I just got back from California where I swam in the SPMA Zone meet at Mission Viejo over the weekend. I met both Mel Dyck and Kevin Joyce. Nice to meet you both!
I suppose I can gloat about my victory over Kevin in the 100 free. We were right next to each other, in lanes 4 and 5. Kevin had me at the 50 (28.24 to 29.15), but I was able to pull away on the second 50 and won 58.65 to 1:00.09. I'm happy with that time, but really I should have been out faster.
My other big adventure was having to swim the 400 free twice! When I touched the wall I looked up and saw a 4:23 on the scoreboard and I knew that was wrong. Turns out the manual timer just wrote down what the board said (yeah, not real useful) so they had no "real" time to use. The end result was I had to swim again if I wanted a legal time, and I did. I was a couple seconds slower than what I presume my time was the first time around based on the splits, but I'm pretty happy considering it was my fourth race of a looong day!
Anyway, saw some great swims and met a few new folks. Congrats to those who competed and good luck to those going to Nationals this weekend.
So, Kirk, the "timers" didn't have stopwatches to record your first attempt?
Then, what's the point of having them there? Yes, in masters meets swimmers don't often touch the pad hard enough to stop it on their own and someone on deck needs to push the pickle at the same time, but I think automatic timing has improved to the point that it's not really needed.
In any case, bravo on two big swims.
So, Kirk, the "timers" didn't have stopwatches to record your first attempt?
Then, what's the point of having them there? Yes, in masters meets swimmers don't often touch the pad hard enough to stop it on their own and someone on deck needs to push the pickle at the same time, but I think automatic timing has improved to the point that it's not really needed.
In any case, bravo on two big swims.
