Today was the start the SPMA Short Course Meters Championships at the Belmont Plaza in Long Beach, California.
The meet is currently off the hook both size-wise and record-wise! The Masters Club throwing the event, The Long Beach Grunions, are doing such a superb job. Today alone sixteen world records were set and the quality of the swimming was something I have never seen at a Masters Swimming event before. I suspect a total of 75 World Records will be set before the end of the weekend. Even Coach Ahelee set one in the 200-back! I believe her time was a 2:34.24. It was glorious!
This is the last dance for suits and when the swimmers lined up on the blocks, you saw a ratio of people wearing tech-suits as compared to retro-textile running at about 8-to-1.
Now for my dangerously stupid mistake:
The meet has over 600 competitors and it ran hopelessly late. The meet started at 9:00 AM and my relay did not go off till 9:10 PM. I was tired, everything seemed hazy and surreal and I was yawning. (I suppose these are my excuses to lessen my stupidity but even still I am seriously considering never swimming an 800-relay ever again so as to prevent something like this from happening again.)
The first SCAQ swimmer came in a 2:03 and second came in what I thought to be a 2:08. Erroneously, I thought it was my turn to dive and subsequently I dove. I am 6'2" and I weigh between 190-195-pounds and it would have been catastrophic if I landed on him. A teammate yelled at the last minute and I was able to avert a collision. A swimmer in the heat just before did the very same thing but he hit his teammate pretty hard and it wasn't pretty.
I was in the heat 8, the final heat of the 4x200 Free relay. I am swimming in lane 8 and all of the above can be viewed at LiveSwim.net
Why do I mention this: well, I am certainly not bragging. I mention this to illustrate that if I screw up at a meet or on this blog I will admit it, own it, and try to improve. In this example of a severe meet "FAIL" you can see me falter in a very clumsy and stupid way and I am pointing it out. If you see my words "FAIL" on this blog, please point it out and I will correct it.
7 comments:
wowser! blame it on swimming at 9pm. yesterday was too long of a day. how did you 100 free go?
An anemic 1:04.77 but it turns out to be a personal best. :-)
Oh, dear! (Swim the 800 free relay again -- just ask to be lead-off swimmer.)
Better swims ahead!
P.S. A personal best is always a good thing!
Close call Tony! Im glad you're all right. It happens more than you think. Ive even seen swimmers stop in individual races at the 150 thinking that they are done.
Anonymous, I think you personally know me. ;-)
Hrmph, Voldemort admits bad things he does all the time, like...well I'm pretty sure he thinks he did something wrong at some point. Maybe>
And he has never, nor will he ever, make a mistake in a race because he has mastered the art of not racing! ;-)
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