Did you go straight into Masters Swimming or did you take time off.

The short answer is "16 years off". As a kid I always wanted to be on a swim team and loved the water. My folks were against it due to the family time commitments and because they thought it was not a worthwhile pursuit compared to music lessons, etc. So I had to achieve a certain level of independence where I could get myself signed up on a team and to practices on my own. So I started swimming competitively very late as a 15-year-old on the Y team my junior year in HS and on the HS team my senior year (that was the first year they had an organized girl's team). Did AAU in the summer, no swim team available March through end of school. Our HS season was only September through first of November, then I continued with the Y team. Seems like there were probably a lot of people making it possible for me to swim -- the families that would give me rides, the coach and whoever else had to deal with my parents including for the bills (I guess that it was mailed to them.) I can tell a few stories of how I would get up to ride my bike to summer early morning workouts only to find that my parents had padlocked it, hidden it in the neighbor's garage, etc. Then I was a walk-on for my college women's team for 2 years. While I was dropping my times rapidly, we didn't do much yardage (3,000/workout, 5x/week) and my best events were the longer distances -- not the 50's and 100's my teammates trained for. My 2nd year there were some scholarship opportunities and women's swimming started getting a lot faster. I had big time drops up to my last meet but still had not scored a single point in dual or championship meets all season, so I quit as I felt like dead weight using up our limited pool space and budget. It pretty much broke my heart as I didn't think I had achieved what I was capable of. At my last meet I had finally learned how to use my lats and to accellerate my pull, had a 7-second drop in my 200 free, etc. After the college season was over in February there was no year-round team to train with so most of my conditioning gains were soon lost. After I quit the college team I took 16 years off from structured swim workouts. There were no Masters opportunities that I knew about, and the first two years post-college I "grew up" and tried to be an adult instead of playing. I went to a lot of happy hours, keg parties, extravagant dining evenings. Then I got back into lap swimming at a health club on and off, riding my bike, and then spent several years playing adult rec sports - bowling (?), racketball, volleyball, downhill skiing, softball, soccer. The adult rec sports were mostly playing for 30 minutes (tops) then going out for huge amounts of pizza and beer. They were also the "injury years" with lots of doctor visits -- jammed fingers, broken toe, knee problems, muscle pulls, sprained ankles, a dislocated/deranged shoulder, and finally a total knee blowout. With the knee blowout and big surgery my orthopedist medically retired me from all weight-bearing activities. Suddenly I had 6 days a week freed up. 9 weeks after the injury I was off crutches and I started swimming laps at the health club; as soon as I got out of rehab (6 months later) I joined a USMS team. The first 6 months with USMS I had to wear a high-tech knee brace 24x7 including in the pool and I had another knee surgery to reconstruct repairs that failed. It was a great experience at age 35 gunning to beat my college lifetime best times. I came close. My USMS team did more yardage than I had ever done before. Met some wonderful people on my team and at meets. As I came to grips with my talent level, I decided that I could make more of a contribution with my swim volunteering and that started to take priority at the expense of my own swimming. That started a 10-year quick slide in attendance and my physical condition. I am trying to get that back into balance now, although I still do what I can to give a little back to the sport.

The short answer is "16 years off". As a kid I always wanted to be on a swim team and loved the water. My folks were against it due to the family time commitments and because they thought it was not a worthwhile pursuit compared to music lessons, etc. So I had to achieve a certain level of independence where I could get myself signed up on a team and to practices on my own. So I started swimming competitively very late as a 15-year-old on the Y team my junior year in HS and on the HS team my senior year (that was the first year they had an organized girl's team). Did AAU in the summer, no swim team available March through end of school. Our HS season was only September through first of November, then I continued with the Y team. Seems like there were probably a lot of people making it possible for me to swim -- the families that would give me rides, the coach and whoever else had to deal with my parents including for the bills (I guess that it was mailed to them.) I can tell a few stories of how I would get up to ride my bike to summer early morning workouts only to find that my parents had padlocked it, hidden it in the neighbor's garage, etc. Then I was a walk-on for my college women's team for 2 years. While I was dropping my times rapidly, we didn't do much yardage (3,000/workout, 5x/week) and my best events were the longer distances -- not the 50's and 100's my teammates trained for. My 2nd year there were some scholarship opportunities and women's swimming started getting a lot faster. I had big time drops up to my last meet but still had not scored a single point in dual or championship meets all season, so I quit as I felt like dead weight using up our limited pool space and budget. It pretty much broke my heart as I didn't think I had achieved what I was capable of. At my last meet I had finally learned how to use my lats and to accellerate my pull, had a 7-second drop in my 200 free, etc. After the college season was over in February there was no year-round team to train with so most of my conditioning gains were soon lost. After I quit the college team I took 16 years off from structured swim workouts. There were no Masters opportunities that I knew about, and the first two years post-college I "grew up" and tried to be an adult instead of playing. I went to a lot of happy hours, keg parties, extravagant dining evenings. Then I got back into lap swimming at a health club on and off, riding my bike, and then spent several years playing adult rec sports - bowling (?), racketball, volleyball, downhill skiing, softball, soccer. The adult rec sports were mostly playing for 30 minutes (tops) then going out for huge amounts of pizza and beer. They were also the "injury years" with lots of doctor visits -- jammed fingers, broken toe, knee problems, muscle pulls, sprained ankles, a dislocated/deranged shoulder, and finally a total knee blowout. With the knee blowout and big surgery my orthopedist medically retired me from all weight-bearing activities. Suddenly I had 6 days a week freed up. 9 weeks after the injury I was off crutches and I started swimming laps at the health club; as soon as I got out of rehab (6 months later) I joined a USMS team. The first 6 months with USMS I had to wear a high-tech knee brace 24x7 including in the pool and I had another knee surgery to reconstruct repairs that failed. It was a great experience at age 35 gunning to beat my college lifetime best times. I came close. My USMS team did more yardage than I had ever done before. Met some wonderful people on my team and at meets. As I came to grips with my talent level, I decided that I could make more of a contribution with my swim volunteering and that started to take priority at the expense of my own swimming. That started a 10-year quick slide in attendance and my physical condition. I am trying to get that back into balance now, although I still do what I can to give a little back to the sport.