First Masters Swim experience from a newbie (no prior competitive experience)
Former Member
Hi everyone, I would like to share my first masters swim experience, from an absolute newbie point of view.
I can swim, but it's pathetically slow. I can do breaststroke for a long time, without getting too tired, but my freestyle is just absolutely pathetic, it moves, but it's just really slow. I'll tell you how slow in a little bit.
This is a GREAT experience, and everyone here is right, people are just very nice and welcome me in right away! The coach was super nice, he assure me that everyone can fit in and join them, if i need to rest at any point of a drill, I can do so.
So, the coach first told me to swim in the fast lane (they group them by fast, faster, and fastest!). There were 3 of us, the other two swimmers are no where near my slowness. They are also ex-swimmers from college.
First, he said to swim 4x100 freestyle. I was shocked, coz I can barely swim 25yards at 24hr fitness. Anyways, I swam slowly, and made the first 100, taking a bit longer break than others Then I forced myself to complete the drill. I was huffing and puffing, and wonder what we have to do next. Oh man, the coach said to repeat what we did.
We also had to do a 50 meters moderate speed and to time ourselves. lane mates did it for approximately 50 seconds, me? - a pathetic 1 minute and 20 sec. I was SO embarassed. I have no idea what i can do to get faster.
Then there are numerous other type of drills that we did, probably with a total of 2000 meters, I had to stop some point, and not able to finish every single drill, but i prob swam a total of 1600 meters. A HUGE accomplishment for me. Had it not been the masters swim, I would never thought I could do this.
I really wish I had done the following though-
1. Told my lane mates not to wait for me for further instructions, because it makes me feel really bad.
2. Ask the coach to look at my stroke after class to see if I'm doing something wrong so i can improve my technique. Perhaps i could become a more efficient swimmer!! :)
3 Put on some heavy duty water proof sunblock !!!
Thanks for reading this, hopefully this will help any newbie who is nervous about masters class!!
I'm a masters' newbie myself. I first joined a group that was just starting up so the coach didn't time us right away, and it's a good thing b/c I don't think I would have liked what I saw.
I'm still the slowest thing in my present group, but I don't really worry about that b/c whatever my speed, I get a lot from doing the workouts. I originally joined out of curiosity. I'm a runner, and that's my main sport, but I have discovered that the swimming complements the running beautifully. I don't get injured as much as I used to and can run better--and my swimming has progressed too. Again, no miracles, but I don't worry about that. I'm training for life, not the Olympics.
Also, it's a lot of fun! Oh yeah, sometimes I'm thinking, I have no breath left for this set! But what a friendly, welcoming group, and somehow I make it through each set, and it's a good feeling.
I'm a masters' newbie myself. I first joined a group that was just starting up so the coach didn't time us right away, and it's a good thing b/c I don't think I would have liked what I saw.
I'm still the slowest thing in my present group, but I don't really worry about that b/c whatever my speed, I get a lot from doing the workouts. I originally joined out of curiosity. I'm a runner, and that's my main sport, but I have discovered that the swimming complements the running beautifully. I don't get injured as much as I used to and can run better--and my swimming has progressed too. Again, no miracles, but I don't worry about that. I'm training for life, not the Olympics.
Also, it's a lot of fun! Oh yeah, sometimes I'm thinking, I have no breath left for this set! But what a friendly, welcoming group, and somehow I make it through each set, and it's a good feeling.