By Dan Underbrink and Vic Pace
While TWIM Milers and support staff gathered for the Bellevue Club Masters Mile Meet, two other TWIM members, Valerie Thompson and Karin Williams were feeling the glow after their Virtual Mile, swum the day before. First we will hear about the Bellevue gathering, and then we will recap Val and Karin’s swims.
TWIM has quite a cadre of distance swimmers, and that really becomes apparent whenever the Bellevue Mile Meet is offered. This is the fourth time the meet has been held, and it is always heavily attended by TWIM Champions!
Here are the TWIM Swimmers and TWIM Support Staff who made the January 30th commute to Bellevue: Brent Barnes and Holly Lickwala (sons Joshua and Nathan supporting, of course!), Kathy Pelham, and Tom Elliot – in his TWIM competition debut! Tom was accompanied by his support staff – wife Yuko and daughter Kaila. Also swimming, were Carl Haynie and Dan Underbrink (wife Mary in support). TWIMmers, Steve Fogg and Thomas Walker were in attendance as well, in swimmer support roles.
All of our TWIM Milers posted great times in this meet! If you are a lover of the time and splits details, I will encourage you to review the actual meet results here.
The Bellevue Mile is a Short Course Meters (SCM) meet, so our “mile” was actually 1500 meters – 60 lengths of the pool; a so-called “metric mile”. USMS Spring Nationals will be held at a Short Course Yard (SCY) venue, where the “mile” is 1650 yards – 66 lengths of the pool.
I went online and found a 1500 meter-to-1650 yard converter. Using the converter, I found that four of our TWIM Milers (Holly, Kathy, Carl, and Dan) qualify to swim in the 1650 at Nationals!
In further statistics fun, I see that when we put Holly’s and Kathy’s 1500 meter times up against the 2021 USMS Top Ten times, their Bellevue Mile swims have them in fifth and sixth place on that list!
This meet is always great fun and a great opportunity to catch up with your TWIM teammates. Be sure to place this one on your list for next year.
Now Vic will tell us about Val and Karin and the Virtual Mile.
January 29, 2022. The Bellevue Mile (Virtual) Swim
Today was a terrific day. The weather has stopped raining for a bit and the temperatures rose above freezing for a little bit as well, but that didn’t really matter, since the event was at an indoor pool.
Two TWIM members swam the Bellevue Mile Swim virtually, due to not being able to sign up for the event because of limited participation restrictions. Valerie Thompson and Karin Williams swam the event on Saturday, January 29, starting at 10 a.m., at the Valley Athletic Club (VAC) in Tumwater, WA. Although they were not there in person, they were definitely there in Spirit!
We had a diverse crowd of athletes, fans, and spectators at the virtual event. Although we only had one lane to do the virtual competition, we had some great athletes in the pool in the other lanes as well. The lane right next to us was filled with 7–10-year-old kids learning to swim and how to do proper strokes. In the lane next to that one, was 70+-year-old working on her backstroke. Although we were in the shallow pool (3 feet) it was quite busy. Plus, on top of that, in the deep pool, there was a class for expecting mothers doing water aerobics.
So, as you can see, the pool was quite active for this day.
I want to give a shout out to Joyce D., the Pool Manager at the VAC, for allowing us to reserve a lane to do the virtual swim. The pool at the VAC is a 25 yard pool, so the ladies swam 66 lengths.
As per SOP, Karin, the faster swimmer, swam first. I believe that Karin mentioned to Val that this will be a great swim to start the new year off with.
Karin did an (unofficial) time of: 0:28:05.09
Karin is a triathlete by heart, but loves all forms of exercises. In fact, on Sunday, she and a friend did a mini-triathlon: a 6.5-mile trail run, 22.6-mile bike ride (stationary), and finished with a 1200 yard swim.
Val did an (unofficial) time of: 0:41:01.69
Both ladies enjoyed the virtual swim and thought it would be a great training activity in the future to prepare for upcoming swim events.
In this pool, there are no platforms to dive from because of the shallowness of the pool.
Story and photo by Vic “The Fatman” Pace
