USMS Las Vegas LCM Swim Meet Recap

The Las Vegas swim meet and weekend trip was fantastic. Karen and I had a blast at this ultra-quick long course meet at the Desert Breeze Park pool in Sin City. We left early and made it up there in under four hours, passing more Highway Patrol cars that either of us had EVER seen on that highway. They were out in droves.

We arrived at the pool early, found a cozy little spot on the bleachers, and were soon joined by Chad Durieux, the Rose Bowl Aquatics coach, who just so happened to be celebrating a birthday that day (Happy Birthday, Chad!). I was also stoked to see Marc Mohr, from my team, CVMM, who is always so supportive and who rocked his swims.

The meet got underway at around 1:25 pm and was over just a little after 3:40 pm. It went QUICKLY, as there were only around 50 swimmers registered, with most events having 2-3 heats (besides the 50s, where we got up to 4-5).

We love Bosc pears

Since I was swimming five events, there was not much rest in between my swims and it seemed that I spent much of those two hours in the warm-down pool, unwinding from the previous swim and waiting for my next one to begin (barely even time to dry off most of the time).

The fast-paced meet was a challenge, but was good experience and fun to sneak in five long course events, four of which I hadn't swam at a Masters LC meet yet. The day began with the 400 Freestyle and I felt strong throughout the swim, finishing in a 5:14.03. I split: 1:15.32, 1:19.72, 1:20.38, 1:19.39. I really like this event and now that I've swam it once, I'm looking forward to giving it another go. Chad and I had a little challenge going down before the 400; and he squeaked me out, swimming in the heat before mine, coming in with a 5:13.83. Next time, Chad... next time! =)

From there, I had the 100 Free (ok time, but sort of sluggish, at 1:08.51); 200 Free (we won't discuss this one - ha ha. Not to make excuses, but I was still huffing & puffing from my 100 Free and my time was pretty close to my 200 split in the 400 - eek); 50 Free and then rounding it out with 100 Breaststroke (which is totally a learning experience for me and ended up being pretty fun & an ok time at 1:36.34).

My partner-in-crime, Karen, had excellent swims and bettered her times by a lot (10 seconds in the 400 - woo hoo). She was generous enough to snap photos of me throughout the meet (most of which you see on this blog are courtesy of K); and we really had a great time at our acceleratedly swift meet.

Afterwards we headed over to the Cancun Resort, where she had booked a night and checked into our cool little villa that overlooked this pool (below), complete with water slides. What a place! I highly recommend Cancun if you don't mind being away from the Strip and just want to relax, enjoy the amenities of a full kitchen/villa setting, and play in their water park.

We found a delicious little vegan restaurant for dinner and were then able to appreciate the warm summer Vegas night on our balcony for a bit. We slept in on Sunday morning (yay!) and then headed back to Southern California so I could celebrate Steve's Father's Day celebration with the kiddos. It was a fantastic weekend and I'm really glad that I was able to go, clear my head and heart of some of the difficult losses last week, and appreciate life.