Spma Regionals was today, I set personal bests in the 50, 100, 500 Freestyle

It was a good weekend for me at the SPMA Regionals. This year the event was held at the Marguerite Aquatics Complex in Mission Viejo, home of the Nadadores. This is the same pool that Kate Ziegler set her world record in the 1500 Free. That water is summarily holy.

I have to say that this Regionals meet was the most organized meet I have ever been too. Online registration through Club Assistant was both effortless and painless. The meet itself went extremely fast since each event utilized 10 lanes instead of 8. The results of each event were posted on the board generally within a half hour, and the results for the day were posted online that night. I am just really impressed with the Nadadores organization. Thank you Coach Mark!

On Saturday morning I drove the 68 miles from my house to the Regionals meet generally listening to European electronic music with a 120 BPM so I could get amped for the meet. When I arrived on Saturday morning, I warmed up, and got ready for the first meet of the day, the 200 free.

Now, I get stage fright when I race and sometimes it gets so bad that my heart rate goes up to 125 beats per minute while I am just sitting down in the chair waiting for my heat. I will try to get rid of it by hyperventilating but then I end up getting dizzy and then think I am about to have a stroke. It's the only activity in my life where I turn into a "Woody Allen" analog and it occurs in about 30% of my races.

So, on Saturday morning, the 200 Freestyle was one of those "Woody Allen" races. Again, I start running the usual bizarre scenarios through my head like what if my goggle twists around during the dive, pinches my eyelid shut while the other eye piece gets filled with water and forces me swim half blind? What will I do when that happens? Well, One second into the race I found out.

When the bell went off and I went in, my goggles twisted badly. My left eye was completely shut and my other eye looked like a looking through a goldfish bowl. Turns out there are three options you can do when this happens:

A) The Michael Phelps option - you just swim with your goggles messed up.
B) The Anthony Cistaro option - you throw them off you head and swim blurry eyed
C) The Clay Evans option where you swim to the other wall - clear them, push off and resume the race if you insist on the need to wear goggles.

Or, if you are a couple clowns short of circus like I am, you stop in the middle of the pool, take them off your head, shake them out, put them back on and start swimming from a dead stop. I finished the 200 Free in a 2:13+ which is just 2 seconds off my personal best. It only got better after that:

50 Free: 26.24 - Personal best! (3rd place out of 14 in my age group)
100 Free: 58.67 - Personal best! (5th out of 14 in my age group)
500 Free: 6:10.37 - Personal best! (Pending for results tonight)

With only 13 people, SCAQ placed 8th. Join us!

SPMA Regionals 3rd day: Doug Kajiwara stormed just about every event he was in.

Erratum: Doug won every event he was in and I spelled his name wrong. Doh! It is corrected now.

Doug did well today, he either ribboned or medaled in every event he signed up for. I swim with Doug about 2-3 days a week and he is inspiring to pace off of. I am going to post a video of several swims that took place today here at the blog once I am done editing them all.

BTW, why does the water always look bluer when fast people are in it?

Sea creatures made of glass

In about a 1/2 hour or so I head off to the third day of SPMA Regionals. I am bringing the camera and I may post a video too. Again, I am hoping to break the one minute barrier in the 100 free for the second time in my life.

For now here is a very ornate gallery of sea creatures modeled in glass from the 1800's. Be sure to check out the glass octopus [Link]

Day Two SPMA Regionals: A very eventful day

UPDATE: William Patrick (Parry) O'Brien passed away at the SPMA Regional meet yesterday. As a witness to his passing I can say he is sorely missed.

William Patrick (Parry) O'Brien is an Olympian who competed in four consecutive summer Olympics. His event was the shot put where he won two consecutive gold medals in 1952 and 1956, a silver in 1960, and he placed fourth in 1964. As a result of his contribution to US Track and Field he was inducted to the US Olympic Hall of Fame.

But Parry loves swimming just as much.

In the middle-eighties here was a guy with stacks of trophies, gold medals and a silver who discovered Masters swimming and began swimming regularly. Clay Evans told me that during a meet at Santa Monica College in or around that decade he saw Parry standing in line to collect a 6th place, cheesy, SPMA, ribbon to add to his collection because swimming meant so much to him. Parry swims open water, swim meets, workouts, everything and everywhere.

Today during the 500 free Parry came out of a flip-turn in or around the 200 yard mark and lost consciousness. For what seemed like 20 minutes or so; (I want to emphasize that it seemed that long since time dilates during a tragedy), lifeguards were administering CPR to revive him without pause. Then the paramedics came, added an IV line and spent another 5-10 minutes doing the same compression pumps to his chest. Soon the defibrillator was brought out and it was nothing like what you see on TV where the patient jerks. It was much more graphic and unpleasant to see and it certainly looks like no fun to go through.

I don't know what happened after they took Parry to the hospital, the meet was stopped for perhaps 1-2 hours, but later resumed because Parry would have been pissed if it stopped.

My times were mixed: 26.87 for the 50 free, 35.99 for the 50 fly. Tomorrow I try and break a minute in the 100 free. I will post pictures once the shell shock wears off.