Swimming Race in Rinconada Pool

Today I finished my first swimming meet since my breast stroke races in college. The meet is Rinconada Masters Spring Short Course Meet. The poster PDF file is here. The venue is at Rinconada pool in Palo Alto (google map). The weather is nice: sunny and around 70s.

I was among the five pre-masters and one master swimmer from Santa Clara Swim Club (SCSC).
I registered four events:
50yd free Novice,
50 yd back Novice,
100 Breast,
and 100 Free.
Overall, I got very nice results.
However, it is tough and bumpy time. For short, 5 accidents: my goggle hit the wall once during warm up; my goggle falled off twice on three jump starts from the block; my butt hit the wall once in a flip turn; my head hit the block once when I jumped out of the pool. It seems that I was making all mistakes I can for the past four months since I joined the pre-masters program.

It started while I was warming up on the back stroke. I was late to start a back stroke flip turn. Then right after I rolled along my long axis, my goggle hit the wall and got a scratch on the edge. It is fortunate that my head did not get a scar and the goggle still works! It did scare me for a quite while.

After cheered for June's 50 free race, I barely made on time for my 50 free novice race. I was lucky since my lane is the same lane 6 as June's. I run up to the block after my name is called, and put on my cap and goggle right before the start whistle. It is a nice swim after that. I finished with a 29.65 second!

The jump start of my 50 back was not that good. I can feel the water stopping my forward thrust. I guess my jump start, which uses the handles on the block, is not that efficient without practice. While swimming, I hit the lane line on the left side twice! In such a short distance, it would definitely brought up a few seconds! My final time was 44 second.

In the 100 breast, after jumping off the block, my goggle went off and landed on my mouth. I managed to finish the race with a 1:21. But it definitely bothers my breath quite a lot along that few laps! There are pictures shot by Gordon about this race. From that, I can see that my arm stroke is way too wide, as Jason, my coach, shouted out many times before. Anyway, I should behave better next time.

The last event is 100 free and it is the worst. After jumpped off the block, my left goggle flipped open and stuck on my eye. I managed to flip it back on with a recovering hand, so at least half of my left eye can see. It also bothered one of my flip turns -- I was too close to the wall and my butt hit the wall in the third turn. Then I have to regain the speed within the final 25 yd. A couple more seconds lost there for sure. Finished with a 1:12.

Finally, I collected four ribbons, two first places, one 3rd, and one 4th. Since these ranking are based on age groups. Almost all of us got a few ribbons. Overall, we got 20 ribbons for all SCSC swimmers :)

Among others, there are many interesting stories. Gordon and Stefan are also in the 50 free novice race and beat their expected results. Gordon was leading in the 50 fly. After the race, he scratched his foot and leg when getting out of the pool :( Tiffany and June was in the same heat for 200 IM. It was a nice race since their lanes were next to each other. They were passing each other, and making several memorable moments (to be detailed by them). Megan was leading in 200 free and fly in her races. The pictures and video clips are recorded for our future reference :)

It is definitely a good experience for a rookie swimmer. More stories from others are coming...