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
Now you've done it, Jim. Just when I had given up on the idea of ever achieving lifetime bests, you've thrown down the gauntlet and convinced me that it may still be possible. I don't know whether to thank you or curse you.
I only know times from three events from Junior College Regionals, prior to Nationals in 1971, from an old newspaper clipping, but I'm sure they were my best times. I always thought they were attainable again, since I now swim more yardage and I'm not "partying" as we did in 1971 (those of you who were there should know) so our team's results from that era were not near our potential.
Now I have to reset my thinking and start looking at those times again as realistic goals.
Thanks a lot, Jim. No rest for the wicked.
Now you've done it, Jim. Just when I had given up on the idea of ever achieving lifetime bests, you've thrown down the gauntlet and convinced me that it may still be possible. I don't know whether to thank you or curse you.
I only know times from three events from Junior College Regionals, prior to Nationals in 1971, from an old newspaper clipping, but I'm sure they were my best times. I always thought they were attainable again, since I now swim more yardage and I'm not "partying" as we did in 1971 (those of you who were there should know) so our team's results from that era were not near our potential.
Now I have to reset my thinking and start looking at those times again as realistic goals.
Thanks a lot, Jim. No rest for the wicked.
