My non-workout blog and random thoughts

I swam at the Ron Johnson Invitational meet this weekend and achieved one of my goals for this year. I'm proud to report that my brother also achieved one of his goals at another meet held in Washington during this weekend.

First, if you have never been to the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center in November, it is really a great time of year to visit Tempe. The weather is much cooler - in the 70's - as opposed to 100 - 120f in the summer. The pool is very fast - deep, great non-slip surfaces on the bulkhead, waveless gutters and lane lines. They have a new digital scoreboard that is easy to read and makes the venue more professional. The bulkhead splits the long course pool into two parts and there were plenty of lanes for warm up and cool down. Of course, the sunny skies and coolish temperatures makes a great environment for swimming fast.

The meet is superbly run. My hat is off to Katy James - the meet director. The officials were real professionals who impressed me with their knowledge of the rules as well as their knowledge of swimming technique. All the timers were volunteers and I as well as my fellow masters swimmers thanked them for volunteering. I also had a chance to thank the starter and meet referee before leaving the meet. I highly recommend this meet to any swimmer.

It was really good to see my fellow competitors and friends- Tall Paul and Laura Smith, Barry Roth, Bob DiTolla, Gail Roper, Robert Wilson, Patty Buffett and the Queen. I watched Jeff Commings and Dave Rollins smoke the water with some amazingly fast swims. I didn't get a chance to meet Mike Mann, but perhaps I will if he goes to Long Beach. I did see him swim and man (pun intended), is he fast!

My goals for this year were to reset some backstroke SCM and LCM World Records. I didn't do so well at LCM, but I was able to reset the 50 meter backstroke record in the 55-59 age group - 29.07. In a previous post, I had dedicated this swim to the memory of Ron Johnson. He was a great swimmer and masters coach. And I think that the extra motivation help me. After the race was over, I meditated for a few moments and thought about Ron and hoped that he was racing in that big pool above us.

On a more earthly level, I feel pretty good about this record because the previous record holder was encased in a B70 - much like I was. I missed the 200 record by 0.4 second, but was feeling rather weird before the race - something was missing. Perhaps at Long Beach? I was humbled in the 50 back by a wonderful swimmer - Sheri Hart of Denver. She won the heat in a time of 28.86 - not bad for a 38 year old. We had a chance to compare notes afterwards and like most masters swimmers - just a really nice person.

While I was basking in the warmth of Tempe, my brother, Lincoln, was at a SCM swim meet in Washington. I got an email from a dear friend (and college team mate) telling me that the local paper had announced that he was coming up to the meet to break the 50-54 400 IM record. And sure enough, he did! But he was not very happy with his swim. In an email, he said he was on pace 3:44 at the 300, but died badly - finishing in 1:11 for the 100 free and with a final time of 4:55 (beating the old record by 2 seconds). As for myself, I would love to swim that fast. I'm really proud of my brother for his accomplishments - even though he wishes that he had a stronger freestyle leg.

For a short time (as records will be broken in the near future), I am honored to be in the record books with my younger and much faster brother.

It's off to Long Beach in two weeks!