日本 マスタース" 泳ぎ大会

富山市　４月１６日２００６

Toyama city hosted an all Japan Masters Swim Meet this weekend. There were over 1000 swimmers aged 18-100, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. There were college kids and grandparents like you've never seen before. I saw one lady with a walker walking around in her speedo and swim cap. I'm not sure what she swam, but that's one tough lady! There were a total of 3 foreigners-Linea, me and a guy living in Toyama-city. Apparently, our team, the Kurobe Masters Team, got a lot of comments from officials and other teams about how "international" they are. I think they were very proud of that status!

It was a long day. We met the team in Kurobe at 6:45 to carpool to Toyama. Someone on the team was really genki and got to the pool as soon as it opened. He claimed three tarps right on the pool deck! It was a perfect location to watch all the races. Other teams were allocated to the balcony upstairs or even in the entry lobby. There were so many people there! We had a prime location.

Warming-up at a meet is always a challenge. 10-20 swimmers in a lane at varying levels, swimming all the strokes. It's amazing there aren't more injuries or fights that break out. The water temp was REALLY cold though, so it kept people moving or out of the water. There was no gossiping and chatting at the end of the lanes. It was too fricking cold!

Organizing 1000 swimmers into age heats and their events must be an absolute nightmare. And it was a nightmare to read the line-up as well. It would be one thing if I knew Japanese, but adding kanji, hiragana and katakana makes it that much more challenging. But our team mates helped us out, although it even took them awhile to read the line-up! There were some nervous moments of "oh, no you're up next," "oh, wait, one more hour," "no, you go now," "pool A," "wait, pool B," etc. But in the end, Linea and I got to all our races and even finished all our races!

I swam my college event, the 100 breast. The first 50 felt great, but the last 50 felt tight! But I haven't exactly been practicing sprints! Something to work towards for the October meet. And I also tried the 100IM, an event we didn't have in college. But it was fun and I hope I can swim it again! I'm learning to really like fly and back! Lastly, I got to swim a 25 free in the 100 medley relay! That was fun and short!

I haven't a clue how our team did overall. They don't really publish team results that I know of. But our team broke several meet records. Including a relay team Linea was on! You go girl! And we took home 2 boxes full of medals! But, really, the medals don't mean all that much. I got a gold in my 100 brst because I was the first to finish in my age group. The catch is, I was the ONLY one in my age group to swim in the event. BUT, I was second overall!

It's kinda fun getting medals, even if they are worthless. But it got me thinking about how wasteful it is. I kinda wish we could just donate the money they spent on medals to a volunteer group. Or spend it on sponsering a special olympics athlete. Or something more useful!

The day ended with a big enkai! The other swimmers got loaded! Linea and I drank ginger ale, stuffed our bellies and then headed home, both with a splitting headache and totally exhausted!

It was so fun though! I'm already looking forward to October!