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FIRST EVER FEDERAL WAY KINGS ONE HOUR MEDLEY RELAY
The one hour swim entry had a paragraph that caught the attention of four swimmers on our team: FUN AWARDS: Awarded to each relay of four, same club, who completes a One Hour Medley Relay, swimming all four strokes. Each of the swimmers must complete his/her entire hour swim in a different stroke, free, back, breast or fly. While it may be argued that swimming a stroke for a solid hour is no fun, you wouldn’t have heard that from four swimmers who decided to take this idea and swim with it. With some encouragement and gentle arm twisting, the Federal Way Kings put together a relay of four swimmers: Paul Stoermer, backstroke; Dan Smith, breaststroke; Eric Dybdahl, butterfly and Phil Spencer, freestyle. Phil, Dan and Eric all swam a one hour freestyle with the team on Sunday, January 14th. Phil had one of his best hour swims every and felt very pleased with it. He focused on stroke count rather than pace clock and held a smooth fast past throughout the swim, finishing with 4,840 yards. On Wednesday, January 24, Eric and Paul took their respective strokes on a one hour journey during early morning workout. Paul looked cool and composed as he swam his backstroke hour, and his first words after finishing were, “it was fun”. Seems like the entry form was right. Watching Eric’s hour of butterfly was simply amazing. It was like the proverbial parent who would say, “now this is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to hurt you”. We were watching and counting and imagining how much it would hurt us, all the while Eric was smooth and in control for the entire hour. He held a steady pace and never stopped at even one wall for a breather. He had a very smooth glide into each stroke and was able to maintain form without ever showing any signs of “survival fly”. Eric got fifty yard ahead of Paul during the first forty-five minutes. In the last fifteen minutes Paul picked up the pace and the two of them finished strong and together, finishing at 3,740 yards. On Friday, January 26, Dan finished up the medley relay with an hour of breaststroke. Swimming an hour of breaststroke means Dan spent 1/3 of the hour underwater and had to deal with more torque in the knees. After holding a steady pace it looked like he was going to break 4,000 yards but came up just 20 yards short, finishing at 3,980 yards. Looks like the making of a sequel. Fun? Yes. Even though the soreness hung around a lot
longer than a freestyle hour, they are already talking about strategies to
improve on those “stroke hour” swims. Let us know how the “fun awards” |
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Copyright (c) 2007 Federal Way Masters.
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