Provincials: Day 2

100m free, 50m free, 2 relays and a 400m free. What a long day it was. I started off the morning session with a solid 59.55 in the 100. Considering that I've only gone under 1min a handful of times when my focus was sprinting, I was pretty happy with myself. Next up, just before the lunch break, was the 200m medley men's relay. I swam the freestyle leg of course and although we came first for being the only ones in our age category, I think we actually came 3rd or 4th overall which is pretty impressive considering some of the talent at this meet. Over the lunch break my original plan was to go get a 6" sub at Subway but I found out that I wasn't going to get the extra time from a second warm-up so I just decided to eat my many snacks instead.

First race in the afternoon was the 50m free which I swam in 27.43 followed by the 200m freestyle mixed relay and the 400m free. I lead the relay and raced in my drag suit due to the fact that my legs were getting tired from being in my Speedo aquablade all morning. We did pretty well and I loved the team spirit my team-mates showed even though we had never met before. I didn't get my times for either of the relays because although I still gave 100%, it didn't really matter that much to me.

Finally, I had the 400m free and boy was that ever rough. I really wanted to get around 4:40-4:45 but I was so burnt out and unprepared that things didn't go so well. I took it out around 1:06 (I think) which was as planned but I noticed at the 150m mark that I was about to die hard. I ended up dropping my pace to around 38-39/50m and finished my last 50m in a "quick" 36. I was in lane 8 which was nice for the encouragement from team-mates on deck right beside me but it was tough for me to see how the race was going. I thought that the rest of the field dropped me after the first 100m with the exception of one guy in the farther lanes but it turns out that I only got beat by lane 6 and 7. When my friend Nilesh told me that after the meet was over it brought my spirits back up a little after being disappointed by my performance. Don't get me wrong though, I still did well. I managed to get a pb and go 4:57 which I was happy with because I went under 5mins. I was just disappointed in the fact that I knew, had I either paced better or had the 400m been the first event of the day, I would have done much better. I shouldn't really complain though, my all time pb in the 400m is about 4:55 and that was when I used to train 10+hrs a week. As much as I am looking forward to the head to head in the 200m free tomorrow with Alex Vanderlinden along with the 800m, which hopefully I pace better than my 400m, I can't wait for this meet to be over. I have some school work I need to get done and I never enjoy leaving it until Sunday.

Here are some details on the day:

Breakfast:

• Vector cereal (medium sized bowl, didn't want to force down a full bowl)
• Apple

Lunch/snacks:

• Water bottle filled with orange juice
• Goldfish
• Nutri-grain
• Fruit cup
• Yogurt
• more granola bars, fruit cups and yogurt

I generally only ate half a fruit cup or a nutri-grain bar if I felt like I needed something to eat during the long wait between races, but otherwise I had orange juice and during lunch I had a mix of everything.

Dinner: for dinner I just had some leftover pasta, some breaded fish and freezer veggies

EDIT: I completely forgot to mention my sleep. I had some trouble falling asleep the night before and that may have had a negative impact on my performance and fatigue.