On April 8 and 9, 2017, Twelve of us (10 swimmers, 2 coaches) ventured down to Federal Way for the 2017 PNA Championship & Northwest Zone Championship Meet. A big thank you to Brian and Frank for your on-deck support!! Many personal best times were achieved, and as a team we came away with over 271 points! A few highlights from the meet…
Maoz’s “altitude training” (Ha!) in Denver has yet again become an asset. Swimming with two Olympians in the 100 IM, he dropped nearly 2 seconds AND managed to stop before going through the wall! His 50 free and “I’m not going to swim” 100 free were equally impressive with best times in all events.
Rumor has it, Vince has rarely been seen in the pool lately. He did, however, get to watch Jacob Pebley show his age group swimmers a bit of underwater technique before heading to Federal Way on Saturday. I’m guessing he learned something because, despite his absence from the pool, his 50 and 100 breast times tied or surpassed his personal bests…
Jenny decided to try to change things up a bit and become a distance swimmer for the weekend. She did a fine job of it, but I think the 1000 left her thinking that Betsey, Tammy, and I are crazy. Then, she became a backstroker and did that equally as well. Makes us wonder if there’s anything she can’t swim…? Good luck at Nationals, Jenny!!
Father Tom dropped nearly 2 seconds in his 100 back and 11 in his 200! Personal bests in both and amazing swimming! I hear he’s headed to Birmingham in June for Senior Games, Good luck to you, Tom!!
Carl strolled in on Sunday reeking of guacamole after vacationing/tapering in Mexico and swam more events than any one of us on a single day. Despite the hardship he endured the week before and his excessive yardage, he managed to beat his seed times on everything and even subjected me to a 1650 challenge… Good luck at Nationals, Carl!!
Betsey After starting Saturday morning with the excitement of a new swimming suit malfunction, Betsey swam an impressive amount of yardage with more than impressive times! Not that we’re surprised, this lady has swum nearly 300 events in the past 10 years, she’s quite the experienced swimmer! Best of luck at National Senior Games in June!!
Valerie swam a bunch of LONG stuff at this meet as well as swimming 2 relays on Saturday. Most impressively, she dropped a whole 32 seconds off her seed time on the 200 back!! Great swimming Valerie!!
Tammy joined us for a day and a half (just couldn’t bear to skip the 500 on Sunday….) She and Betsey have been pool hopping for a while since their pool closed. Even without having a consistent place to swim she managed to beat her best times in each of her events!! Her next challenge is open water swimming… Sounds like we’ll see her at Fat Salmon this year!
Tom is back! And it’s a good thing because TWIM would not be TWIM without the “TW”… we’d just be aimless and nameless! Exceeding his own expectations, he beat his seed times by more seconds than I can count. I guess it just shows you never know what you can do until you do it!
Kathy Psst – Maoz and Carl here because we know Kathy won’t brag about her own accomplishments – We are here to say that Kathy (who finally managed to taper…) had an absolutely PHENOMENAL meet setting personal USMS bests in all of her individual events including a sub-30 second anchor performance in the Women’s 200 medley relay. She amassed 41 individual points in her 5 races including her 1st place swims in the 200 free, 1000 free, and 1650 free events. Maoz figured she shaved a total of 2 minutes 12 seconds off all her seed times which has to be some kind of record! And all of this was done in a semi-anaerobic state as her suit kept her from breathing for two straight days!!
