Your best, most memorable swim/race and why.....

Setting a world record in the 100 SCM IM in 2004. The old record was held by Attila Czene, the 1996 200 IM OLympic champion. To better a time set by an Olympian was a great moment for me. I remember every second of that race. The record has since been broken, but the memory will never go away.

Gosh, I had several... indulge me... One was swimming the 200m Free at the FINA World Masters Champs in Indianapolis. The place was packed and my coach was sitting in the upstairs bleachers, not allowed on deck. Even with all the noise I could hear my coach yelling at me during the race, and I had a best time. Another was the 1500m Free at Nationals up in Minneapolis. Normally I don't go to Natls but my younger sister lived there and I hadn't seen her for a while, good excuse for a trip. She hadn't seen me swim and got to be my lap counter. It was very novel to her, including the part where I had the only head-on collision of the meet as the 2nd person in my lane circle-swam and collided with me on the first 100. Boy, was I mad -- completely stopped and still 1400m to go. I ended up with a best time and took 5th. My sister died 6 months later so that meet was the last time I got to see her. Finally in one of my early meets I swam the 400m free at Zones. I had a great cat-and-mouse race going on with the woman in the next lane. Finally, on the last 50m she blasted off the wall (I could imagine her saying, "Well, this was fun, but ... SEE YA") and left me in her wake. Afterwards somebody told me that she was a nun and 30 years older than me. Ouch. But she had been an Olympian in her youth.

I only started swimming in high school and was (am) only a mediocre swimmer, so no age-group or college memories for me. My memorable swims came at LCM zones at George Mason this past summer. I spent a lot of time training with the kiddies in the spring, but then suffered an injury and had to cut back on training. Zones was to be LCM exposure in a "real" pool (as opposed to the not-quite-regulation pools in the area). Everything at the meet just clicked. I was sore and tenative about starts and turns during warm-ups, but when I hit the blocks for a race I forgot about the pain and just swam. All my swims that meet were PBs, but my 800 & 100 freestyle swims really stand out in my memory. It was my first competition 800; although, I had done the 1500 in SCM before. My goal was to keep a steady, relaxed pace and get a baseline for this distance. The scoreboard at GMU is on the side wall of the pool, so I was able to see my 100 splits off the turn. My 200 pace seemed fast, but I felt great so I kept plugging away. At the 400, I was only a few seconds off my fastest 400 swim, but I still felt like I had a lot in me so, again, just kept pushing on. The whole race was like that. Usually, during a longer swim like this, I start asking myself what I was thinking to want to swim it, somewhere around the 500 mark. Not this time. Steady & relaxed--Mission Accomplished! Suffering from some kind of personal block, I couldn't break through the 1:20 barrier for my 100 free. Short course times were improving at every meet, but I seemed stuck in LCM pools. The 100 was the first swim of the morning, and I was determined to just leave it all in the pool. When I touched the wall and saw the time of 1:15, I actually checked to see if I was swimming in the right lane. If memory serves, this was the morning after the 800, so I was feeling a little sluggish on dry land. Must be something in the water at GMU! Breaking through that barrier changed the way I've approached all my swims this year. I no longer see barriers, and have successfully improved times in events at all distances. I look at this meet as my breakthrough meet, and pray that SCY zones has the same effect!

I am loving everyone's stories - really is a great motivator. :notworthy: I have a couple: First one was from 1978, I swam breaststroke on the 200 medley relay, my older sister (who was a much better swimmer) swam backstroke so she touched off to me. We got 2nd at State and made All-American while setting a school record that stood for over 12 years. Second was the next year, I swam 100 free at the high school State Meet and my goal was to break the school record held by my sister. I was having a mental block breaking it (I didn't want her to be mad), so right before I swam the race she told me to go break the record and I did. Record stood for over 5 years. I've only recently started back to swimming and only swam in a couple Masters/Open Water events, so my most memorable races are comical (not the topics here). Stay tuned..... :wiggle:

My most memorable swim was, without doubt, taking 0.7 off my 50m back PB on the opening leg of our medley relay at the masters nationals in 2001. Somehow everyone else took off equally large amounts and we won in a new masters national record time. For everyone on the team to do so well for each other was a huge buzz. And in Stanford I went 57.6 for 100 free LC, which was a total shock as I usually die on my *** for the second 50 but somehow managed to keep it together. I was very happy with that. Both of those meant far more to me than anything I did in the pool pre-masters.

1500 short course meters; Walnut Creek, Oct. 2004. I hadn't done a meet in a while so I was a little nervous. I even started from the wall because I hadn't been working on starts and wasn't feeling particularly comfortable with the blocks. Looking back, I knew I was going to have a good race during warm-up and sure enough - I came in 2nd overall! The race felt "smart" and I just felt really good through the whole thing and finished strong. PS: Hi Karen Duggan! Missed you at swim camp....:p

My most memorable swim was, without doubt, taking 0.7 off my 50m back PB on the opening leg of our medley relay at the masters nationals in 2001. Somehow everyone else took off equally large amounts and we won in a new masters national record time. For everyone on the team to do so well for each other was a huge buzz. And in Stanford I went 57.6 for 100 free LC, which was a total shock as I usually die on my *** for the second 50 but somehow managed to keep it together. I was very happy with that. Both of those meant far more to me than anything I did in the pool pre-masters. Wow your fast Ivor! If your backstroke is as good as your freestyle, then I must humbly pay homage! Newmastersswimmer p.s. I just read the the first page of the UK website you have posted as your signature Ivor....And the article about Beckham kind of slams American soccer (AKA futbol) just a bit now don't you think??....LOL!! We did make it to the quarter finals in the 2002 World Cup now didn't we? Germany got a way with a hand ball in the second half (just ask Beckenbaur) otherwise the U.S. team might have made it all the way....right! But still the MLS has some pretty good talent (even without the addition of Beckham)...so that article wasn't really all that nice now was it?...LOL!

Mine (for the masters era) was at the 2000 SC Nationals in Indianapolis. I was swimming the 100 free (my favorite event) and it was just one of those races when everything came together. The first 50 seemed effortless and I remember telling my self to kick it home. I felt like I swam right thru the wall at the finish and after regaining my senses felt like I had indeed left every ounce of energy in the pool. It was and still is my masters PB.

Two youth swims marking almost the beginning and end of my age group career are very stark in my mind. Because Jaegermeister will appreciate both, I will report them. First, when I was 12, I swam a 1:04.0 in the 100 back (dropping from a 1:07), breaking my own state record and missing the NAG record by .4. I went out in a 30.0, which was faster than my previous best in the 50 back. My coaches were screaming above the blocks so loudly I was almost DQ'd. But the interesting thing is that, as jaegermeister informed me via PM, that time from 1976 is still an age group record with my former swim team in MN. LOL. Second, when I was 17, I swam the 100 meter fly at states at my home town pool where jaegermeister lives and trains. I went into finals seeded fourth and won by several hundedths of a second. I made Nationals cuts. Then I went to college and trashed my shoulder. I don't think I have any revelationary masters swims to report. I'm always limping into meets. I guess I was pretty proud of actually swimming the 100 M fly LC last year without getting DQ'd. I was pretty happy with my 31 in the 50 meter fly with a bandaid on my shoulder last December too. I'll be even happier when I actually get around to swimming the 200 IM.

Donna started a similiar thread a few months ago so instead of rewriting what I posted there... forums.usms.org/showthread.php