PCST Masters Swimming Makes Team Debut in Auburn!
The Long Awaited Panama City Swim Team Masters Program Is Finally Here!
You heard right! The Panama City Swim Team is now an official member of United States Masters Swimming as well as USA Swimming. Wanna guess who the first ever member is for PCST???? You guessed it...........Coach Brian!!! :) Ok............so maybe not Brian, haha. But wouldn't that have been cool? Maybe one day we will get Brian to join the PCST Masters program. Actually, the first ever PCST Masters swimmer was..............well................me!
Historical First Meet Took Place in Auburn!
Back in October, I decided to get back in the water to see if I could get in any kind of shape for Master's Nationals coming up in late April in Greensboro, NC. While I have had extremely limited time to "train", I still wanted to have a warm up meet to attend before going to Nationals. The Auburn Masters meet fit perfectly because it gave me enough time to learn my strengths and weaknesses that need to be worked on over the months of March and April. My goals were to achieve the necessary qualifying times needed to swim at the National Championship meet, as well as to remind my body what it was like to actually race since it has been so many years.
PCST Masters Finish 18th Out of 34 Teams in First Ever Meet!
As many of you may have noticed, the name is "PCST Masters"........plural. Even though I went into the weekend thinking I was going to be the only PCST Masters swimmer there that weekend, I was wrong! One of my coaching friends (and former swimmer herself) came out to the meet with the plan of actually being my coach for the weekend. Once she saw everyone warming up and saw how much fun the meet looked, she went ahead and signed up for United States Masters Swimming, AND PCST Masters right there on the spot! She even entered the meet so quickly that she didn't get a warm up for the first even and had competed in her first race before I even knew she had signed up, haha!
Together, we earned 234 total points and finished 18th overall in the combined team scores. For those of you who are unsure how masters meets work, the events are usually swum together to ensure that you are racing people similar to your own speed regardless of age or gender. However, they score the events separately based on your USMS age group. Since I am 32 years old, I fell in the 30-34 age group (which coincidentally was by far the fastest and toughest age group at the meet). I must say though, we did pretty darn well for just having two swimmers in the meet! :) But more importantly, we had so much fun while we were there because everybody was in such a great mood and were all so happy to be there racing and competing.
Coach Jonathan Wins A Few Events in Auburn!
If I am to be truly honest, then I have to say I really don't like writing about myself or my accomplishments. Some of you will read that and think, "then why the heck are you writing an article about yourself?". :) The truth is that I am writing this article to share with you just how unbelievably EXCITING it was to compete again!! Then, in turn, it is my hope that it may inspire some of you to come on out and join the PCST Masters Swimming Program that starts practices at Frank Brown Park on Monday, March 12th. (More to come about that soon!) Keep reading though, because I have some cool stories from the weekend to share with you.
Let's get my swims out of the way so I can move on to the more exciting news from the weekend! :) While most people enjoy seeing what place they get in their age group, I still care more about what place I am overall in each event. I'm not ashamed to say that the competitive swimmer in me still wants to win every race possible. So in my results, you will see what place I got in my age group as well as what place I got overall with all ages combined.
Saturday Events
100 Back (57.04) 1st overall!
50 Fly (25.50) 8th overall; 4th in age group
400 IM (4:28.87) 1st overall!
Sunday Events
100 Fly (56.34) 4th overall; 3rd in age group
200 Back (2:04.70) 1st overall!
200 IM (2:05.26) 3rd overall; 2nd in age group
Although my training over the last 2 months has been limited to about 20-30 minutes a couple times a week for a total of only about 2,500-3,500 yards, I was still able to put together some swims I felt good about. My goal was to learn what my body was capable of without injuring myself, so swims like the 400 IM were at about 80% effort this first time around just to be safe. But nonetheless, I was still pleased and had an ABSOLUTE BLAST competing again!
Heck, one of my favorite races was the one I was least looking forward to believe it or not. The 200 IM was an event I entered just to have something extra to do on the last day. When I finally got to that point in the meet, I was pretty sore, tight and exhausted already from the 5 events already swum, and not to mention the lack of "training" I had done. I'll admit. I was not physically or mentally ready for that race when I was up on the block. But when the freestyle came around and I was in a super tight battle with the guy next to me to sprint that last 25 and fight for the win................you better believe..............I FOUGHT!!!
And guess what?? He still touched me out with his 6'3'' long lanky arms. So I fought, and I lost, and I loved every second of it! Those 25 hard nosed yards made the entire trip worthwhile because I had to dig so deep to try and hold that guy off, that I felt something I hadn't felt in years since I last truly competed. It was exhilirating!! I even remember telling my coaching friend before the race that I didn't think I had a 2:05 in me because I was so tired. And she went into true coach mode and told me to man up and get after it, haha. So I did! And I couldn't have been happier with the result.
90 Year Old Man Completes a 500 Yard Backstroke and Charms The Ladies!
I bet 85 year old Jack Mitchell never thought he would end up being 5 years younger than one of his teammates on the Georgia Masters team. But there we were, ready to watch 90 year old, John Taylor, compete in the 50, 100, 200, 500 Freestyle and 50, 100, 200 Backstroke events. Since you are "free" to do whatever stroke you like in the freestyle events, John had to do backstroke for everything, most likely for medical reasons. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would see a 90 year old man complete a 500 yard backstroke, but this meet was full of swims I never thought I would see. My favorite part was not the fact that he finished it in just under 22 minutes, but rather that he would push off the wall on his back and give the cute "Tiger Paw" timer girls a nice little wave every now and then. John was a hoot!
