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Sudbury Masters Valentine’s Meet13th February 2010 |
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Sudbury Masters Valentine’s Meet13th February 2010 It’s been 10 years since I last competed in a swimming competition so when the opportunity came up I jumped at the chance. I entered the 50m backstroke and the 100m IM (Individual Medley), but I had no idea about what sort of times I did for those, so I made an educated guess. However, when my entry cards came through and I was competitor number 1 in the backstroke, I wondered if I’d underestimated my time.I’m going to assume that most people won’t know what an entry card is – basically you get a card (pink if you’re female and blue if you’re male) for each event that you are entered in. It has all of your personal details on it along with your entry time, event number and competitor number (in this competition, the lower the number, the faster the swimmer). You have to post these cards on the day so that the organisers know that you’ve turned up and then you get it back again before your race with your heat and lane number.When I arrived I bought a programme and saw that next fastest swimmer had entered a time only 0.6 of a second slower than mine, so my competitive side started to worry that I might not win! In the warm up I couldn’t help but check out the other people doing backstroke, to see what I was up against. I did a few practice starts, trying to get my bum out of the water like my coach had told me. After the warm up I tried to relax as much as possible, but my event was one of the last in the session so I had a long time to dwell on it. I cheered on my fellow club mates as they competed and finally my event came round. I watched as the slower heats came and went and finally I lined up for my heat. I was in lane 3 as I had the fastest (albeit fictional) entry time. I knew that the girl in lane 5 was in a different age group to me so it was the girl in lane 2 that I had to beat in order to get gold. The referee blew the whistle and we all jumped in. After a few seconds to adjust to the water temperature I grabbed the bar and pulled my feet up into to ready position. The starter shouted “take your marks” and I pulled myself up like a coiled spring. The starting machine beeped and off we went. The rest is all a blur - all I remember from my race was that I turned slightly too far away from the wall, however my team mate told me that the girl I needed to beat made the same mistake. As I came through the 5m flag I could see my competitor in the corner of my eye so I knew that it would come down to the final touch. I reached for the wall and looked up at the board to see how I’d done.... I’d beaten her by 0.2 of a second in a time of 36:24. I was beaten by the younger girl on the other side of me, but I had the gold in my age group – I was ecstatic!! In the evening session it was time for the 100m IM. I was a lot more relaxed about this race as I didn’t think I stood a chance of winning. I was in the second fastest heat, again in lane 3. As the whistle went, I stood on the block and positioned myself for the dive; I had forgotten just how high the blocks are. “Take your marks”, then we were off – I tried to kick as far as I could under water to save my arms for the rest of the race and after the butterfly I was second, then came my favourite stroke – backstroke (you might have got that by now!) but it was the breaststroke where I made up the most ground and started the frontcrawl in the lead. I held that position all the way to the end and finished in a time of 1:21:34. The girl who I had beaten in the backstroke was in the next heat and she beat my time by a second; so it was to be a silver in my age group, which I was very happy with.So not a bad day over all – my next competition is the Norfolk County Masters Championships in May. Laura Blowers
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Last Updated ( Monday, 24 May 2010 19:29 )
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