One Hour Postal Swim Race Recap

Today was the Arkansas Masters One Hour Postal Swim Meet.  The Postal Swim Meet is a unique setup since it is a national swim meet.  Each club hosts their own swim event, results are then mailed into the host club, compiled and overall results determined sometime in mid-March.  In this meet you get to compete both locally and nationally which makes it fun.  A fun surprise this year was that T3 Training Systems offered to pay the registration fees for all the swimmers.  They are a new triathlon coaching group in our area and seem to be really nice. 

What's not so fun though is actually swimming for an hour straight, that's right no stopping! The other not so fun part is just how early this meet is held in the day.  Swimmers have to report in at 6AM for the 6:30 heat and since I wasn't sure which heat I would be swimming in I headed into the gym then.  I got lucky and swam in the first heat and then stayed on deck to count laps for a friend in the second heat. 

The race is pretty uneventful...there is a start, then lots of swimming, and then a whistle blowing to stop. I was sharing a lane with my good friend Lori who is a swimming machine.  Lori got me into the Masters group last year and she is part of my Sunday swimming crew.  I swam freestyle for all but 25 yds of the event.  I was a huge wuss and skipped doing flip turns.  This race is all about endurance and trying to keep focused and on pace.  Lori swam around 4300 yds and I kept trying to figure out the gap between our paces. I think she was doing around 4 lengths to my 3 lengths of the pool.

Last year I entered the One Hour Swim after a 3 month hiatus from swimming so I was looking forward to having a better endurance base this year.  My goal was to beat last year's distance but I didn't have a specific distance in mind.  I let my friend Carie (who was timing and counting my laps) know my distance from last year.  She promised to give me a sign if I needed to pick things up so I thought I was doing okay since she never said anything.  I was really surprised to finish and hear my distance though. 

Last year I swam 2935 yds....today I swam 3295 yds.  So close and if we round up it would be 3300! I'm pretty happy with that improvement.  If only you could have seen how red my face was after the race...proof I was working hard.  If you look close in the pic above you can see how red my face was.  I'm on the deck behind the 3 on the white banner.  Another great event put on by the Arkansas Masters club. 

There's still time to enter, even if your club doesn't participate.  You can individually register and complete the event.  You will need a timer to keep track of your lap splits and record your distance.  Check out the USMS site for more details.