Welcome to Dual-Sanction Meets!
This past June 11 and 12, the 2022 Pacific Northwest MET-SEAL LCM Cannonball Classic, a dual sanction PNS-PNA meet, was held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. The pool was set up in the less-common 50 meter Long Course configuration. Due to the enrollment of copious hordes of youths, PNA was asked to cap their attendance at 40 swimmers, leaving some Masters swimmers unable to participate. Nonetheless, eight lucky TWIM athletes attended the festivities, faithfully representing the Blue and White.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the term “dual-sanction”, it applies to a meet that includes both age-groupers and Masters swimmers. In this particular meet, swimmers were seeded by time, with the results ranking tallied across all ages, i.e. you are in direct competition with those crazy-fast Pacific Northwest Swimming (PNS) teenagers. Some events were in excess of 300 swimmers, so your USMS results may show a Place with a fairly big number!
The dual-sanction format of the swim meet added additional interest and energy to the event, with many TWIM swimmers moving out of their comfort zone when confronted with the undulating sea of joyful young swimmers. And yes, sometimes joyfulness can look a lot like “spazzing out.” Getting to/from an event involved braving throngs of junior swimmers who were clogging up the poolside thoroughfares, requiring careful navigation around gleeful youngsters who were shrieking, pushing, shoving, and decorating each other with permanent markers. The fastest-moving kids on the deck would risk careening off other individuals in ever-changing and unpredictable ways. The alert and mindful swimmer was usually able to duck out of the way just before impact.
I couldn’t help but smile – a little chaos can make life interesting.
TWIM president Dan Underbrink made it on to the attendance-limited roster and was present to swim in six events.
Question: At a given meet, what is the maximum number of events you can sign up to swim?
Answer: However many Dan signs up for.
Dan had a strong showing in all three of his breaststroke events, coming within 1-2 seconds of his LCM personal-bests from 2019. Getting back to your pre-COVID times is a sign that you are successfully getting back in the groove. To my knowledge Dan didn’t get schooled by any 8-year-olds. But if he had, you would most certainly hear about it from me, with embellishment.
Carl Haynie was there, encouraging his teammates, staying as cool as a cucumber. He swam the three backstroke events, and also the 50 meter breaststroke in which he placed 2nd among 83 swimmers…reminding everyone that he is also a nationally-ranked breaststroke hobbyist.
Steve Fogg, recently returned from a swimming junket in Tunisia, showed up to race back home in the Northwest, where we conduct swim meets in English. He showed me a very unique medal from his overseas adventure that had French writing on one side, and Arabic on the other. I was a bit envious. I sensed that absconding with the Tunisian loot would have irritated Steve.
Mr. Fogg’s 50M LCM Backstroke was only .08 off his personal best, revealing that international travel can’t burn off the Fogg. I watched with morbid fascination as Steve performed the 200 Butterfly. The long course format presented Steve the opportunity to swim the most painful version of the 200 fly, which undoubtedly affords maximal bragging rights within the small community of 200 butterfly crazies fanatics.
Maoz Alsberg showed up to create some turbulence in the pool as he rocketed from one end to the other. He placed as high as 5th place in the 50 back amongst 111 swimmers, and 10th place in the 50 free with 344 racers. Yes, you read that correctly, 10th fastest of 344. Dan showed me a picture of Alsberg’s 50 freestyle race. All I could see in the pic was whitewater, but Maoz was allegedly in there somewhere. Here, he was careful not to strain a tender shoulder on his backstroke start, or else he would have exactly resembled Carter Cox in the yellow cap (who took 1st, by the way).
Brent Barnes and Holly Lickwala, like reliable time pieces, were present to race. If they’d given out awards for best-behaved children, their kids would have won gold. Brent cranked through the 50 and 100 meter races for breaststroke and freestyle, and participated in two relays. I had some engaging conversations with Brent concerning the challenges of swimming when all of your moving parts don’t fully cooperate, a fairly common situation for the over-50 swimming crowd and a condition to which I can personally relate.
Holly smoked four events, challenging the USMS Top-Ten fastest like it was no big deal.
Just another day for her.
She crushed her 200 IM LCM personal best by 17 seconds, swimming a 2:56.88. Yikes! Holly was also paired up with Kathy Pelham in both of TWIM’s mixed relays to give the TWIM women a solid one-two punch.
Coach Kathy showed up to race along with one of her offspring participating on the PNS side of the dual-sanction. Kathy swam the 100 and 200 meter freestyle and anchored one of the two TWIM relays she was in, helping TWIM capture a gold-medal finish in the 200 Meter Mixed Freestyle Relay. Kathy will kindly and patiently try to answer any crazy coaching question a swimmer throws her way. I asked her to weigh in on whether a cap was faster than a bald cranium, just to see if I could trip her up. That’s the type of hijinks our TWIM coaches have to put up with.
For myself, I was .03 faster in the 100M breaststroke than I swam it at 2021 LCM Nationals, and 2 seconds slower in the 200M breaststroke. I was OK with those outcomes, but not thrilled. I always hope that I’ve discovered some silver bullet that will increase my speed, but the magic never happens. Eventually I’ll get Carl to spill his secrets. Or I’ll get Carl to swim my races.
I navigated the deck-seeding process in order to sneak into the 200 freestyle, getting to see for the first time the nerve center of the Weyerhaeuser facility, aka the “Control Room.” The Control Room was much more impressive than I’d imagined, aggregating all the electronic sensing and coms, and if I had to guess, they can also use it as a backup facility to launch spacecraft. In addition to learning the deck-seed process, the authorities helped clarify for me that “exhibition” did not mean you could swim naked, kids or no kids – although it was more of a theoretical discussion, or “asking for a friend.”
I was placed in an available lane in Heat 1 of the 200M freestyle as an exhibition entrant (swim suit still required), finding out later that my dance card would only allow for a brief one-heat rest period before I transitioned from the 100M breaststroke to swim Heat 1 Lane 1 of the 200 free. Moments before the 200 freestyle was to begin, despite still being nauseous from the previous race, I decided to actually get up on the block and chalk up the brutality of a short rest interval as a “bucket list” achievement, knowing it would not be a pretty race. I could hear, in my mind, Mr. Fogg’s advice from Nationals: “You signed up for it, you swim it!”
— Dave Scott
