Race Report: Swim England SCM Nationals (#763 and #764)

25-26th October 2025

I can't recall when I first learned about the Pond Forge International Sports Centre, but I've been wanting to compete here, or at least train here, since before I moved to England a couple of years ago. Some of my late 1980s University of Texas teammates raced here at the event the pool was built for, the 1991 World University Games, but I was completely off the grid living in rural Eswatini (now Swaziland) then, so I think this facility more likely came into my "pool consciousness" at some point this century. Regardless, I couldn't make the 2024 edition of the Swim England SCM Nationals, so was super-stoked to make the last three sessions (Saturday night and the final two sessions on Sunday) for this year's championships.

The pool (#764) did not disappoint: 10 lanes carved into a men's/open course (foreground, under the scoreboard) and women's course (far side), with each side featuring a 2.0M depth at the start which then dropped to 3.0M at the bulkhead turns.

What was even more exciting than the pool was that my oldest daughter, Maia, made the journey up with me and competed herself. As a swim-parent who was also a swimmer, I often worried, when my three swimming daughters were growing up, that I was putting a little too much pressure on them to be swimmers. I got them into the sport because I wanted to share my love of the sport with them, but I tried hard (maybe not always successfully) to not be one of "those swim-parents" whose pressure took the joy away from their kids' swimming. That Maia has come back to the sport after a break from her wildly successful university swimming career and that she seems to love the Masters Swimming environment and racing made me so happy.

We had family commitments on Friday in London, so we took a leisurely, late morning train up to Sheffield, arriving in gobs of time for the third session of that day, she with the 100 backstroke and me with the 100 IM. Here's how my racing went.

100 IM

• Masters Best – 1:02.91 (2013, age 46)

• 50+ Best – 1:06.03 (December 2022, Swim Ontario IM Fast)

• Result – 1:06.75

• Reaction -

  • I haven't gotten under 1:07 since December of 2022, though I came very close back in April when I went 1:07.00 at the Swim Ontario Provincial Championships. That meet had been a full taper and shave event, and I was neither for this weekend, nor was I wearing a top-end tech suit today ... but, I still harbored hope that my sprint/speed training of late would pay off.

  • While the end result, time-wise, says that it did, this was very much two separate 50s, with the fly-back feeling almost perfect and the breast-free feeling horrible. And, though I had an excellent back-to-breast turn, I pushed off too shallow and "kicked air" on the kick that was supposed to be underwater!

  • That kind of threw my head for a loop; I never "found" my breaststroke technique and then just felt like I was thrashing on the freestyle.

  • I still think I have a 1:05+ race effort in me.

  • Maia took a video from the stands .... lane 2, yellow cap

50 Free

• Masters Best – 25.79 (2008, age 41)

• 50+ Best – 26.68 (December 2022, Swim Ontario IM Fast)

• Result – 26.37

• Reaction -

  • Holy cow! I was just hoping to get under 27.00 as the fastest I've been since moving to the UK was the 27.37 I did last December in Basingstoke.

  • Though I'm not a sprinter, I have raced the 50 free more often than any other race. Most of the times, I enter it precisely for the same reason as I did today: to have a 'warmup race' to get me primed for my real race.

  • I still aim to do well in these "warmup 50s," but my focus for the morning, actually for the whole meet, was the 200 fly, which came up after the 50 on the Sunday morning lineup.

  • I think what worked well on this was the right amount of underwater (5-6 SDKs), but not going too far before I popped up. I also focused on a very high turnover (for me ... it wouldn't have looked like that compared to real sprinters).

  • Oh, and unlike the 100 IM, I did throw on my tech suit for this and the 200 fly.

200 Fly

• Masters Best – 2:15.35 (2011, age 44)

• 50+ Best – 2:25.09 (February 2020, Stephen Forsey Invitational)

• Result – 2:23.47

• Reaction -

  • Not quite the picture of splitting perfection I had two weeks earlier, but I went for a change in strategy ... didn't quite hit it, but the result was great.

  • The change I wanted to make in my race strategy was four-fold. First, I wanted to get out just a little faster, which I did (32.96 vs 33.52 at Millfield), and then I wanted to have my second 50 about 3.5 seconds slower (vs. the 4.3 seconds at Millfield). I got close, hitting a 36.79 split on the second 50. My next objective was to start picking up the effort on the third 50 instead of waiting until the last 50 ... which I also did, notching a nice 36.31 split. I had hoped to have enough juice to further descend my last 50 ... which I did not, going a 37.40 split.

  • I was beyond ecstatic with the time, but that last 25 got very, very, very rough. I managed to hold off the "young guy" (e.g., 46 years old) next to me ... but another couple of meters and he would have had me.

  • Maia also videod this:

100 Breast

• Masters Best – 1:14.39 (2014, age 47)

• 50+ Best – 1:16.94 (November 2017, Ron Johnson Invitational)

• Result – 1:16.39 ... but with a big old DQ

• Reaction -

  • Since I didn't learn about the DQ until I was on the train home, I thought for a few hours that this was a spectacular swim. More on that later.

  • I don't swim this event that often - this is only the 6th time in SCM in my 25 year masters "career" - but three of those times have been since we moved to the UK and the other two outings were 1:19.68 and 1:18.08, so the time is very good.

  • The turn judge claims that I did a non-simultaneous touch on the third turn, which I really don't think happened ... but I talked with my Coach this Saturday morning and he did strongly suggest the judge was correct, so I'll put a little more focus on this during workouts.

  • Maia did capture the video, but not close enough on the turns to see if I did anything wrong ..

In closing, it was an excellent weekend of racing, super-fun to hang out with Maia and watch her race (her 200 IM on Sunday was rocking), and we managed to go out with my Barnet Copthall team for a fun Saturday night dinner.

And the weekend's bonus: swimming far more than 1,001 meters in the separate, diving well / warmup / cooldown pool to make that pool #763.