RAF Regional Swimming and Polo Champs

Having never played water polo before I decided to turn up and give it a go. A brutal game involving full body contact, dunking, scratching but eye gouging is not permitted which is what I was most disappointed about. Well after a drubbing in the first game from Eastern19-2, Western our first opponents were trounced 19-1 by us leading into a great final with Eastern. Well what a hard match going anaerobic for nearly 7 minutes in the 40 minutes played. Good job we had a full team of 14 to rotate around. After a few confrontations and dunking, the girls on the other team soon left me alone....open water swimming practice has really paid off. Look out everyone it's Mikey!

Well it finished 13-6 to Western and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience despite loosing the final and receiving several scratches and shreding my new pair of trunks...not the orange stripey ones that everyone likes though.

Well I was officially knackered after all that flat out work at max effort. My arms were dead, and my eyes streaming from the chlorine or possibly the kids peeing in the pool I can never tell the difference. I just had the 800m to finish of the day. Racing against some of the fast boys (Nick Price & Andy Fisher, but no Si Almond as he is in rehab and racing tomorrow). I was hoping to keep on Andys shoulder for as long as possible and finish in the top 5. Well after a few practice dives and castrating myself on entry I stepped up for the start of the most painful experience known.

800m flat out, lung busting effort. Last year I was beaten by Nige Porter and managed a 11:15 with a cold so my aim was to finish in under 11:00 my Pb from November 2007 at Boston. Nick in 1, Andy in 4 me in 7. It's difficult to see what is going on in this kind of race especially when your eyes are blurred and sore and your short sighted like me. All I remember is looking up at the 18 to go and seeing Andy on my shoulder Nick about to finish and not even half way through the pain. The work me and Dawn have put in over the winter months with stroke technique really feels good and when I concentrate I can feel the speed increase a lot. So as I get to 10 to go I just switched on and ploughed through engaging the back as much as possible. Touching down with a 10:49 and managing to hold the Fish (10:51) of for 3rd place. Without the polo I think I would have pushed it below 40 possibly 35. Who really knows. Nick finished in 9:15 and 2nd place managed to just lap me with a 10:06.

So not a bad time really considering my efforts of the day. Just the 200m Backstroke and a relay tomorrow could see me with a full collection to go with the Silver and Bronze from today.