SwimFanatic Swim Meet

With a good dose of nervousness mingled with excitement, Trinity was looking forward to her third swim meet at the local swimming complex.  Her first two swim meets were a year ago when her strokes were still unrefined and, endurance and speed a work in progress.  

Now a year later and at silver level in the UK STA advanced swimming series program, her strokes are vastly improved along with her endurance.  Speed continues to be a work in progress but she is only seven years old training once a week. 

The race was held at the Bukit Batok Swimming Complex and Trinity was registered to compete in 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle categories.  

Once we arrived and familiarised ourselves with the venue, Trini toddled off with her coach, Justin Chua and his other students for a warm-up session.  Justin has been Trini's coach for three years, ever since she started swim classes.  They have a terrific working relationship and whilst Justin is tough on his students, he's also fair and personable with them.

As Trini prepped herself for the 50m breaststroke, I reiterated which stroke she had to do because in her previous races she started with freestyle first.  

Once the gun went off, Trini dropped in the pool and took off freestyle to my horror.  Fortunately she was in the first lane with Justin and I near enough to draw her attention and get her to change her stroke.  Technically she should have been disqualified, however, as an amateur event designed to expose and encourage kids to compete the judges let it go and Trini completed her competition coming out 2nd in her age category.  Poor kid when she got out of the pool she was mortified but a silver medal and professional pics moved her beyond it to then prepare for the next race.

Whilst anticipating a half hour break, as per schedule, the event was moving quickly and it was barely 10 minutes before Trini had to prep for the next race.  

Double reinforcing that she was doing freestyle this time, as the gun went off so did she.  Freestyle in full swing both Justin and I realised that Trini was making such headway in the pool that if she kept her game on she would easily place first.  In typical coach and mama style the vocals were kicking in screaming and shouting words of encouragement to keep pushing.  I'm sure we were heard outside the complex.

Throughout it all my heartbeat was so high, I could hear it drumming in my ears.  My anxiety levels went through the roof and it was the most exciting moment when she surfaced out of the pool and I was able to tell her she came in first.  Shortly after she was presented with her gold medal.  The excitement and euphoria was amplified and we floated on this feeling for the rest of the day.

This was our first experience in competition with Trini placing and it was an unbelievable feeling for me as her parent to be part of her success.

It is unlikely Trini will ever take swimming to a professional level as her interests lie in gymnastics and kung fu but if she never does anything else in competitive swimming we will have this extraordinary experience as a whole family.

With a heartfelt thanks to coach Justin, for all of his hard work and patience for developing Trini's skills.  He's earned these medals just as much as Trini.

And congratulations to my little girl for such an amazing effort and memorable day.

Cheers

Tri-Factor Series: Swim 2015 vs Nila Swim – 28th SEA Games Swim (500m)

Trifactor Swim

The Trifactor Swim was the first race I could enter after eight weeks laid up with a fractured ankle. I missed out on the Green Corridor and the Ultra Marathon but I was not going to miss out on the Trifactor Series.

The swim was the first race in the Trifactor Series and I was originally signed up for the 1500m swim. Two months out of training, I would have been foolish to tackle the distance. Luckily the Trifactor team helped me out by downgrading my distance to 500m. Still not fully recovered I figured with a firm ankle guard and minimum run/walk on sand I should be okay to swim provided that I didn’t need to kick.

With only six swim training sessions of which four were the week before the race, I hoped that I had enough fitness still left in me to see me through the race.

Come race day and I was a bundle of nerves. Scared about my leg, scared that I may not be fit enough and just about everything else I could conjure to mess up my head completely. What I didn’t anticipate of course were goggle problems. What could have been a terrific swim, since I thought the sheltered Tanjong Beach Sentosa was a great location, turned into a very frustrating swim. All because of leaky goggles.

