COMSA State Championships 2010

Normal people spend their lovely Spring weekends playing outdoors, whistling happy tunes while they fertilize their lawn, sanitize their laundry, or revitalize their family with a lovely minivan trip up to Nederland or something. Me, I spend the entire time in a damp and noisy cavern with hundreds of dripping wet psychopaths who enjoy tormenting themselves by plunging into a chlorine-infested water tank to see how quickly they can propel their bodies back and forth for no particular reward other than personal pride, a tiny wrinkled ribbon, and the occasional opportunity to say "In your face, Jeff Maguoirk!"

Yes, that's right...it's the annual Colorado Masters Swimming Association State Championship Masters Swim Meet. It began on Friday afternoon and continued until Sunday evening; starting with hope, optimism, and fire in the belly, etc...and ended with an overwhelming need for pizza, beer, and a good night's sleep. I was completely exhausted by the end of it.

And that exhaustion is all @#$%! John Tobin's fault.

Let me explain: The inimitable Mr. Tobin is a fixture within the Colorado swimming community, and is always full of energy, ideas, and the charismatic persuasiveness to talk other people into acting as crazy as he is. In the past, he has championed such traditions as the beer relay, the Brute Squad, and the rubber chicken hanging from the backstroke flags. This year, his dementia sprouted the idea of the "5050 Challenge", which urged participants to release whatever sanity they might have possessed and sign up for the maximum swim yardage allowed by the meet organizers. The total yardage swum by doing this is 5,050 yards (~2.87 miles), which doesn't seem like all that much. But when each yard of that distance is an all-out race against obnoxious rivals begging to be squashed (aka the aforementioned Mr. Maguoirk), well, it becomes a tad grueling as the weekend plays out.

By my last event, I could barely hoist myself up onto the starting blocks -- and when the 70-year-old geezer in the next lane zipped ahead of me at the 100 mark and I urged my muscles to the attack, they responded with a rousing chorus of "No más, amigo. No más." Sigh.

The good news is that everyone else on my team swam great, and I am intensely proud of them. Not only did they exhibit excellent form, power, and passion in their own events, but they also provided support for their teammates, as well as enthusiastic cameraderie on deck and after the meet. I am truly blessed to have such good friends and solid teammates, and I got a great kick out of their participation and performance.

The other good news is that I felt I swam pretty hard myself. I tried to pace well, finish hard, and leave it all in the pool. I can truly say that I put an intense effort into every race, and don't know how I could've gone any faster. (Well, except for training harder, improving my technique, and eating far less pie, of course.) And thanks to Mike Mann's magnanimous decision not to swim the 1650 or the 200 butterfly, I even picked up a couple of First Place ribbons. Whoo hoo!

The bad news...well, the bad news is that I came out on the short end of the rivalry stick. Just as Superman has Lex Luthor and Spiderman has Aunt May, I have found myself pitted against the evil and treacherous Mr. Maguoirk for the past couple of years. Oh don't get me wrong, I don't hate him, and I'm certainly not in a position to pity the fool...in fact, I consider Jeff to be a great guy and am pleased to call him a friend. But I still don't want him to ever beat me. Ever.

Last year, we split the meet fairly evenly. He won some, I won some. Good grudge matches all, and good fun for everyone. But this year, he totally mopped the floor with me. Oh sure, he gave me a couple of token victories (by .1 seconds in the 200 back, for example), but in most races beat me like a drum. The margins were large, and the humiliation great. If there'd have been post-race reporters on deck, they'd have been asking questions like "How does it feel to get your butt kicked so badly by this guy? How will you ever face your family again?", etc.

And to make matters worse, Scott Newcombe and Kent Carney also beat me in events where I should've been able to hold them off. So now there are a couple of new rivalries that are also begging for revenge. (And we're not even going to talk about that uppity 70-year-old speedster geezer...Grrr.) Ahhh, my friends, there is much work to do before the 2011 meet. Much work indeed.

So don't be surprised if you see me downloading MP3s of the "Theme from Rocky", slurping steroid-laced milkshakes, and running up mountainsides carrying huge logs on my back, etc. I am focused, man. I'm gonna be intense. Don't even think of tempting me with pie, OK?

Well, maybe just one slice...every now and then. But mostly, no!

Anyway, I was also going to tell you about some of the record-setting swims I witnessed at the meet. (There were some serious studs there.) And the venue was rich with visual delights, from the giant Dr. Phibes ventilation fans to the high quality of babe-a-liciousness wandering the deck. We had entertainment in the form of old guys who forgot what events they were swimming, cup-stacking competitions down the hall, Tobin's rubber chickens, and creatively-applied temporary team tattoos. But I'm out of time for now, so those stories will have to wait until later. In the meantime, thank you for your support, and have a great day!