<== Site of the Week for 2006-02-08 ==>

Utah Masters Swimming

Old swimmers don't sink, they just drift on.

The way we organize sports is rather cruel. Most of the big athletic competitions are high school or collegiate based. That means that athletes experience the height of their careers before they've reached their physical prime.

This is especially cruel for lifelong sports like swimming. Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise. Many swimmers approach the sport as a life long venture.

The Master Swimming program was developed to organize competitive swim meets for post collegiate athletes. The program includes swim meets for people who are 25 plus. They even have training programs for folk who developed their love for swimming after college.

Master swimming is extremely popular among gym coaches. After all, why should the students have all the fun?

Utah Masters is the local chapter of this national movement. The site has information on swim meets, training practices and the local swimming culture.

One cool feature of Master Swimming are the postal competition. If you can't make it to a swim meet, you can go postal. That is, swim in a regulation pool and mail in your times.

I put this in the cool site list because, when given the choice "to sink or swim," Utah Masters chose "to swim."