Arkansas Masters Swim Meet Recap

Today was my first swim meet since probably the age of 10! I remember being in the summer swim league when my dad lived in Albany, NY but I don't remember doing any organized swimming after that.  I did take a swimming class in college for HPER credit and vaguely remember doing a mile swim in around 45 minutes as the class final. 

The forecast today was for a HOT, HOT, HOT, Day! I was pleasantly surprised to see overcast skies when I got up and headed to the pool.  It stayed overcast for at least the first half of the meet.  I didn't really know what to expect for the meet.  My friend and coworker Lori was the meet director and this is the 2nd Masters swimming event that she has "conned" me into.  Truthfully I like swimming and am enjoying getting back into it. 

Memorial Park Pool

I had pre-registered for the 50 back, 50 free, 100 free, and 1500 free.  The pool is a 50 m pool with 8 lanes and diving blocks at each end.  I wasn't comfortable doing dive starts so I just started from the wall which probably cost me a little time in the sprints.  My first event was the 100 free followed immediately by the 50 back.  Note for the future...Not a good choice to have two events so close together. 

My 100 free went really well and my time was around 1:33sec.  I got out of the pool and started to walk to the opposite end for the 50 back sprint.  My legs felt super tired from the first race and I knew I might have made a bad choice.  My 50 back was around 53 sec which made me happy since I really haven't swam anything other than the freestyle stroke in so many years.  My 50 free came in at just under 42 sec and that included a very slow start.  I think I could have easily broken 40 sec with a dive start...something to work on for the next one.  The final event was the 1500 free which I was treating as a workout.  I wanted to get in a good solid section of swimming and find out what my time would be.  I ended with 32:35 and finished with a good pace for the last 50 m of the swim.  I don't know where the extra burst came from...maybe I just wanted to be done.

Arkansas Masters Swim Meet 2010

There are a few more Masters swim meets this summer so I'll keep you posted on whether I plan to swim in those too.  I have really found Masters swimmers to be a nice bunch of people.  Our club has a lot of triathletes who swim so that makes it seem less intimidating to me.