Stowmarket - 16th Suffolk Masters Open Meet 18th May 2003[2]
(by Carl)
Nick, Adrian, Peter, Carl and Phil entered the Stowmarket event along with Heike from Cambridge Club.
Our arrival was carefully timed to allow for a modest splosh about in the men's warm-up (unfortunately the ladies warm-up was almost over by the time we arrived - sorry about that Heike!)
The number of heats in the early events gave us plenty of time for some pre-swim shopping!
Peter then got us started with 200 freestyle winning gold in 2:55.78 - he was none too happy with that though, aspiring to a sub 2:50 time.
Heike had been competing hard at the Midland Masters on the day before this event so her times were not what she would normally expect! However, she came 5th in the 50m Backstroke with 44.86.
Adrian's turn for gold came soon after in event 4 - the 50m fly which he did in 36:21 with the usual impressive looking stroke.
Heike was then up again for 50 free in which she put in a 39.06.
Then came the 50 free and 3 of us were called to the blocks. Adrian put in an amazing age group time of 31:60 and won Gold, leaving Peter to pick up the Silver with 34.05. Carl won Silver with 31.31 (new PB) and was slightly gutted that the guy winning the gold did so in a new course record of 26 seconds! Right now I'm struggling to work out how to chisel the next 2 seconds off my 50 time - better start and turn is probably part of the answer.
After a bit of a rest event 10 dawned, the mens combined age 160 years 4x25 freestyle relay. Nick, Adrian, Peter and Carl thrashed out their respective best efforts. On the last leg, over the last 10 metres I saw that we were neck an neck with the lane to my left so kicked really hard and thrashed about to race for the line. Sadly we missed out on 3rd place by less than a quarter of a second - we came in 4th (out of 6) with 59.29, Dunmow Masters coming in 3rd with 59.08.
The event was split into 2 sessions with a 'lunchbreak' at 3.00. Lunch saw the production of a variety of sports energy food from the Impington camp but some of us got it wrong. I was berated by the senior members of the team for eating dried fruit (I think Heike's banana consumption was similarly frowned upon but as she was from the Cambridge squad nobody said anything). The appropriate diet for a sporting event lunch is of course barbeque crisp (2 packets) and cheese sandwiches.
Lunch also presented an opportunity to visit a local caravan shop to allow those with European qualifying times to work out sleeping arrangments for the big event.
After lunch, Phil appeared ("I'm only here for the curry") and Peter told us he was in nearly every event in the second session - I really don't know how people do that! We didn't have much time to contemplate this since event 11 was the 100 Freestyle. Peter won the F age group with 1:18.06 and Nick came in second with 1:20.06. I was amazed to win the C age group with 1:13.48 (new PB - with 34s split at 50m), which still felt a little sluggish.
Peter then won gold in 50 backstroke with 43.90.
Heike, up next, came in third in the 50 breaststroke with 50.80.
The 4x25 IM saw another Gold for Adrian with a time of 1:25.35. A local leaning on the fire alarm caused Peter's heat to be cancelled after 65m or so, which meant the heat had to be re-run with little chance for recover. He eventually came in second with 1:37.69.
Phil won the 50 breaststroke (time not notified in the results !) with Nick in second with 41.44 and Peter in third with 48.89.
Finally we took part in the 4x25 combined 120 years IM. In terms of relative speeds we figured Phil would be best on the breaststroke stint, which would have the added advantage that Nick could hang on to the back of his trunks to prevent the usual false starts and disqualification. The plan worked well, though apparently my backstroke length was a little slow off the mark and faded a bit towards the end! Phil's Breaststroke was quick as were Adrian's fly and Nick's free. We came 3rd (in 1:07.00) which was disappointing but when you consider that three quarters of our team usually compete in the combined 200 years age group we didnt do bad at all!
After getting changed there was word of overall age group prizes which we cleaned up in the F age group, Peter winning Gold, Adrian with Silver and Nick with Bronze.
As usual, Peter knew a good curry house nearby so we headed off to Bury Tandoori Restaurant (tel: 724222/723797) for some great nosh and a couple of beers.
Carl.