November 11, 2012 – Masters Swim Meet

Today was my first swim meet of the season and I had some high expectations based on the way I’ve been swimming at practice and my new AMP90 workout program. Although I’ve competed in hundreds of races in the past, I still get nervous leading up to the competition and today was no different. As a kid swimming on a small town team, it wasn’t unusual to be the only one attending an elite swim meet. It could be extremely intimidating to walk into the Etobicoke Olympium and not know anyone, while the larger Toronto teams sent contingents of 30 or more athletes with matching uniforms, team cheers and loud fans. Not much has changed in over 20 years as I walked into the same Olympium by myself.

I got changed and walked onto the pool deck to look for the “heat sheets” which detail the races for the day and give pool lane assignments. To my surprise, I couldn’t find my name on the sheets and I felt a wave of panic take over the nervousness I had already been feeling. I talked to the meet officials and they let me know they hadn’t received my registration in the mail. It didn’t take long to re-register and they promised to re-seed the events so that I would be paired with other athletes my speed.

I decided to relax and get into the pool to warmup. I needed to get my mind back into competition mode and try to get rid of the panic / nervousness I was feeling. Forty minutes later I was feeling much better and noticed the meet officials had posted the re-seeded heat sheets.

I felt sick when I couldn’t find my name again. I overheard a woman being directed to the deep end of the pool to find her name as well, so I did the same. The Etobicoke Olympium is a 50m pool that is divided into two pools for short course competitions, so in events like this the men swim at one end and the women in the other. I finally found my name on the heat sheets…the bad news was that the meet officials mistakenly put me in with the women swimmers! The only option at that point was to be a “deck entry” which meant I would swim in the first heat of my races (heats are swum slowest to fastest, so that means I’m in the slowest heat).

With all the craziness to start the meet, I’m really happy with the results of my races. I ended up with three first place finishes and my times are almost exactly where they were during the Provincial Championships last spring.

• 50m Backstroke = :32.34
• 50m Butterfly = :28.62
• 50m Freestyle = :26.36