Hi, Everyone.
Thomas asked me to share some thoughts and perspectives of the past year. And what a year it has been for us all. I will limit my ramblings to that of a swimmer and a coach.
From a swimmer’s perspective, the four things that come to mind over the past year are opportunity, frustration, reflection, and community.
Opportunity. Over the last year, I have had the time to work on technique. I have approached my pool time as work on quality not quantity, and I have taken the time to do the drills and other things that I have overlooked while training for events.
Frustration. Will I get my pool time? Will the Y stay open? Will I stay healthy?
Reflection. Over the last year, I have had time to think of where I want to go with swimming, recognizing the importance and the daily anchor that swimming provides me.
Community. This is the big one – the most important one of the four. I have missed the people I swim with, compete with in meets, the coaches I talk to, and the swimmers at Stanwood-Camano Wa ‘Y” Masters (SWYM) for whom I helped coach. It has been this social side that I have missed the most.
From a coach’s perspective, this past year has been a big one for me. Foremost was the departure of our Head Coach, Brad Hering, from our SWYM program where I served as the backup coach. While I am so pleased for Brad securing the coaching opportunity he did at Arizona Christian University, I find that moving up the food chain in our small workout group has been like getting a new job to fill some really BIG shoes.
As early as last November there was talk of restarting SWYM, but with a new Y management team, a new Y management structure, the Covid impacts, that talk came and went. Finally, on April 6, we had our first official workout. During the down time several of us had written workouts to sustain us through the isolation times. These workouts were kept pool side for anyone to use and they were used by many swimmers. Once again it was the people and community that I missed the most during these times. There are many of my swimmers I have not seen for more than a year, and sadly some may not return.
The future? Oh, how I wish for that crystal ball. From my perspective, swim meet managers will have some big challenges dealing with the impacts of Covid. I will mention a few of them. Safety for the swimmers, officials, and volunteers. Considering the age demographics of a Masters meet and the physical fitness of everyone, swimmers will perhaps be of least concern. It will be the officials and volunteers, some of whom might not be in tip-top shape, who are of greatest concern. Yet, without them, swim meets would not succeed.
Covid mitigation rules at meets will probably be driven by the local jurisdiction and possibly be enhanced by USMS, the hosting club, or our Pacific Northwest Local Masters Swimming Committee. As swimmers, we may not like the new “rules” but they are not for our convenience. I encourage everyone to embrace them so that we can get back to swimming, competing, and enjoying our community of the swimming world.
