Sunday, October 5, 2025

Pacific Masters Swimming - 4th October 2025

After a break of more than 12 years, I restarted swim training in May 2025. More than 13 years after my last race meet, I (re)entered the 2025 Pacific Masters Swimming Kerry O'Brien Short Course Meters Championships in Walnut Creek, CA. I registered for only two events, and needed to guesstimate entry times based on short course yards training at the Chinatown YMCA in San Francisco. My local YMCA forbids diving so I couldn't practice dive-starts, nor properly account for them in my entry times.


In 2010 I raced at the same event and had a bad experience. I hoped for better in 2025. I'd spent the summer re-learning 21st century swimming and nutrition, and trying to put what I could into practice. I was eager to see how much that could counteract my old(er) age, and lack of training and race practice. One study shows swimmers become about 0.6% slower per year. If that applied to me, I could expect to be about 8% slower than I was in 2012. My entry times were significantly slower than that margin. Did I sandbag too much? (Two men I raced against in 2012 maintained their fast speeds for about ten more years! [1] [2]). 


I competed without a club affiliation. YMCA SF has a masters team, but they don't train at my local pool. My old club, USF, is full, and has a waitlist to (re)join.


Pre-event registration suggested my age group was filled with fast swimmers.


In mid-July I tweaked behind my right knee. General hamstring and calf tightness and cramping issues held me back from late July through September.


I ate my normal breakfast around 9am, and snacked on dates and Gu Roctane before my races started around 1pm.

  • 100 SCM Freestyle. 1:03.05 (splits: 29.20, 33.85) - video (6th of 12 in age group)
    My guesstimated entry time was 1:13.00, about 19% slower than my 2009 time: 1:01.48. Improvements after race-registration in late September, meant I expected to race around 1:08.00. This meant I would need to break from my heat competitors by several seconds - I couldn't use them to pace myself unless someone else also overestimated their time. 
    My dive-start (my first in 13 years) sucked. I partly displaced my goggles, and didn't get any depth. My final time was about 3.2% slower than in 2009. I think I could get close to 1:02 with a better dive and without leaking goggles.
  • 50 SCM Butterfly. 31.64 - video (3rd of 6 in age group)
    I hadn't raced this event since college (or longer, so maybe since the 20th century?). My guesstimated entry time was 0:34.00 which I expected to be close to what I would race on the day.
    My dive was better, and my race felt better than I expected, which means I should have pushed harder on the first 25m. :-) 
Finishing in the middle of my age group twice makes me officially Mediocre!

Equipment:
  • Suit: Speedo Endurance
  • Googles: Speed Vanquisher 2.0
  • Cap: Tyr x2

Personal notes for my next event:

  • Find somewhere to practice dive-starts.
  • Fix my freestyle turns: 
    • my head is too far forward after the push 
    • my push isn't straight, it veers right  
    • I'm raising my head too soon 
Other notes:
  • Andy Grant casually clocking 50.93 for the 100m free (just half a second off the USMS record) and making the rest of the field look slow was something to behold.
  • Both my heats placed me in lane 1 with no-shows in lane 2. 
  • The pool lane 5 has a bizarre start-block setup. That block is almost over the lane rope between lane 5 and 6. I never want to race from that lane!
  • The pool also still doesn't have backplates on their starting blocks (not that I've ever trained to use one!) (Backplates have been legal since 2008.)

Results:


Possible next events
  • December 6th, 2025: MEMO’s Thrice is Nice, San Leandro 
    • 50 SCY Freestyle 
    • 50 SCY Butterfly
    • 100 SCY Freestyle
    • 200 SCY Freestyle
  • February 7th, 2026: USF Valentine's Affair, San Francisco 
    • 50 SCY Freestyle 
    • 100 SCY Freestyle 
    • 50 SCY Butterfly 

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