Dude, Where is the Card?

Have you ever felt like you landed on the wrong planet?  I have.  That was exactly how I felt last Saturday at my first swim meet in years.

At crew practice, as soon as the boat touched the dock again, I jumped out of bow seat and hurried home to pack for today's swim meet.  Here is where I encountered my first problem--what do you pack for a swim meet?  Obviously, everything you usually bring to swim practice--swimsuit, cap, goggles.  But what about food?  How much food and water do you bring?  Do you need extra clothes?  What about something to do in between events?  I managed to throw something together and almost forgot to bring a towel!  My husband, the Princess, and I all rushed out the door.

My husband dropped me off because there was no way he and the Princess were going to stay to watch.  It is already enough torture for him to come to regattas and he was not interested in adding swim meets to the list.

The second problem occurred when I got to the pool--there were people and tents everywhere.  How was I going to find Marcia and the rest of her MEMO (short for Marcia's Enthusiastic Masters of Oakland) swim team?  Dressed in my San Diego Crew Classic shirt and my sweat pants with the word "crew" in bold letters, I must have stuck out like a misplaced athlete.  I definitely felt like I was walking on the wrong planet.  There were many tall, athletic, broad-shouldered swimmers and many older, tanned swimmers.  If I have learned one thing from masters rowing, it is to never underestimate people older than you.  Not only will they beat you with the age handicap, they can probably beat you without the age handicap.  I am sure it is the same for masters swimming.

Luckily, I ran into someone I recognized who guided me to the MEMO tent.  Marcia and a good number of other MEMO swimmers were already there.  Apparently, Marcia came Friday night to grab some prime real estate and to set up the tent right at the edge of the pool.

Can you spot the tiny MEMO sign in our tent?

All that rush in the morning was for nothing because my event was not for another hour and half.  The problem with masters swim meets is that there is no set time schedule for the events, besides for the first event.   There were only about 9 events that day, but each event is held for both men and women and can have multiple heats.  It was not uncommon to have an event with over 10 heats.

I was competing in only one event, the 200yd medley relay, swimming the 50yd freestyle anchor leg of the relay.  In the individual medley (IM), one swimmer swims all four strokes in the following order--fly, back, breast, free.  In the team medley relay, however, four swimmers swim in the following order--back, breast, fly, free.  In a team relay, each team is given a card on which are printed all the swimmers' names, ages, and stroke.  This card is used to record the official time and technically, without the card, no official time can be recorded.

Marcia handed our pink relay card to our backstroke swimmer.  The women's relays had pink cards, and the men's relays had blue cards.  About 20 minutes before our relay, the three other women and I went to warm-up in the cold, small warm-up pool.  Here was the third problem.  We had all jumped out of the warm-up pool and lined up in our lane before we realized that none of us had the relay card.  Between everyone passing the card around to scrutinize it as if it bared some ancient secret and everyone warming up, no one actually remembered where the pink card went. 

We still raced our relay, and the timer for our lane recorded the times on a piece of scratch paper.  The race went by quickly, and there was no time to be nervous beforehand because we were too busy scurrying around and turning the whole tent upside down to look for our card.  I think I even managed a relay dive, but I do not remember too clearly.  After the race, we looked again for the card, but no luck.  We thought we would be disqualified and have no official time recorded, but then Marcia worked her magic.  Being a swim coach for 25 plus years, Marcia knew a few people and she went over to talk to the officials.  Everything was properly sorted out, and with little difficulty, we had an official time of 2:25.89 minutes, placing 5th out of six in our age group.  I wonder if the card ever turned up.