Club Night and Postal Meet

The next club night is Wednesday 1st October. Club night is free so why not come along and give it a go.

There is also a postal meet coming up for 800m and 1500m which you can try your hand at. What is a postal meet? That's a good question, I'm so glad you asked. Sometimes a swimming club would like to hold a swim meet but for whatever reason they are unable - perhaps they don't have enough club members to help out or the cost of hiring the pool would be too great. So they conduct a postal meet. The swimmer gets to swim in their home pool and has a timekeeper time them (with the current event it is 800 and/or 1500 Free). The timekeeper must record splits so that the time can be verified. Then the timekeeper posts the entry in. The officiating club compiles all results and figures out who won each category and sends out results. Boom!!! Generally, there is around a one month period in which the swimmer gets to do the swim and so can work out with their timekeeper when is a good time to get together. At our club John Trubnick generally does all the timekeeping on one night (sometimes with a helper if there are lots of swimmers) and swimmers are allotted a time to go into the designated postal meet lane to do their 'race'.

The current postal meet will be timed on Monday 6th October between 7pm and 9pm. If you want to enter, please see Fiona. It is possible to do both the 800 and the 1500; they will run concurrently - in other words you will swim 1500m and a split will be taken at the 800m mark and then an entry put in for both events.

September Race Night Results Posted, New Swimmer Of The Month

It was the long-awaited 400's challenge at the most recent race night and some rip-roaring times were swum. Three swimmers even took on the decathlon of swimming - the 400 IM. 14 Swimmers took on swimming a 400 and everyone looked rather pleased with their times. A few even had enough energy to race over another 50m afterwards. Why? Because they can. However, a few exhausted swimmers were already heading for the showers leaving only 8 swimmers to tackle the relays.

Only 1 woman's record and 3 men's records were broken and no relay records were harmed in the making of this post. However, traditionally the number of records broken on 400's night has always been low given that there is only 1 event on the menu. A mention should be made of Rachel Richardson's rather spectacular swim in the 400 IM, going under 6 minutes. As a member of Manukau Masters Rachel is unable to break or hold any of our club records, however any woman of any age swimming under 6 minutes for this event deserves applause. Well done Rachel.

Then it was on to the Mellowpuffs (sometimes I stoop to eating a piece of fruit). Swimmer of the month was also announced. Unless you have been buried under a rock you would have heard that Dawn managed a hugely impressive 2nd woman overall placing at the Samoa Swim Series in spite of being very ill with swine flu. This is a really serious illness and racing 12km over 3 days in difficult weather conditions took enormous guts and determination. You will be pleased to learn that Dawn is slowly on the mend and getting back in the water again.