Please share your true swimming stories of remarkable feats, inspiring, interesting or unsual.
Today Sat Jan 22nd, 2010 at the end of my blog I retold a story I heard UT Men's assistant coach tell the mens team this morning.
Please share yours. I look forward to reading them. Let's gather round the fire and be amazed.
Swim Faster Faster,
Ande
Mid-January of my senior year of college, I won a 1000 free with my flip turns. Here's how I did it. I dove in and didn't really look at anyone for the first 200 yards as I settled into my pace. Hey, if you get away from me in the first 200 of a 1000, you're either on a suicide mission or you're just plain better than me. I'm fine with either possibility. Anyway, approaching the 200 mark, I looked around and saw that my opponent in the next lane was about 1.5 body lengths ahead of me and that on the other side of him, my teammate Chris was even with me. Everyone else in the pool was way behind us. My opponent had sort of a sloppy kick. We had heard that they had just returned from their training trip and might be jetlagged. His kick looked jetlagged, if that makes any sense. So I decided to beat him using my turns. I don't know why I decided that, maybe just because it was a way to pass the time in an otherwise boring race. Also I was certain that Chris would never think of something like this, so our opponent would be dealing with two very different strategies at the same time. So I started hitting every turn as fast as I could, stealing about 1 foot with each one. And then I would swim the exact same speed as my opponent to the next wall. He must have found it maddening, I know I would have... I could see that Chris was making progress as well. Slowly I pulled even and then started building a small lead. Just after turning at the 625, all of a sudden I pulled away. I hadn't sped up, I had just broken my opponent's will. For some reason Chris slowed down as well (he told me after the race that he decided to let me go at that point, though I have no idea why) so I was all alone until the 975. WHOA, WHAT THE HELL HAS GOTTEN INTO CHRIS??? He came back at me full throttle and almost ran me down on the last 25. We both went under the school record for the 1000. I lowered it one more time before Chris led off his 1650 with a faster split at our conference championship meet. My name was never on the wall but I did have the 1000 free record for a month.:groovy:
Mid-January of my senior year of college, I won a 1000 free with my flip turns. Here's how I did it. I dove in and didn't really look at anyone for the first 200 yards as I settled into my pace. Hey, if you get away from me in the first 200 of a 1000, you're either on a suicide mission or you're just plain better than me. I'm fine with either possibility. Anyway, approaching the 200 mark, I looked around and saw that my opponent in the next lane was about 1.5 body lengths ahead of me and that on the other side of him, my teammate Chris was even with me. Everyone else in the pool was way behind us. My opponent had sort of a sloppy kick. We had heard that they had just returned from their training trip and might be jetlagged. His kick looked jetlagged, if that makes any sense. So I decided to beat him using my turns. I don't know why I decided that, maybe just because it was a way to pass the time in an otherwise boring race. Also I was certain that Chris would never think of something like this, so our opponent would be dealing with two very different strategies at the same time. So I started hitting every turn as fast as I could, stealing about 1 foot with each one. And then I would swim the exact same speed as my opponent to the next wall. He must have found it maddening, I know I would have... I could see that Chris was making progress as well. Slowly I pulled even and then started building a small lead. Just after turning at the 625, all of a sudden I pulled away. I hadn't sped up, I had just broken my opponent's will. For some reason Chris slowed down as well (he told me after the race that he decided to let me go at that point, though I have no idea why) so I was all alone until the 975. WHOA, WHAT THE HELL HAS GOTTEN INTO CHRIS??? He came back at me full throttle and almost ran me down on the last 25. We both went under the school record for the 1000. I lowered it one more time before Chris led off his 1650 with a faster split at our conference championship meet. My name was never on the wall but I did have the 1000 free record for a month.:groovy:
