IVP Swimming 1500m

it's been a long journey, many ups and downs, which culminated on this one day.

did my warm ups, 600m free plus 8 x 100m on 1:50. the sports school pool was cold, but not as cold as i thought it'd be. must be getting fat, so got a bit of insulation.

i'll just skip to the race, cause thats the interesting part.

the horn went, and i plunged! i was in lane 2, b/w to shawn poon (lane 1) and johnson (lane 3). i decided beforehand that i would dedicate every 100m to people who have helped me in my journey thus far.

the first 100m was ridiculously fast. 1:14. this was for coach david, the man who must take the majority of the credit for my swimming successes thus far. i owe all that i can do in the pool to him.

second 100m was for jason. my companion in swim trainings and my neighbour and dinner partner in hall, and the occasional helpful advice.

third 100m was to JJ and mich. (they must come together in a pair u see) thanks for the encouragement and belief, and being great team mates.

fourth 100m went to nic and norms. the last min phone call this morning was very touching and encouraging. thanks for the support and comraderie from you 2.

fifth 100m was to zy and aldrich. thanks for your brilliant work last year that allowed me to develop my potential as an endurance athlete. pa thanks for the faith and trust, and zy for the undying support throughout, with the "go jon!"s before target sets.

was settling well (but uncomfortable. if it was comfortable then i'm not pushing myself) into a 1:23/100m pace now and was swimming neck to neck with shawn the whole time. then at the start of the 600m he picked up the pace. i couldnt match that and just maintained my own swim.

sixth 100m goes to weiming and sandy, our swimming captains. thanks for running the team with all the behind-the-scenes admin work (no thanks to ca-ca-ca-carson) and letting everyone else just having to worry about focussing on their own swims. thanks also for welcoming jason and i into the team with open arms and made us feel a part of this wonderful team of insanely fast people.

i started to zone out at this part, but the first 25m of the 7th 100m is for leon, who has been most forthcoming with his advice, experience and encouragement the whole time. really appreciate it man. the rest of the 7th 100m were to a few others who i drew inspiration from. they were just flashing through my mind already, not that they were not important =)



at this point i could no longer think so clearly anymore. my mental energies had to be devoted to keep pushing myself so as not to drop my pace. managed to keep up 1:23 to about 800m where i started to drop a bit of time to 1:25. this lasted till the 1100m mark, then the next 300m were at 1:26. i couldnt push even harder anymore as i had planned. last 100m i picked it back up a little to end it at 1:25. goodness, what a swim. i've never gone so hard so hard before. wonder what time i did.

looked up, saw at the end of my name were the numbers 20:55

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok that was what was going on inside my head, though i didnt show it. coming in 7th (not that i care bout my position) and splashing around and cheering as if i won would be really wierd, not to mention that i was in a bit of a shock when i saw it. but inside i was ecstatic. (on hindsight i should have just done it, who cares about the others anyway) my target was 21:02, which at first i thought would be a bit of a stretch. but this was just unbelievable.

thanks goes out to God for this swim. without Him again, i would not hve been able to do this.

i finally realized how hard i had exerted myself when my lats burned and ached so much that i couldnt stretch them at all. even doing lat pull downs at the gym didnt feel so bad. but the pain also told me that i had given my all on this given day today.

happy =)

on and end note, will take a short break from swimming now to focus on stan chart, then the aim for Bi IVP season in march is to do a sub 20. can hardly wait =D