.36, which is disappointing considering he was in the 1:47s at State in December, but it also illustrated his improved sprints with the PB in the first 100.

# 36 (d1/s2): B Open 400 Medley (4:11.59) - it was over 2 years since Bear swam this event. He opened this race, like the last one with a personal best. This time in the 100 fly. he managed to go 55.08, which was almost 1 full second faster than his best 100 fly on record. The breast and back were ok, a little off his best, but still very solid, unfortunately, the free at the end was extremely weak. He only managed a 1:03. In his personal best swim he closed in a 54...That 9 seconds alone explain most of the gap between his PB and the 4:23.50 he ended up posting. Which ironically is within .18 of the time he posted the last time he swam this race.

At the end of the first day, Bear had a long chat with Coach Landon about his struggles. I still believe he's not ever gotten back into peak condition following the limited work Summer and the missed Winter training due to the ankle injury, however, he said he felt he was ready for this meet and he doesn't want to use injuries as an excuse any more. Coach thought some of it might be mental. That the struggles have created doubt, and that he could be much too tense which is causing him to burn through energy way to fast. I told him regardless of the cause, he needs to get back to having fun racing.

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Day 2

# 50 (d2/s5): B Open 200 Fly (1:57.01) - Given his strong fly to open the 400 IM, I felt my prediction that he might get a PB in this event was still in play. In the first 100, he bettered the 100 fly time he posted in the IM by going 54.71. He was a little off coming home but still managed to finish with a PB time of 1:56.45. I think he can cut another second or two when he's able to finish stronger. This swim was good enough to qualify for finals - so he was swimming it again later that evening.

# 66 (d2/s5): B Open 200 Medley (1:59.69) - Like the even above, his strong racing in the shorter events gave me hope that he might be able to get another PB. Strong swims all around, his fly was much stronger than his previous personal best over .6 faster. The back was exactly equally slower than than his previous PB...so at the half way point he was exactly on the same split. He was almost a full second faster in the breast this time, and while he was about .7 slower in the free it was still good enough to post a PB with a time of 1:59.41.

# 74 (d2/s5): B Open 500 Free (4:41.77) - Based on the 200 free, this one was going to be tough. He swam much better than he did at High School State a month earlier, but he still didn't approach his personal best. At one point I thought he'd get into the 4:40 high range as I mentioned as a possibility in the pre-race write up, but he came up short finishing in 4:51.30. This feels like a step in the right direction. It's 6 seconds better than his best high school swim, and 5 seconds better than his time from Short Course State in December.

FINALS # 50 (d2/s5): B Open 200 Fly (1:56.45) - In finals it was obvious early that he wasn't going to challenge his swim from the morning. It really wasn't all that surprising given his work-load, 200 fly, 200 IM, 500 free. His fatigue hampered him as he came home in 1:58.92. That's not a great time, but even tired it is better than he did at Short Course State, so hopefully, another indication he is moving in the right direction. During the meet, the wife and I were sitting with Bear's old coach Andy, and this brought up a discussion from him where me mentioned how Bear used to be able to swim the 1000 at the beginning of a meet, the 1650 at the end, and all the hard stuff in the middle with little impact. He said getting older and building more muscles makes that next to impossible anymore...

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Day 3

# 82 (d3/s8): B Open 1650 Free (16:37.04) - After some discussion, Bear approached Coach Landon about changing his schedule for this day. Typically, Landon doesn't like to allow adjustments after the fact, but he said, given Bear's struggles with the longer frees, that it might be a good idea. So Bear scratched this one...

#98 (d3/s7): B Open 100 Free (51.04) - With Bear's strong free split to open the 200, and his relay splits in high school meets, I was pretty confident that he would get a PB. I was thinking a 50 low, maybe he might get a 49.9...I was wrong, he got a 49.29. This was a huge improvement, and like he mentioned, there were a bunch of mistakes in his turns that if he cleaned them up could drop him a good bit more.

#114 (d3/s7): B Open 100 Fly (56.40) - again, early 100 fly swims to open other events made the likelihood of a PB almost guaranteed, and he didn't disappoint. He swam a 53.33, over 3 second improvement on his previous PB time. And along with the 100 Free sprint, provided more confirmation that things are trending in the right direction.

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Following the meet, Bear was feeling much better about his swimming. He even approached Landon and said he wants to get this distance stuff fixed and that he wants Landon to coach him much harder. To really crack down on him until he works through whatever is holding him back.