SPORTS & FITNESS
43
SWIMMING:
Section Report By Susan Finlay
Masters Christmas Social
Masters Saturday morning session
With Christmas and the New Year well out of the way, I discussed with our Masters swimmers how their goals for the New Year were going and asked them why and how they remain committed to swimming as a sport. Some of the swimmers often find it difficult due to work or family commitments to come as often as they would like, but one motivated & committed swimmer said “It doesn’t matter how many times a week I come, I always try and maintain a goal of doing up to 10km a week and no less than 7k’s.” Now that is commitment and not all of us can manage that. Coach Roland’s sessions are regularly around 2.5k, so if you do four sessions a week 10k is easy, it would just mean that if you only go 2 times a week you will have to swim more lengths and faster! For those of you who want help figuring out how much 2.5km is, I will do the maths for you. We swim in a 25 meter pool so 2 lengths is 50 and as you know 50x50 is 2500m. So that is 100 lengths. Roland sets us a different schedule each time. A 2.5km training set is broken into parts: a warm up set, a sprint or distance set and a warm down set. The sprint or distance set is always the section of the swim that all the swimmers require a little adrenalin to get them through. There is a feeling of slight nervous energy to this necessary evil as it is the sprint set where we push ourselves to improve our fitness levels, with the help of friendly competition/encouragement from your fellow swimmers and of course Coach Roland. If the person in the lane looks like he is racing you, it is probably because he is! The feeling of achievement, exhaustion and relief at the end of it all is met with almost the same feeling as soldiers returning from battle and there is a sense that we have braved and conquered this mentally and physically tough task. The camaraderie amongst swimmers no matter how big or small their personal goals are, are celebrated together. We usually use three to four lanes and have the privilege of only having to share with no more than 3 or 4 swimmers at a time, which for a swimming squad is unique. We are all at different levels of swimming but all manage to get through Roland’s constantly changing and challenging swim sets and all manage to get through the set within our own time frame. Roland is always there to keep pushing us through and making sure we achieve our goals and believe me it is never boring. I am often asked how do you not get bored when all you do is swim up and down looking at a black line at the bottom of the pool. If I compare swimming to yoga, it is quite similar because you set yourself a challenge and with determination and the use of your breathing you can achieve your goal. Swimming uses every muscle in the body, increases your fitness and strength and there is little or no risk of injury no matter how hard you push yourself. In the tropical climate of Singapore and with our beautiful pool and its surroundings, it really is the best sport. We have a great group of dedicated swimmers of all ages and experience. We have a number of husband and wife swimmers too. Some have swam all their lives to varing degrees and others are relatively new to the sport. We all have different goals for 2015 from open water swimming events to masters swimming international and national swimming competitions to just keeping fit and becoming a better swimmer. We all enjoy the social aspect and feel it is justified to share in a glass of wine or a coffee after training. We always welcome new comers and love to encourage others to join our group, we hope our enthusiasm is contagious. We always say, “You never regret a swim.” For more information on joining the masters, you can email swimming@britishclub.org.sg.
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