Georgia Short Course State Championships - RESULTS
Bear
200 IM – Seeded 21st, Seed Time 2:52.71
Result: 200 IM - 41st : 2:54.95 - Bear's tough times didn't get better here. His first 25 yards of the fly were, good, but he bogged down badly on the 2nd 25 and he finished the opening split in a 41.14. When Bear posted his personal best in this event, his fly leg was a 39.57. So 1.57 seconds slower, and more fatigued by the new stroke. Bear's back was a 44:11 and his back in November in this event was a 42.87. The breast was a 51.94 and the free was a 37.76...
100 Free – Seeded 43rd, Seed Time 1:11.79
Result: 100 Free - 49th : 1:11.32 - Slight improvement here. He worked very hard on this race, he really felt going in he might be able to drop a couple of seconds. His kick was strong and for a while I thought he might post something in the mid 1:10s...
50 Back – seeded 45th, Seed Time 38.27
Result: 50 Back - 68th : 39.36 - I have contended for a long time that Bear's only problem on the back is his turns, and his turn wasn't great on this one, but his problem was also magnified by the fact that he was very diliberate. He confirmed that he was trying to "not make a mistake", which was causing this approach and undoubtedly cost him some time. I tried to make sure he knew that this was the meet to race, to allow all your trainging to take over and not to overthink...but when you're struggling, I guess it is kind of like a slump in baseball...hard to not allow the performance to weigh on you.
200 Free Relay - Seeded 7th, Seed Time 2:06.33
Results: 200 Free Relay - 5th : 2:04.12 - Bear closed Saturday swimming in the 200 Free Relay. The team came in seeded 7th...The leadoff swimmer got a 31.44, followed by the second swimmers 31.43, Bear swam a 31.55, and the anchor closed with a 29.7. They combined for a 2:04.12 and finished 5th, beating two teams with faster seeds. Bear did have the slowest split, but he was faster than all 4 boys on the B Relay.
200 Free – Seeded 17th, Seed Time 2:32.57
Result: 200 Free - 28th : 2:30.79 - Bear really put a ton of effort into this race. I don't know if he really felt he could get to a sectional cut or not with this stroke, but he really went all out. In fact, he actually overworked the stroke a bit, trying to hard to go fast, he eliminated some of his glide and killed some of his speed. He did manage the around 2 second improvement, and I was happy for him, but I didn't feel good about his prospects moving forward as he was just trying to hard...
100 IM – Seeded 48th, Seed Time 1:23.16
Result: 100 IM - 44th : 1:22.29 - Bear's opening fly wasn't bad here. Again the opening 25 he's pretty strong, it isn't until the back half that the fly starts to stall out. In fact, the opening 50 (Fly, Back) was a 38.37 which is the best opening 50 of the season for him. His back half was a good 43.92, not quite a good as the last chance meet but good. So another personal best.
50 Free – Seeded 47th, Seed Time 32.46
Result: 50 Free - 57th : 32.86 - Bear really wanted to rip this swim, and with two personal bests, I was hoping he was going to, but he didn't. He swam well, only slightly off the personal best...but it still deflated the momentum he had going.
100 Back – Seeded 28th, Seed Time 1:22.00
Result: 100 Back - 44th : 1:24.88 - This was a horrible swim. Late, late start, really pushed hard in the opening 25 and closed some ground, but lost the ground he made up with a poor turn. Each turn got worse as the race went along and Bear faded back bad. He was tired and sore after this one.
Result: 500 Free
This was Bear's first race...the best way to describe it I believe is to give you the numbers. This time my card had all of Bear's cuts from the previous 500 a couple of weeks ago. My feeling being that if he is below the splits, he's on track as he only needed .5 seconds to get the time he needed.
Code:
Prev State Meet
35.79 35.87 - This is good, we are right about where we need to be early
1:15.79 1:17.07 - Not good...I start letting him know we are behind
1:55.91 1:57.44 - Picked it up a bit, about a second faster this split, but still behind
2:36.55 2:38.84 - Now I'm starting to worry...really pumping the lap counter, urging him to go faster
3:17.93 3:19.30 - Stopped the bleading but a long way to go to catch the previous pace and have a shot
3:59.54 3:58.90 - And just like that we are ahead of our previous time and on pace for the cut (split of 39.60)
4:39.33 4:39.88 - Slip back just behind the cut...hoping he has a strong kick to finish...
5:19.07 5:18.33 - Only 100 yards left and he's under the cut...
5:58.56 5:57.86 - Literally right on the number...
6:36.72 6:36.38 - Improved - but missed the cut by .19 seconds - closed with a 38.52 split
I wouldn't have believed he could swim a personal best and not get the sectional cut. It is so difficult to fathom .19 seconds when you are talking about a 6 and half minute race. To give you an idea of how fast that is...put your phone on it's stopwatch mode and turn it on and off as fast as you can...I bet you are right around a .19.
Bear actually made a mistake right at the finish that cost him. He peaked. As he was touching the wall, he looked up at the board to see his time, and it shortened his reach. This minor mistake was one of the things that cost him his cut...
Note: I thought about using the Spoiler tag like last time but I wasn't sure if you guys liked not being able to peak ahead or not...so let me know for future reference...
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Brett
200 Breast – Seeded 42nd, Seed Time 3:01.41
Result : 200 Breast - 31st : 2:59.00 -Brett had his best dive pullout of his life in this race. He was patient with the streamline off the block, and arms down streamline after the actual pullout. By not rushing to the surface, he was able to get much further underwater and didn't trail the swimmer to his inside lane at the beginning of the race (Brett was in an outside lane so he had only 1 person next to him). His pullouts were better throughout this race and it paid off with a personal best time. It was very interesting to look at his splits. His opening 50 was swum in a 39.68 and his personal best in the 50 Breast sprint is a 39.50, more amazingly his split at the 100 was a 1:26.03...his personal best for the 100 Breast was a 1:26.58 - so he actually posted a personl best in the 100 Breast and he still had another 100 Breast to go.
The coach was very pleased with Brett's efforts and told him that given how strong his opening 100 was, he expects to see Brett at a 1:23 in the 100 his next race and below 1:20 by start of next season.