celebration!
I know there is something unseemly about bragging about ones swimming times. I think for many masters swimmers, a sense of personal accomplishment is best savored inwardly. John Wayne, were he to have taken up masters swimming, certainly would never have jumped up and down in giddy pride over a personal record. Nor, I suspect, would Clint Eastwood.
Having said this, I would just like to take a moment to jump up and down in shameless giddly pride over a recent swim I had!!!
At Y nationals in Ft. Lauderdale a couple weeks ago, at the age of 49, I swam the best 200 yard freestyle of my life--a 1:55.11, which beat my high school and college time by nearly a full second. I realize this may actually say a lot more about my former mediocrity that it does about my current prowesss, but the fact remains that as I near semi-centenarian status, I was able to whoop my teenage self!!! (Sorry about that, youngster Jim; you just didn't know how to race smart back then.)
I went into the race hoping just to break two minutes; I had never before broken 1:56, and this didn't even enter my consciousness as a possibility. When I finished the race--splitting 57 and 58 respectively--I wasn't even all that exhausted. I looked over, saw my time on the big board, and I have been ludicrously, bumptiously proud of myself ever since.
Anyhow, I'm hoping that rather than annoying my fellow masters swimmers who may read this post, this exercise in self-congratulations/aggrandizment will encourage others to pen their own moments of personal satisfaction. Where better to celebrate than here, where your fellow swimmers actually know about swimming times and (unlike the world at large) conceivably even care?
Parents
Former Member
It's really neat when you can set a personal record in an older age group.
I am in the 65-69 age group and had two personal records in the butterfly (the 100 and the 200) at the recent Y nationals. It helped that I didn't swim fly when I was a kid (always thought that fly with a frog kick was a pretty silly stroke). Anyway, I improved my 100 time by 4 seconds and my 200 time by 6 seconds. I remember that last year I was delighted when I swam the 100 in 1:49.99, which was the first time I broke 1:50. So you can imagine how delighted I was when I swam the 100 in 1:46.19! I didn't believe the electronic scoreboard and asked somebody to read the time for me.
Yes, a personal best is a wonderful thing!!
It's really neat when you can set a personal record in an older age group.
I am in the 65-69 age group and had two personal records in the butterfly (the 100 and the 200) at the recent Y nationals. It helped that I didn't swim fly when I was a kid (always thought that fly with a frog kick was a pretty silly stroke). Anyway, I improved my 100 time by 4 seconds and my 200 time by 6 seconds. I remember that last year I was delighted when I swam the 100 in 1:49.99, which was the first time I broke 1:50. So you can imagine how delighted I was when I swam the 100 in 1:46.19! I didn't believe the electronic scoreboard and asked somebody to read the time for me.
Yes, a personal best is a wonderful thing!!