I spent 80% of my race breaststroking and each time I tried to freestyle my goggles would just fill up with water. An extremely tiring way to swim for sure, towards the end I managed some version of freestyle without fully immersing my head into the water just so I could stretch my arms out and make some tracks in my swim.

Eventually I surfaced at 15:20 minutes which was incredibly disappointing given that I can usually knock it off in under 12 minutes. I’m reasonably new to swimming (about 12 months) so I am not fast but I am definitely better than 15+ minutes.

The humorous element in all this was that given my veteran category, I still managed to place second. But wait there were only three in my category so I would have placed regardless. It was quite a surprise and didn’t know till my girlfriend, Michelle who also swam the 500m in 13:46 minutes let me know a few days later.

  

Off I went to the Trifactor offices to collect another medal and a new pair of goggles.

The day was not a complete waste since I always enjoy the company of my fellow Team Costans. As mentioned above Michelle raced the same category as myself, hubby completed the men’s 500m category, Veronika tackled 1500m (with very little training) and Jeff challenged himself with 3000m.

The severe congestion of the longer distance meant that many of the swimmers were slowed in their pace trying to get around or over the top of others, lots of kicking in the face or body was taking place and made the race less pleasing. To reduce the congestion the women’s 500m category was delayed by 10min which made the swim for Michelle and myself a breeze and free of congestion.

With our kids in tow, cheering on we finished up the day at the Port of Lost Wonder. We had our race, and the kids had their fun.

 

 

 

Nila Swim for the 28th SEA Games

As part of the official South East Asian (SEA) Games, Singapore tacked on a swim race for the public in which Michelle and I participated. I was particularly interested in this race because it gave me another opportunity to race 500m and hopefully improve my timing and preferably avoid leaky goggles. Even better it was held in my backyard at Angsana Park on East Coast Park.

Approximately 35 participants entered the open all women’s category. Michelle was super excited whereas I was extremely nervous. I figured the nervousness was a result of little real competition experience and the constant adrenaline spikes were just simply uncomfortable and counter-productive.

Anyway, as we prepared to enter the racing pen one look over our shoulder at the four 16 year olds, in their swanky bathers and athletic builds we knew we were done for. A bit hard to be 30+ and 40+ mums trying to compete with teenagers. We were whipped by all of them.

The extremely low tide hindered our best timing given the nearly 70 meters we had to run/walk before we could reach deep enough water to swim. Since I’m still recovering and unable to run it was tough covering the distance by hobbling and landing on exposed rocks. I was tired before I even started.

However, I was pleased there was no leaky goggles and the sea was reasonably pleasant in comparison to Tanjong Beach where we came out filthy.

I perhaps started out a bit too hard trying to make up lost time with walking but it was unsustainable. Michelle on the other hand took the chance to run in as fast as she could. She settled into the 6th position and held it all the way to the end. Towards the end she was competing against two other swimmers and with her toughness and competitive spirit she turned her legs into hyper-drive and powered through her swim leaving them behind.

  

Whilst I managed to overtake five other women and caught up to Michelle, I overtook her a couple of times but just couldn’t hold the pace. When she went into hyper-drive her legs were like a motor in the sea. I got a good splashing in the face and she left me in the dust.

For the last 100m I had a swimmer behind me at only one arm’s length distance and I was determined not to be overtaken. So when I reached sand, I hobbled and hopped and moved as fast as I could as I wasn’t about to be overtaken in the last 20m. Needless to say when I crossed the finish line, I needed to lie down and catch my breath.

I have mixed emotions about this race from a personal achievement perspective. Having to walk so much reduced my swimming energy and again didn’t feel like it was my best performance but I guess there are no perfect situations so I’ll just have to keep doing the shorter swim races before I consider anything lengthier or more challenging.

The low tide

Swim area past orange marker

On a positive note, it was great to participate in a race that celebrated the spirit of the SEA Games that hasn’t been held in Singapore since 1983. An excellent time to be host to the games given Singapore’s 50th year of independence from Malaysia. I feel privileged to participate.