49 Year Old Man Breaks Impressive Barriers for Rowdy Gaines Masters Team!
Team Blu Frog was created by former Olympic Triple Gold Medalist (and great friend of mine), Rowdy Gaines. It is for athletes who are committed to living an active, healthy lifestyle. Keith Switzer, 49, is taking it to new levels! I'm not sure if his times from this weekend are good for him or not, because you never know what a masters swimmer is expecting of themselves. However, I would love to have him in our Senior group! He is one heck of a freestyler and went 23.5 in the 50, 50.0 in the 100, 1:49.9 in the 200, 4:56 in the 500 and 17:15 in the 1650! Yeah.........I know! Very impressive and inspiring too. So for any of you who have thought "I'm too old to ever get good again" at any point since reading this.............think again!
No legs? No Problem For 19 Year Old Roderick Sewell!
One would think that a swimmer who grew up with a serious fear of the water as a child would have a lot to overcome to become a very good masters swimmer. For Roderick Sewell, there was plenty more to overcome than fear. He has no legs. I had the wonderful pleasure of chatting with this incredible young man for a few minutes (mostly because I wanted to express my sincere admiration for him), but also to tell him what beautiful stroke technique he has! I never did find out hwat happened to his legs, but when I spoke with him I inquired about whether or not he swam as an age group swimmer when he was young because he has a tremendous feel for the water and near perfect stroke technique. And in spite of being a double amputee from the waste down, he was not just pretty in the water, but pretty darn fast!
Check out Roderick's incredible times!
50 Free (32.18)
100 Free (1:11.27)
100 Back (1:23.77)
100 Breast (1:34.85)
200 IM (2:56.24)
Yup...........reality check time parents. If you were thinking you may have a past injury to use as an excuse, or you may be too out of shape, or whatever your excuse in the past has been..............you have no excuses now. :) If Roderick can do it without any legs, and do it as well and as fast as he did after growing up with a fear of the water, then you too can do anything you put your mind to!
Anne Hanna Merritt Makes All Younger Women Jealous!
At the tender age of 37, this masters swimmer from Columbus, GA was putting up times that would make most of our senior girls very jealous! I never got the chance to learn her background, but I had to swim next to her in some races and she was just awesome. She was very nice though and is going to be at Masters Nationals in Greensboro, NC in April, so I will get to know her better there I'm sure. Check out some of her times from the weekend.
200 Free (2:00.12)
500 Free (5:15.79)
200 Back (2:17.41)
200 Breast (2:31.43)
100 IM (1:03.91)
200 IM (2:16.99)
400 IM (4:46.21)
Something else that was really neat about Anne Hanna was that her masters coach, Mike Stewart, was there. I have known Mike since I was probably 9 years old and haven't seen him in a very very long time! He used to be the Head Coach of the West Florida Lightning Aquatics in Largo, FL (near Tampa) where my family used to vacation each year. I would train with his team while I was on vacation every summer for about 5 years. Who would have thought he would see me swimming again nearly 20 years later, haha!
My Favorite Team Shirt Slogan
I can't remember which team this was, but I LOVED their shirt! The slogan was "Last one alive wins!", haha!
Want To Join PCST Masters Swimming and "Train With Purpose"?
My goal is to go after the Georgia Masters team at the Auburn meet this time next year! They had 49 total swimmers competing and completely dominated the meet. I would LOVE to give them a run for their money and bring even more notoriety to the Panama City and Panama City Beach area. We will be starting practices on Monday, March 12th at Frank Brown Park. Our new full time PCST Coach (who will be officially announced this week), will be our daily masters coach.
Whether you are an experienced competitive swimmer or a novice one looking to improve your skills, we want you! Whether you are a swimmer, a triathlete, a weekend warrior, or simply a fitness fanatic..............we want you! If you want to get a small taste of what a practice is like with a real coach so you can relate to your young Tsunami swimmer..........we want you! :)
Practice Times at Frank Brown Park
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 6:00-7:00 pm (short course)
Wednesday, Friday 6:00-7:00 am (long course)
PCST Masters and USMS Fees
The cost will be $40 a month to be a part of the PCST Masters program. If you are already a current member of the pool at Frank Brown Park, then it will only be $30 a month for you. Each swimmer will be required to register with United States Masters Swimming (aka USMS) whether you ever plan to compete in a masters meet or not. That cost will be $41 for the entire 2012 season. The monthly membership fee will be paid to PCST while the annual USMS fee will be paid online to USMS.
Register With PCST On USMS By March 1st and Get March For Free!
If you register with PCST for USMS by March 1st, we will give you the month of March for free! Simply go to www.usms.org and register as a "PCST" member under the "Southeastern Swimming" LMSC. I will receive an automatic email notification when you sign up.
PCST Home Masters Meets Are On Their Way!
That's right! My goal is to have our first PCST Masters meet this August and then to have both a long course and short course meet each year hosted right here in Panama City Beach! So be ready to "Train With Purpose"! :)
More Details Coming Soon!
Later this week, I will complete all of the details for the rest of the PCST Masters program, including its own page on the PCST website where you can learn anything and everything about the program. So spread the word and come on out! In the meantime.............get signed up on USMS today to get the month of March for free!
CATCH THE WAVE!
Coach Jonathan
