South Davis Swim Meet

Here's an update for my Aunt Candy (my number one Philly fan) who wanted to know how the swim meet at South Davis went. It was my first trip to the South Davis Rec Center in Bountiful, and what a beautiful facility it is! From what I could see there are multiple swimming pools, ice rinks, state-of-the-art cardio equipment, aerobics rooms, and weight machines. It has a real family feel to it (unlike the gym where I work). The competition pool is 10 lanes, 25 yards, with an additional warm-down pool and diving boards in the deep end. The meet itself attracted some 150 swimmers, which is a pretty good size for a masters meet. The first event of the day was the 1650yd. freestyle, which my friend Brad Gale (of Pool 'n' Patio fame) won in good style in about 18:30. Next up was the 400IM---my first event. Keep in mind, I took 3 months completely off with the broken arm and since then have been swimming 1-2 times a week! I'm not quite sure what I was thinking in signing up for the distance IM. But I swam it and won the women's event---not in a very fast time and certainly not with ease! The butterfly felt great which was surprising because I really haven't had a good rhythm in practice. When I got to the the backstroke, however, I realised that the fly had probably been a bit too fast---and I had 300 yards to go! Yikes! I made it through, albeit with dead legs. Next time I'll pace myself a little bit better.

I also swam the 100 and 200 IMs, 50 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, and the 200 medley and freestyle relays. I won the 200 IM, was 3rd in the 100IM, 2nd in the 100 breast, and about 5th in the 50 free. My times were pretty awful, but as I haven't swum in a meet since college and I certainly don't get near to that same kind of yardage, it's hard to know what is a good time anymore. The relays were a lot of fun, especially the freestyle relay at the end of the meet because 74-year-old Jim DeMet was our anchor and he out-touched the next team by 6 one-hundreths of a second! Way to go Jim!

There are a few more masters swim meets this winter and I'll probably do as many as I can. I'd like to play around with some different events and see what I can do. Swimming the breaststroke was just too depressing---I can't even get near to what I used to swim!

Next event up: P.F. Chang's Rock n' Roll Half Marathon in Phoenix on January 18th! Albert is running the marathon so we're both in the midst of some specific run training right now. December is a busy month, what with holiday parties and spending a week in Indiana, so it's good to just focus on running and let the swimming and biking sit on the back burner for a bit.