March 4th, 1650 yards, 20:59.95. (Male, 4 days before my 49th birthday).
This is a little late, but the
final results with the splits necessary for me to perform the autopsy on my self-destruction were slow to be posted. I promised Monty in the March Aquatic Mammal thread I'd share the post-mortum. Here it is.
I had gone 20:53 six weeks earlier. I paced by perceive effort, and was pretty pleased with the
reasonably consistent splits, especially as this was my first 1650 race in 2 years, and only my second as a Masters swimmer. I was, however, a little over 20 seconds short of achieving my goal of a National Qualifying Time.
After that, I did a short sprint training block with the aim of achieving an NQT in the 100 free at a February meet, and managed to do so. I then circled back around to distance pace work, trying to improve my endurance with longer repeats.
I knew that at at the pool for the March meet, I would be able to see the splits on the scoreboard every 50. My plan was to pace off the board, trying to hold 37.50's. I hung on through about 750, but then posted 4 consecutive 38.lows, and was fighting awfully hard to do that. By that point, I knew I wasn't likely to make my goal time, but thought sure I was on pace to set a new PR. (I was, indeed, over 7 seconds ahead my PB pace at that time) I decided to give it one more surge to see if I could get back under 37.50. It didn't happen. And then the piano fell out of the sky and landed on squarely on my back. I was driving the struggle bus just to hold 39's from 1000 yards on. I even posted a 40.low on one 50. I managed to rally a little bit for the last 100, but it was far from the close I'd had in January. Over the last 650 yards, I went 14 seconds slower than I'd gone six weeks prior. Final time was 6 seconds slower. My attitude going in was "I'm gonna go 37.50s to the end, or die trying." The latter is what happened.
I'm still working on 1650 pace. I managed to go 20:55 off a wall start, after a sprint set, at Masters practice a couple weeks ago. I actually pulled a 20:51 without paddles last week. I think I've made a little progress, but it looks like I'm gonna have to go full-Leroy at the "last chance" meet in April with a taper (well, as much as you can taper from 12k yards a week), shave, and a tech suit, to give myself the best shot at getting that NQT.
I'll post an update after that event.
"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"