16 first time swims, 16 PBs and 9 County qualifying times at the 1500/800 time trials.
Thirty-seven intrepid swimmers and supporters gathered at Hemel for the annual 1500/800 time trials on Saturday and amassed an impressive total of first-time swims, PB’s and County Championship qualifying times over the two distances.
There’s something of a mystique surrounding these distance events and without wishing to trivialise the achievement let’s try to put them in context . On Sunday night County Squad completed a training set of twenty-two 100IM’s, or 2,200m; significantly farther than the longest event on Saturday night – and some of the IM’s were at sprint race pace. And since everyone completed the 800m event on Saturday in under 15 minutes (including the sole representatives from Otters and Masters!), it means that almost all the Otters gathering for their T20 assessment this coming Wednesday can expect to swim at least that far. It’s easy to underestimate what our swimmers are capable of!
A big “thank you” to everyone who helped. Just to prove that asking you to record 50m splits wasn’t just an exercise in making certain you kept awake (!), all the times and splits are now available on the database. The splits are worth looking at because they record some truly metronomic performances which are a tribute to both swimmers and coaches.