Road Trip ASA Nationals 2014 Day 2 Sleep in my Speedo?

Success!

A heavy day ahead. 400 free, 100 breast, and 400 IM what on earth was I thinking! The only credible explanation I can come up with was in that flood of relief of finally persuading the computer to say yes, I was clearly temporarily  mentally incapacitated.  (Have a look here and here and here there's more and the links are in the wrong order but you get the picture right!)

More importantly it was time to unleash my devious and cunning plan on my fellow competitors! or more accurately take the new bodysuit for a spin.

But first could I get into it? The answer was well sort of......with a little help from teenage triathlete. I had tried it on in the privacy of my hotel room, (as you can see from these ever so flatterring photos) to squeals of derision and hilarity from a hugely supportive daughter.

I'm not sure that the technique we adopted for inserting oneself into this garment is approved by Speedo but it worked for us. Although overcome by hysteria TT was able to place her foot on my hip (to brace herself) then grab the shoulder strap and pull whilst I was able to somehow contort my arm through the fiendishly small opening. Success I was in it (or most of me was!).

And yes I can just about bend over to start.

Now should I sleep in it to avoid having to go through that performance again?

Anyway the swimming, well the 400 free was fairly smooth and 3 seconds faster than South Shields last month, with the suit holding up well.

The 100 breast was next up, with Amanda Heath judging to perfection how much effort she needed to beat, me not a lot as it turns out. (a mere .06 of a second) well there's no point in overdoing things is there!

Then the 400 medley. Now how many opportunities are there to be dq'd in a 400 medley?I have to go back to 2001 to find the last time I swam this event and really I struggled with working out what entry time I should put in.

This was difficult because the last time I'd swam a straight 100 fly (here) it had been slightly disastrous and excruciatingly painful and more to the point I could finish after 4 lengths I didn't have to carry on for another 300 metres afterwards.

I ended up in the first heat and any delusions of grandeur I had because I'd actually hit the pads first evaporated when I got out to be critiqued by teenage triathlete who appeared to have morphed into Evil Mutant Swim Coach 9.0, tutting at my splits and announcing, "your fly was horrible, your backstroke hideous, breaststroke ok and free too slow" hmmm thanks for that, I was just pleased to have finished.

600 warm up
400 free 5:24.
200 swim down
400 warm up
100 breast 1:29.08
200 swim down
400 IM 6:29...
200 swim down
2600 metres