Finally … a few mintues of interent cafe time to post a bit of news from the World Masters Swimming Championships, taking place in Perth West Australia.
The 100m Freestyle was my first race of the meet and I was seeded 3rd in heat 39 of 74. Yes, Men’s 100 FS is certainly popular with approximately 710 entries. Only the Men’s 50 FS event has more swimmers (824). Another Canadian Martial Rivard (CAMO) was in lane 5 beside me and Ralph Rieper (TOMS – North York Gators) was in heat 40. Martial had the fastest seed time in heat 39 followed by Dr. Varga from Hungary (lane 6).
Unfortunately the heat sheets do not provide heat start times so it is a real guessing game as to when to warm-up and head to the marshalling area.
As I’m only just starting to catch onto the concept of pacing, my game plan was to swim smart and paced. So with my coach Cathie’s voice playing in my head, I tried to be fast off the blocks and then ‘easy’ fast until close to the end of the first 50. Before the flags at the far end I was behind 4-5 of the other swimmers. At that point I picked things up to put in a fast turn and strong exit off the wall. By the time I passed the flags coming back I was in the lead. From there I just tried to continue accelerating until the lactic acid took over … then I just held on. I could sense Marital was close on my right so there was plenty of incentive to try to keep going. Alan Power (Westcoast-AUS) made a pretty good run at the end in lane 2. I finished the heat in first place in a time of 1:06.79 … a Long Course personal best. Ralph Rieper blitzed heat 40 in a time of 1:02 to take top Canadian in the 45-59 group, 28th overall. I placed 48th out of about 100. Full results are on the Championship Info page.
A ‘Flash’ version of the race that my wife Pat shot can be see here – Men’s 100 FS Event Heat 39.