26 September 2021
While pools are now consistently open and Masters Swimming teams across Ontario are slowly starting to gain pool time for group workouts, there's no sign of pool swim meets anytime this fall, either from Masters Swimming Ontario or Swim Ontario Masters **. So, when I found out about a time trial being run down at the fantastic Schwarz/Reisman JCC in Vaughan (the indoor pool being #401 on my list), I jumped at the opportunity to get up early on a Sunday morning to do any form of racing possible.
Now, I didn't quite fully pay attention to the information and was surprised to find that (A) they had an outdoor pool and (B) that's where the racing was. Fortunately, the big ball of sun in the sky ...
... and the warm water made the ~8 degree Celsius (~50F) start to the morning seem not so cold. And, as long as the clouds stayed out of the way of the sun, we all floated around in the water between "events" and stayed quite comfortable.
Andrew Bolton, a stud triathlete himself and coach of a few different tri & swimming groups, threw this low-key event together. We all had about 45 minutes to warm up and then he ran heats of two in the middle two lanes, with the outside lanes for floating and cooling down. All events were from a push, but Andrew started and timed every race, and even got some splits. We started with the 400 and then worked our way down, most people doing most events freestyle, but a few folks throwing down some IM and other strokes.
Here's what I did in Short Course Meters:
400 IM - 5:37
200 free - 2:20
100 IM - 1:16
100 free - 1:07
50 Fly - 0:34
While none of those times are particularly fast for me ... they were all faster than I predicted based upon recent workouts. We finished up with some fun relays and there was much rejoicing. On top of the fun I had, this counts as pool #485!
What a wonderful way to start a Sunday. Thanks Andrew!!
**(see Monthy Python for a lucid explanation of swimming politics here)
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