11 December 2020 With the completion of my 1500 meter freestyle today, I finished the full lineup of pool events (along with some fun additions like the 800 IM and the 25 dolphin dive), completing my entry to Masters Swimming Ontario's Not-Quite-Nationals Virtual Pool Challenge. It's taken me 3 weeks to schedule enough 45 minute slots across one of Barrie's three 25 meter pools - Holly, East Bayfield and Allandale Community Centres - ... but I had a blast mixing up my workou

6 December 2020 I was over at my local LA Fitness today, testing my progress on my 400 (yards) Kick For Time, a virtual event that I've done every year since I first discovered it back in 2013. My times have varied widely over those 8 years, from a peak performance of 5:38.25 in 2014 to my slowest performance of 5:54.23, recorded last year. I've set a goal to achieve my "Masters Best" this year. Given all the hiking I've done this year, which I began in earnest during the m

3 December 2020 Holly Community Centre - Barrie - 25 meters ... is always easy to do when you do something for the first time! In my 45+ years as a competitive swimmer, I've never "raced" an 800 IM ... both because it is damn hard and because it's not an official event. Apparently, though, some swimmers like this in some Commonwealth countries as both the Australian Masters and Masters Swimming Ontario (MSO) keep records. Continuing my efforts to knock out all events in MSO

30 November 2020 LA Fitness - Barrie Cundles Road - 25 yards Ultra-Short Race Pace Training became all the rage a few years ago, spurred on particularly when then 14 year old Michael Andrew went pro. Young Mr. Andrew was coached by his father and was the poster-child for this training methodology, an approach that eschewed swimming's more traditional training approach of lots of yards in favor of swimming fast, but with lower volume. Kind of a less is more approach. As an a