RR: Swim Meet - 1000 yards freestyle

After only swimming about 90 minutes in three session in the past 2.5 months I swam in a US Masters Swimming meet. I had entered the 1650 but was able to downgrade to the easier 1000 the week prior. Let's face it, I wasn't ready for the longer swim.

But I was very pleased with my 1000; it felt really good to dive into the pool and swim. All I focused on was keeping my stroke nice and long and maintaining a consistent pace. With my lack of training and doing my first weight session in over a year on Wednesday, I assumed my arms would fatigue quickly so I just wanted to maintain proper form. Turns out muscle memory and competitiveness help a lot when fitness is lacking. I suspect I was only ~60-90 seconds slower than if I had been training weekly. Yikes, that amount of time seems so insignificant in the triathlon world, but in the swimming world it's a lot!

Here are my splits:

14:58.00 (entered guesstimated time)
13:29.19 (actual time)
35.67 1:13.97 (38.30)
1:53.08 (39.11) 2:33.14 (40.06)
3:13.66 (40.52) 3:54.68 (41.02)
4:36.05 (41.37) 5:17.67 (41.62)
5:59.21 (41.54) 6:40.79 (41.58)
7:22.34 (41.55) 8:03.32 (40.98)
8:44.68 (41.36) 9:25.73 (41.05)
10:06.87 (41.14) 10:47.74 (40.87)
11:28.77 (41.03) 12:09.64 (40.87)
12:50.27 (40.63) 13:29.19 (38.92)

The USMS qualifying time for my age group is 13:07.59, so I wasn't too far off. Not bad for my post-baby comeback. Just think that one year ago this month I swam 8 miles across Tampa Bay - what a difference one year makes!