Barnet Masters 1500m Freestyle Meet - November 22/23 2003 [2]
by Carl Myhill & Ivan Scott (photos by Carl, Ivan and Alan)
What a sorry tale. Peter Rank, ever keen to drum up support for this, his favourite event of the year, manages this year to get 4 people interested. He then has a nasty accident involing a tree root on his trials bike the week before the race and had to drop out - despite a couple of swim sessions trying to perfect a one legged tumble turn (which actually looked pretty impressive!). Hope you feel better soon Peter!
So, the remaining impington team (Fiona, Ivan, Alan and Carl) went to Barnet to try our luck - the first gala for all but me, and my longest gala event yet (ignoring Swimathon).
While waiting for me to arrive, soaking wet on my motorbike, the "gala virgins" Fiona, Alan and Ivan unanimously agree to get into the spirit of things and check out the tea and cake stall (good impington training that). While examining the programme Alan and Ivan were relieved to see that it's very unlikely that they'd finish last!
The first thing you notice about a Barnet event is that, not only is the pool easy to find, the organisation of the event is excellent. The delay between heats, even on such a long event as this, was mere seconds. The electronic scoring works well, lap counting boards were out and officials knew what they were doing and managed to stay friendly! Another great benefit of Barnet events is that they have 3 pools available and have a warm-up pool available to competitors all the time.
The other thing we quickly noticed as we started swimming was that the electonic boards at one end of the lane made it quite hard to do decent open turns as there was not much to hold on to. Tumble turns would be worth experimenting with on an event like this - sure to slice a second off your time if you have the energy to do them.
Ivan and Alan started wrestling with the vexing question of "How long to warm up?" (we obviously lacked Nick's wisdom in this situation - we really didn't want to be getting all tired out with extra swimming before the event!). Ivan and Alan weren't sure of the answer but went to the warm up pool to avoid having to watch any more of heat #1. Up and down, back and forth without end, it was just too scary.
Returning from warming up Ivan claimed to not feel "warm", or "loose" or even calm but did feel like he'd run out of time!
Ivan and Alan stepped up for the second heat. Ivan baulked a bit at diving off blocks into 1.5m and made a last minute rescue pact with Fiona in case he failed to surface are the "shallow dive", which he elected to take off the side rather than the blocks.
Under way, both of their strokes looked good but Alan slowly began to creep ahead, with his stroke looking particularly clean and strong. We later found out what was going through Ivan's mind:
' Peter's words of wisdom #1 "Don't start too fast, go steady and build"...
...I've started too quickly. I couldn't help it. The people on either side of me started like the clappers & though I was thinking "let them go"
my body seemed to have other ideas. Once they were more than a couple of metres away I couldn't see them clearly and then I could forget about them and try to settle into my stroke....
...I'm nearly back to the start, Alan is there already but seems to be treading water; what's going on? I wonder if he has a problem and is talking to the lane marshall. Feeling momentarily guilty I decide not to stop and find out what it is....
...Then I find out what the problem is for myself: the wall at the starting end is completely smooth up to about 18" above the water
line. At this point I realise with horror just what the expression "touch turn" actually means. After what seems an age of thrashing
about I have manoevered my feet towards the wall and my head away from it, I can push off and try to put that nightmarish
turn behind me. B*&&*#%$ I've got to turn at that end 28 more times!
...I kept forgetting to focus on my stroke; kept forgetting to count them; kept dreading the turns at the deep end. With only a couple of hundred
metres to go I start trying to increase my speed. I end up needing more air & having to breath unilaterally unbalances my stroke. Looking at my
splits I really shouldn't have bothered...
...At the end I remember not hitting the pad for my last 50 (doh!), gasping "that's it isn't it" and looking round to make sure I'd beaten
my target time of 30 mins '
It wasn't until they both got out of the pool that it became pretty clear how much effort they had put in - both needed a sit down and showed the strain!
Dashing off to the warm up pool, Fiona and I worked on a game plan of consistency, long strokes and not messing about racing too fast off at the start. In no time, we were standing on the diving blocks and in the water. Someone to my left was putting in quick pace from the start so I decided to try and match their efforts - so much for a game plan! After a fairly small number of lengths I began to feel the effort in my arms - much tougher than a 5km Swimathon pace. Well, after what felt like years, we got to the end of the race. The girl in the next lane along had put in a sub 25 minute time, taking 1 minute off her previous year's efforts - so, there's hope for improvement yet!
