I had previously written about Masters athletics as seen through the camera of Alex Rotas Photography. What about my personal experience with Masters swimming? The training, the competitions, the racing?
THE TRAINING
What IS training? Well, you have to push yourself physically and mentally to build up cardiovascular capacity and speed. Early in the season, the emphasis is on building cardiovascular capacity by focusing on mileage. I moved up a lane with swimmers faster than me and distances longer (about 2200-2400 m per 1 hour workout). The workouts asked for speedy intervals: 100 m on 2:15, 50 m on 1:10 (meaning you have that amount of time to swim and rest). I aimed to swim 100 in 1:45 (which meant 30 s rest) and 50 m in 50 s (20 s rest). When they’re repeated in the main set (4 x 100 on 2:15, 6 x 50 on 1:10), it’s hard! It feels like you’re swimming through mud and you’re breathing hard at the wall. By the end of the set, you’re seeing stars. But that’s how you train. And technique is so important….you can swim faster without swimming faster by having excellent technique. No matter how tired you are, you’ve got to maintain technique. And there is support and camaraderie during the workout (c’mon, you got this! Just there and back two more times!). High fives and affirmations after the workout, along with the swim itself, brings a shared sense of accomplishment and joy.
About a month before competition, the training starts to emphasize speed, so there’s faster intervals with extensive warm ups and cool downs. Our coach held clinics on starts, turns and relay takeovers. It gets so that you go on autopilot when you dive into the water, getting into the dolphin kick, breaking out with quick strokes and NO BREATHING (swimming is the only sport where the coach yells at you for breathing) and then settling into the stroke.
THE MEET
The Masters Swim Ontario Championships (which we call Provincials) was held at the beautiful Pan Am Games pool in Markham, ON. There were about 30 teams from Ontario (and other provinces) and the venerable team from the Canadian Forces (stacked with young, strapping, fast swimmers). Our team, the London Silver Dolphins, consisted of 14 swimmers. Masters swimming is done by age group; your age is calculated as of Dec 31, 2024, so I was competing as a 59-year-old in the 55-59 age group. One of the pleasures of Masters athletics is “ageing up” into the next age category where you’ll be the youngest! So here I was, the oldest in my age group, at a long course meet, at my first meet in 8 years. Talk about ageing up…from 51 to 59!
The nice thing about Masters swimming is that you swim with people with similar times (seed times), not necessarily with people in your age group. So I’d be swimming with a 40-year-old to the right of me and a 71-year-old to my left, if we all had entered similar times for that particular event.
Before every event, every swimmer gets butterflies, and the urge to pee (the nervous pee!). But you have to work through it. I did a little meditation with deep breathing before my heat. One thing our coach told us that stuck with me is to “trust your training”. That means have confidence in your pace, your stroke, your starts and turns, your breakouts and finishes. You KNOW how to do this. Don’t panic. Just swim. Fast!
THE RACE
You stand beside the starting block. One whistle from the starting official and you get up on the block. “Swimmers, take your mark”… you bend over into your ready position. Sink into your legs, they are the power for your dive into the water.
BEEP
You are briefly airborne, then fwooom into the water. The silence, the cold water. Dolphin kick, kick, kick Breakout stroke, stroke, stroke (NO BREATHING). Settle into your race pace. As you approach the final length of your race, build into your maximum pace. During that final flip turn, your lungs feel like they will burst. That final length is ALL OUT. All you hear is your hard breathing. All you feel is fire in your legs and arms. That last 15 m, you are seeing stars. WHERE’S THE WALL? PULL, REACH, touch. You’re done! Now you can hear your teammates cheering!
And you’re an absolute wreck. “Swimmers, clear the pool”. You have to hoist yourself out of the water and head to the cooldown lane. Easy swim until your breathing settles down and the burning feeling in your legs and arms subsides.
Here were my events and times:
50m freestyle: 42.34 s
100m free: 1:35.39
200m free: 3:40.39
400m free: 7:43.62 *Personal Best for long course! And a Bronze medal in my age group!!
And two relays: 4×100 free (women’s) and 4×100 free (mixed).
The 400 free was my best race. I felt relaxed, settled into a fast and easy pace, and swam negative splits (each 50m was faster) throughout. Those fast intervals of 50s on 1:10 in training really helped! At first, I thought I was going too fast, but I remembered to “trust my training”. And it felt great. I had enough in the tank to sprint the last 15 m. And it was a personal best by 10 seconds!!
The 200 free was (and always will be) my WORST race! It’s a tough race, holding speed for 200 m. During the last 10 m, I felt like I was swimming through muck and mire. Why wasn’t the wall getting any closer??? It’s the one race I will always swim, as a perpetual challenge.
The placing within your age group determines the number of points you earn for your team. The team with the most points wins the meet! So it’s about the team, not the individual. And our team placed 3rd overall! Everyone had at least one Top 3 finish in their age group. We were awesome!
But most of all, I love the camaraderie of our team. Everyone is so supportive, cheering our teammates on, recording their split times, hanging out and chatting and examining the heat sheets during the lunch break, sharing snacks…it’s what Masters swimming is all about. We all find joy in the demanding regimens of training and competition, and in the friendships we make along the way. And we all discover that we are stronger than we know!
Nationals are next, in May!! Can’t wait!!
