2009 USMS Zone Championships

Part of it is that year in and year out it is the best run meet I have ever attended -- way better than any of the Nationals even. Positive check-in for every event means every heat is full and the folks putting on the meet get the heat sheets and results out faster than we really have any right to expect. Then, it is three days instead of two and the numbers mean plenty of time between events, so you can swim a lot of events. Three a day plus relays is pretty doable, and you can try new events out or swim everything you want to. On top of that, the numbers combined with seeding by gender and time but not age mean every heat is competitive, which is so much fun and pretty hard to find (at least around here). And the pool is fantastic. Plus, it is closer to New York than the Zones meet ever are, so NYC teams go too. The last weekend in March has become one of my faves because it means I will always be there. (Helps I had a good meet too this year.) But seriously, if you ever have a chance, GO. This does sound good. Is it always held at Harvard or does the facility rotate? I swam @ Harvard back in the early 80s and remember it being a great pool. Looking at all of these Zones meets gives me so many ideas of places to travel to swim in the future.

I only watched the results and was impressed with this. I have to make my way to Texas in 2010 to do some racing. His mile @ 16:29 was even more impressive IMHO. Certainly impressive, but sort of pales in comparison to the 16:32 he swam at LC Nats in the 1500.

MP, thank you I know you can Swim Faster Faster. Work on it Damn Ande you are fast.... and I am so SLOW... Congratulations! Michelle, thanks for the background on the Glass/Holt love story great to see you, congratulations on your swims hofffam, glad you went please introduce yourself to me next time Pat, Derks was impressive, he's had and still has some serious back issues. Which is why he only swam 2 events. He doesn't look as fast as he is, but he wore a LZR which cut him on the back of his neck from rubbing. We'd love to see you at a TX Zone meet. Ande

Part of it is that year in and year out it is the best run meet I have ever attended -- way better than any of the Nationals even. Positive check-in for every event means every heat is full and the folks putting on the meet get the heat sheets and results out faster than we really have any right to expect. Then, it is three days instead of two and the numbers mean plenty of time between events, so you can swim a lot of events. Three a day plus relays is pretty doable, and you can try new events out or swim everything you want to. On top of that, the numbers combined with seeding by gender and time but not age mean every heat is competitive, which is so much fun and pretty hard to find (at least around here). And the pool is fantastic. Plus, it is closer to New York than the Zones meet ever are, so NYC teams go too. The last weekend in March has become one of my faves because it means I will always be there. (Helps I had a good meet too this year.) But seriously, if you ever have a chance, GO. As a first timer at this meet I was tremendously impressed with the organization and the quality of the competition. Harvard's pool is a fast, quality venue for the meet, despite its advancing years. (A little like many of the competitors!) Plus all the modern technology live timing and web results stuff is great. Thank you Rick Osterberg and team!

Results aren't posted yet, but there were some excellent swims at the Colo.short course championships today and yesterday. Probably most outstanding were the swims from my training partner, Sheri Hart (35-39), who led off the medley relay in 26.17 breaking her own national record of 26.93. She also swam a 56.3 100 back (another record), a 58something 100, IM just missing Susan VDL's record and lifetime bests in the 50 free (23.80) and 100 free (51.48). Dara holds those records which are untouchable, but still muy pronto. Mike Mann, 54, also had a great meet going a 4:55 500, and 1:48 200 and a quick 2:04 200 IM 8 heats after swimming a 49 100 free. And watch out Rich Burns next year. I swam my first 50 back in 7 years and went a 28.77 which I believe is only .02 off the 65+ record he just set. Thank goodness for SDK!

My ears were ringing a bit... Thanks for the compliments on the NE LMSC SCY Meet. We had our biggest meet ever this year, with 859 entrants, and I think 815 people who actually showed up and swam a race. I haven't seen the size of the Pacific Masters champs this year (not sure the meet is even closed yet), but the NE meet may be the second-largest masters meet this year, after nationals. (We usually flip/flip a bit with the Pacific Masters meet in size depending on the year.) We do hold the meet every year at Harvard. The facility is aging a bit, but it still is (IMHO) the best facility for this meet in the northeast. The only facilities we could even really consider would be the new (or newish now) MIT or BU facilities. MIT offers lots of competition lanes, but overall as a facility, it is a smaller facility. Deck space is much smaller, and MIT's spectator area seats only 400 compared to Harvard's 1200 seats. BU offers 10 SCY lanes to a bulkhead, but with 850 swimmers, they only have 3-4 warmup lanes, which would be very very difficult. So we squeeze as much as we can into Harvard. We have an experienced team that gets us down to 5-6 seconds between heats when we get on a roll. We try to very carefully balance the speed between heats, and also making sure that swimmers have enough time to get themselves set, etc., for a fair start. Our biggest problem to date is our popularity. We closed entries about 5 weeks before the main part of the meet started, and we were still at 859 entries by the regular deadline. We may need to make next year's deadline on January 1. With the numbers we had, we were at the pool from 8:00am warmup until around 7:30pm on the Saturday session. We're not sure what to do with all of the interest. -Rick

Ande, I think I take about 12 or 13 kicks on both lengths. I was playing this effort totally by ear as I don't swim backstroke in practice. My buddy Chris O'Sullivan, who you met in Long Beach only takes 9 kicks off the start and 10 on the second length and surfaces just before 15 meters. He went a 24.2. Result are now posted. www.comsa.org/.../StateMeetSCYResults.pdf Rich

Paul, The shock of slamming my back on the water on the start overcame the vertigo. I also swam a 50 of the stroke that shall remain nameless for the first time ever in a big meet. It's fun to be in the last year of your age group. None of my peers have anything to worry about there (:32.4). I witnessed the swim and Rich dominated everyone in his heat on the start and turn. The 65+ record is in serious jeopardy next year. Tim

Slow, I'll be a no show at Clo. Rich

And watch out Rich Burns next year. I swam my first 50 back in 7 years and went a 28.77 which I believe is only .02 off the 65+ record he just set. Thank goodness for SDK! Nice swim. How'd you handle the vertigo from being forced to look up for a change? :afraid: