Ella Eastin’s Final 500 Free — Saving the Best for Last

In the last 500 free of her collegiate career, Ella Eastin captured the win Thursday night with a personal best of 4:32.89 at the 2019 Pac-12 Championships. It was a strong way for her final race ever in the event.

“There is a lot of lasts coming up and I’m trying to treasure all of these moments,” Eastin told Swimming World.

Though known for her dominance in the medleys and butterfly, why would Eastin choose to swim the mid-distance freestyle? As she put it, “I swam the 500 here last year and felt like it was a good way to keep my focus on NCAA’s in the sense that I’m going to do some different events here than I am in March. Swimming the 500 was a way to keep my mind going and stay competitive but not focus to much on my best races. I used this same strategy last year and knew I could put something good together tonight.”

Eastin claims that one of her keys to success at the 500 distance was her training for the 400 IM. She focused on keeping a relaxed stroke on the front half of the race and then really nailing her underwaters on the back half, which ultimately lead to a win.

“I stayed relaxed on the first 200 and let my excitement determine my front speed and kept in my mind that I wanted to go faster on the back end and make sure every underwater was purposeful, I extended my walls on every turn and increased my tempo and kick towards the end,” she said.

For a complete recap of Thursday night’s events click here.

Photo Courtesy: McKenna Ehrmantraut

Another big factor in her win was that she was getting to race with her teammates. “I had a couple of my training partners (Lauren Pitzer, Morgan Tankersley and Erin Voss) in the heat with me and we push each other every single day so it was fun to have them with me, pushing me, in the race,” Eastin said.

While Eastin isn’t primarily a 500 swimmer, she knew if she tried hard enough and everything came together in her race, she had a chance.

“I don’t ever expect to win, but I knew if I put together a really good swim that I’d be in contention and I wanted to be really competitive. It’s one of the things I take pride in with my races, I happened to feel good and it worked out,” Eastin said.

Eastin put her final collegiate 500 free in the books on Thursday night, but still has a few exciting races left at both the Women’s Pac 12 Conference and NCAAs.

“I’m excited to continue to watch my teammates swim. Watching them perform at a really high level excites me. In the heat before my 500 we (Stanford) got first, second and fourth and there was a best time in that heat and other best times throughout the day from my teammates. It’s always exciting to feed off of everyone’s energy and I’m looking forward to feeding off of that throughout the meet and seeing what we, as a team, can accomplish,” Eastin said.

For more information on Pac 12 teams visit here.

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Doreen Lemke

5 years ago

Congratulations!

Susan L. Lansbury

5 years ago

awesome swimmer!!!!