Monday, January 08, 2007

Anticipation: Charlotte Sunbelt Championship.

My first meet of 2007 will be the 33rd Annual Short Course Yards Sunbelt Championship, held 27-28 January in Charlotte, NC. Now if only I can keep healthy between now and then. The last two years I have been sick with some kind of cold or flu for that weekend. In 2005, I went and raced anyway, and it was at that meet that I got my first national cut. Last year I was sicker, and decided to skip it. So now I am pumping vitamin C and hoping that an El Nino year combined with smaller class size might make for less sickness around here.

On that Saturday, I am entered to swim the 1000 FR (one of my year's goals), 50 BR (for grins and maybe a ribbon), 100 BA (to try to beat my previous best time--another goal), 50 FR (more grins), and 100 IM (how can you not grin?). If you look at the entry form, you might be surprised to see that I am NOT entered to swim the 200 BR, usually one of my big events.

Well, I don't want to swim it. So there.

Seriously, I am not training for it this year, and that means that racing it is both exhausting and potentially disappointing, which leads to stress--and who needs that?

On to Sunday! 50 FL, 100 BR (because OK, I am not exactly training for that either, but it just does not hurt as much as the 200, and so I enjoy swimming it), 200 BA (another event I want to check off my goal list), and 500 FR (because it is at the end of the day, so I can really lay it all out there).

It should be a very different kind of meet from recent years, and not just because I am swimming more backstroke than anything else except distance free, and I am not much at either. That means that the expectations for exceptional results are not there, yet I can go out and maybe have some best times (because they are events I rarely or never swim), and generally have fun.

Let's see if it works.

And yes, in case you're wondering, classes do start this week. Why else would I be devoting so much attention to swimming?

No comments: