Swimmer's Daily

  • It’s the oldest record still standing in the Northern Virginia Swimming League.

    Over the decades, young swimmers in high-tech suits and year-round training regimens have shattered nearly all of those creaky old race times.

    But no team has been able to match what the Four Amigos did that day in the Vienna Woods pool in 1963, swimming a 100-yard medley relay in 58.4 seconds, when the Beatles were playing on the radio and the big reward after the race was one of those 15-cent hamburgers at that new place, the McDonald’s.

    Until now. Maybe.

    They’d decided to gather again, these Four Amigos, 51 years later.

    It was a pact they made a year ago, when they came back to the Vienna Woods swim club for a 50-year reunion and saw their record stood firm.

    And when Roger Williams, 63, strolled onto the pool deck Saturday afternoon, it was clear they had a shot.

    Williams has been living in California, where he played water polo in college, trained with Mark Spitz and worked on his tan. He’s tall, lean and muscular and still swims and wins in master’s events all over the country. He looks like a boomer Ken doll, if Mattel had made one.

    He slices into the water and starts doing laps, a warmup that would kill others.

    He’d been training all year for this.

    “I feel 30, maybe 35 years old,” he tells me, in between laps.

    Not everyone has been training for a year.

    See The Washington Post

  • A 34-year-old man will have to make an appearance in court after he went for a swim in the frigid South Saskatchewan River Sunday afternoon.

    The man was wearing a wetsuit and appeared to be a strong swimmer, but that didn’t prevent the Saskatoon Fire Department from launching its water rescue boat.

    People on shore looked on in disbelief as rescuers positioned themselves to bring him on board.

    The man was swimming between the University and Broadway bridges when the boat reached him. He got in to the boat and was brought to shore where police were waiting for him.

    A city bylaw bans swimming in the river. The man received a ticket from police and will have to make a mandatory court appearance for the offence.

    The air temperature Sunday afternoon when the man was in the water was eight degrees Celsius.

    See story and video on CTV News

    Photo by Canadian Light Source synchrotron

  • Kerry Washington talks about her love for swimming and the water on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon!

    See Diversity in Aquatics

  • With Swim.com, Pebble Becomes the First and Only Smartwatch with Advanced Swimming Functionality

    Swim.com, the world’s most advanced swim workout and training platform, has launched its Pebble app, making Pebble the first and only waterproof smartwatch with swimming functionality available on the market.

    Swim.com App Usage 1

    The Pebble Swim.com app allows users to automatically track distance, pace, times, strokes, efficiency, and other key information over time by uploading that data to the Swim.com training platform. Workouts are wirelessly and automatically synched from Pebble to the web via the user’s Android or iOS smartphone.  The Pebble Swim.com app is immediately available for download from the Pebble App store and the iOS Swim.com Pebble Uploader App will be available from the iTunes App Store shortly.

    Initially unveiled this summer, the Swim.com training site is the first-ever swim activity platform compatible with all the major swim wearables and has had several thousand sign-ups since launching in pre-beta in June to select swimmers across the U.S. During the first phase, the site has been available by special invite only, but coinciding with the launch of the Pebble app, it will be moving to open beta this week.

    “We have seen tremendous interest from the swimming public since our platform opened for sign-ups in June,” said Davis Wuolle, VP, Product for Swim.com. “With the addition of our Pebble app, we now make our platform readily available to Pebble’s global community of users. And we’ve also opened Swim.com to all users. It’s all part of our commitment to be the leading platform for the entire swim wearable ecosystem as more and more smartwatches, wearables and other waterproof tracking devices are introduced.”

    Swim.com’s engineers have created programs using advanced algorithms to track workouts based on movement, strokes and pace.

    “Our algorithm has been developed over years with hundreds of swimmers, thousands of laps and tens of thousands of development hours,” adds Wuolle. “These algorithms give us unmatched accuracy.”

    While the popularity of social fitness and workout tracking has boomed of late, never before has there been a comprehensive swim platform, which syncs data from a variety of the leading wearables in order to track, share and compare an individual’s workouts in the pool.

    Swim.com App Usage 4

    “The surge in early interest tells us that individuals are excited to be part of a digital environment that keeps them motivated, helps them track their workouts and allows them to share information with others online,” said Wuolle. “Compete, challenge and compare. That’s what we like to say Swim.com allows you to do in the pool.”

    Along with the Pebble, Swim.com currently supports the Garmin Swim, Garmin fēnix™ & fēnix2™ and Garmin 910xt, Finis Swimsense™ and the Swimovate Poolmate Pro line of products.

    The core features of Swim.com include swim activity tracking, competition through leaderboards, the ability to share workouts and achievements through social media, and connecting with others in the swim community through clubs and facilities. Swim.com syncs the data collected by an associated wearable during a swim and displays it in a simple, clean and informative manner.

    Swim.com’s parent company is Spiraledge, a San Jose-based technology company.

    To stay up-to-date on swim.com, follow swim.com on facebook or twitter: http://www.facebook.com/swimdotcom, http://www.twitter.com/swimdotcom

    Press release from swim.com

  • The Baltimore bullet has been arrested for driving under the influence in Baltimore City early Tuesday morning.

    Michael Phelps was arrested around 1:40 a.m. in the Fort McHenry Tunnel on I-95 by Maryland Transit Authority police.

    MDTA released the following statement:

    “A Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) Police Officer was operating stationary radar on southbound I-395 leaving Baltimore City when a White 2014 Land Rover entered the radar’s area of influence at excessive speed (84 mph in a 45 mph zone). The officer followed the vehicle onto northbound I-95, through the tunnel and initiated an enforcement stop just beyond the tunnel’s toll plaza. Mr. Phelps was identified as the driver by his driver’s license and appeared to be under the influence. He was unable to perform satisfactorily a series of standard field sobriety tests. Mr. Phelps was cooperative throughout the process.”

    Phelps was arrested and charged with DUI, excessive speed and crossing double lane lines within the Fort McHenry Tunnel on I-95 in Baltimore. He was later released.

    This makes Phelps’ second DUI arrest.

    Read CBS Baltimore

    Phelps has commented on Facebook …

    Post by FB Newswire.

  • A little deer got into big trouble Saturday when he went for a dip in an Encino swimming pool.

    The deer jumped the 7-foot fence and then got caught in the pool cover and flailed around a bit.

    The homeowner and two neighbors were able to pull the cover off but the deer had a tough time getting out of the pool.

    After several attempts the deer was about to wiggle his way free.

    See CBS Los Angeles

    http://youtu.be/-x1srDZ9xFs

  • The swims were intended to draw attention to the health of the oceans. But I seriously underestimated the urgency of the issue I was swimming for. As the United Nations Patron of the Oceans, I have given many speeches stressing the need to protect our environment for the sake of our children and grandchildren. I now realize it’s not about our children. It’s about us. And the situation is much worse than I thought.

    I was shocked by what I saw in the seas, and by what I didn’t see.

    I saw no sharks, no whales, no dolphins. I saw no fish longer than 11 inches. The larger ones had all been fished out.

    When I swam in the Aegean, the sea floor was covered with litter; I saw tires and plastic bags, bottles, cans, shoes and clothing.

    The Black Sea was full of Mnemiopsis, a rapidly reproducing species of jellyfish. This species is not native; it was brought in with the ballast on visiting ships, and has wrought havoc on the ecosystem.

    As I was about to jump into the Red Sea, I asked the boat’s skipper whether I should keep a lookout for sharks. He told me not to worry — they’re long gone.

    Read The New York Times

  • This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Ten-year-old Margaret began telling her mom how, between the ages of 5 and 7, she thought she might have been sexually abused by the father of one of Margaret’s friends.

    Margaret Hoelzer is an Olympic medalist, winning two silver medals and a bronze medal during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Originally from Huntsville, Alabama, Margaret swam during the summer for Jones Valley Recreation Association (JVRA), Space City Swim, and for her team at Huntsville High School. Margaret later swam on the team at Auburn University, where she earned a degree in psychology, with a minor in criminology. Margaret is a public speaker on child abuse issues, and is the national spokesperson for the National Children’s Advocacy Center. In 2009, Margaret relocated to Seattle, Washington, and then to Fullerton, California, where she trains at Fullerton Aquatics with Coach Sean Hutchison.

    Courtesy of TEDx Talks on YouTube

  • 10 News digs deeper after parents say they’re outraged over a coach’s actions.

    Pictures of the Osceola Fundamental High School Swim Team allegedly shows them being forced to hang from a chain link fence as a punishment.

    Gina Jones took photos of her daughter’s hands that were blistered and sore from the punishment. Her daughter told her the swim coach punished the team for leaving things like water bottles around the pool. The punishment: hang on the fence for six minutes, and every time someone lets go early, start over.

    “It should’ve been, ‘Let’s do laps,’ [or] running,” said Jones. Before the interview was over, this mom was on a fence herself, to see just how painful hanging there really is.

    “I don’t think I could do it…” she says as she grips the fence. “Oh, I would be… I couldn’t do it for six minutes. That hurts your toes so bad… oooh.”

    See 10 News