Preparing for National Championships
I've done my final tune ups for the National Championships and am ready to start racing this week. This meet is a selection meet for the 2025 World Championships, 2025 World University Games and 2026 Pan Pacific Championships.
Read on to hear what I did in the month of May to prepare!
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What’s Happening?
At the beginning of the month, I participated in the Fort Lauderdale Pro Swim Series. This was my final competition before Nationals and it went extremely well! I decided to focus on my core events and only race one per day. This allowed me to nail down my pre-race routine and my race strategy. On my first day of racing, I swam the 200 butterfly. I swam a 1:56.83 in prelims to seed me 1st going into finals. At night, I added a tenth in 1:56.95 to drop me down to 5th place. Those two swims mark the fastest in-season swims of my career, passing the 1:57.06 from the 2024 San Antonio Pro Swim Series and 1:57.35 from the 2025 Westmont Pro Swim Series. I followed up that performance the next day with a 1:47.35 200 freestyle (1:47.81 in prelims) to also place 5th. This was another massive in-season swim, only 0.43 off of my best time and faster than I went at the US Olympic Trials last summer. I came down to Earth a bit on the next day with a 53.32 100 butterfly placing me 11th. That swim was just off my season-best of 53.11 from March. Overall, I swum my races well and felt confident with my warm up. With more rest throughout the month of May, I will have more speed and power during Nationals.
To give myself an extra edge, I attended a two week altitude camp with Mizzou at the end of May at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center (OPTC) in Colorado Springs, CO. If you've been following along for the last few months, you've probably caught on that I love the benefits of altitude training. Putting on the finishing touches of taper at an elevation of 6,000 feet will give me extra confidence in my races to be able to close strong and recover easier. During our time up there, the Zou Crew took the cog train up to the 14,000 foot summit of Pikes Peak and drove through the Garden of the Gods.
Looking Ahead
You can watch Nationals June 3rd-7th on NBC's streaming network, Peacock TV. Finals start at 7pm EST / 6pm CST. I will be swimming the following schedule:
Day 1 - Tuesday
200 butterfly
Day 2 - Wednesday
200 freestyle
Day 3 - Thursday
100 butterfly
50 backstroke
Day 4 - Friday
100 backstroke
Day 5 - Saturday
50 freestyle
I have brought my foam roller with me to all of my competitions dating back to when I was in high school. That is one well-travelled roller, seeing the likes of Chile, China, Korea, Singapore, Mexico, as well as countless domestric locations. It has been a great travel companion, sometimes I'll even roll out in the airport! It's also a critical part of my dynamic warm up and recovery routine.
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