It was a good weekend for me at the SPMA Regionals. This year the event was held at the Marguerite Aquatics Complex in Mission Viejo, home of the Nadadores. This is the same pool that Kate Ziegler set her world record in the 1500 Free. That water is summarily holy.
I have to say that this Regionals meet was the most organized meet I have ever been too. Online registration through Club Assistant was both effortless and painless. The meet itself went extremely fast since each event utilized 10 lanes instead of 8. The results of each event were posted on the board generally within a half hour, and the results for the day were posted online that night. I am just really impressed with the Nadadores organization. Thank you Coach Mark!
On Saturday morning I drove the 68 miles from my house to the Regionals meet generally listening to European electronic music with a 120 BPM so I could get amped for the meet. When I arrived on Saturday morning, I warmed up, and got ready for the first meet of the day, the 200 free.
Now, I get stage fright when I race and sometimes it gets so bad that my heart rate goes up to 125 beats per minute while I am just sitting down in the chair waiting for my heat. I will try to get rid of it by hyperventilating but then I end up getting dizzy and then think I am about to have a stroke. It's the only activity in my life where I turn into a "Woody Allen" analog and it occurs in about 30% of my races.
So, on Saturday morning, the 200 Freestyle was one of those "Woody Allen" races. Again, I start running the usual bizarre scenarios through my head like what if my goggle twists around during the dive, pinches my eyelid shut while the other eye piece gets filled with water and forces me swim half blind? What will I do when that happens? Well, One second into the race I found out.
When the bell went off and I went in, my goggles twisted badly. My left eye was completely shut and my other eye looked like a looking through a goldfish bowl. Turns out there are three options you can do when this happens:
A) The Michael Phelps option - you just swim with your goggles messed up.
B) The Anthony Cistaro option - you throw them off you head and swim blurry eyed
C) The Clay Evans option where you swim to the other wall - clear them, push off and resume the race if you insist on the need to wear goggles.
Or, if you are a couple clowns short of circus like I am, you stop in the middle of the pool, take them off your head, shake them out, put them back on and start swimming from a dead stop. I finished the 200 Free in a 2:13+ which is just 2 seconds off my personal best. It only got better after that:
50 Free: 26.24 - Personal best! (3rd place out of 14 in my age group)
100 Free: 58.67 - Personal best! (5th out of 14 in my age group)
500 Free: 6:10.37 - Personal best! (Pending for results tonight)
With only 13 people, SCAQ placed 8th. Join us!
6 comments:
Great swimming, Tony!
Tony,
You actually swam much faster in the 100 - 56 not 58. Don't know how the official result got screwed up. I was there, I saw it!
Like you I often listen to Electro Euro Beat music before a race, and often do an excellent job psyching myself out before a race. I'm also paranoid about losing my goggles during a race ('cause I'm going to just keep on swimming) and so I crank up my goggles' tightness until my eyes start to pop. Too bad about the 200 but finishing only two seconds off your best after all that probably makes it one of your better races. Nifty medal there Tony!
Damn! All that swimming is paying off. Great swims! Congrats on the medal. See you at UCLA in a few weeks.
Congrats, Tony! Awesome meet.
Congratulations Tony,
Your and the other SCAQ performances are very inspiring to us newcomers!
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