Swim Meet News: VMSC Long Course Swim Meet

It was a small crew, and we couldn’t even assemble a proper relay, but we did our best to represent East Van all the same at the VMSC Long Course Swim Meet in Victoria over the weekend.

For Jane, it was her first swim meet in over a decade. Forget about easing back into it: Jane swam her first two races practically back to back. But that didn’t matter: she still went faster than she expected to go. The only race that did not exceed her expectations was the 200 IM, where she equaled her seed time precisely. Back on the mainland, her son Sam was busy debuting at his first age group meet of the year. It’s his first year swimming in club, and he’s already taller than his mom. Nevertheless, the results are in: as of this weekend, Jane is still the fastest swimmer in the family. Let’s see how much longer she can carry the mantle.

Tara opted to get a little extra sleep and warm up in the dive tank rather than in the main pool with everybody else. Problem was, it was like a bath tub in there, which could explain why Tara was a little sluggish on the start of her first race, the 50 butterfly. After that race, Tara got her head in the game and posted some stellar results. She demolished her seed times in both of her other races, and was particularly impressive in the 50 backstroke, where she took 2nd place in her age group. Did I mention that it was the first time Tara had ever competed in the long course format?

As for myself, after being plagued by injuries for the past six months, I was just happy to be swimming. There wasn’t much speed on evidence, but let’s just say if there had been a prize for the tightest splits, I would have picked that one up.

Believe it or not, the last swimmer on our roster was someone none of us had ever met. Alexy had reached out to me back in November because he was looking for a team to affiliate with so that he could participate in masters swim meets. I signed him up, but since he lives in Abbotsford, I’ve only ever communicated with him over email. A couple of days before the meet, I saw his name on the psych sheets and I wrote “see you there.”

Well, at seven feet tall, he was hard to miss. Not to mention that he swam to a Canadian record of 27.16 in the men’s 50-54 50 metre butterfly. Oh, and he happens to be a very nice guy.

Many thanks to Victoria Masters Swim Club for hosting the meet. We all had a great time. I’m so excited to see more of our swimmers come out for the next meet!