Five members of the Martha’s Vineyard Masters Swim Team traveled to Blodgett Pool at Harvard University in mid-March for two weekends of competition at the New England Short Course Yards (25-yard pool) Championships.
More than 770 swimmers from every New England state and from across the nation competed. Forty-eight regional and three national records were set.
The distance events were held on March 16. Leslie Craven took first place in the 50-54 year old age group with a time of 12:50.38, her personal best by five seconds. Liz Fox finished in 16:37.39 to place seventh in the women’s 55-59 year old age group.
The main meet was held March 22–24. Jonathan Chatinover had four solid swims in the men’s 50-54 year old age group. His most impressive effort was a 25th place showing of 59.99 in the 100-yard freestyle. Jon joined Alex Goethals as only the second M.V. Masters swimmer to cover 100 yards in less than a minute.
Leslie Craven swam the 500-yard freestyle (4th place, 6:18.12), 50-yard breaststroke (18th place, 44.41) and the 100-yard individual medley (19th place, 1:28.48).
Rainy Goodale swam in the women’s 40-44 group and swam faster than her seed time in every event. She placed first in all three breast stroke events; 50-yards (33.75), 100-yards (1:14.54) and 200-yards (2:40.71); plus the 50-yard backstroke in (33.31). Ms. Goodale was second in the 50-yard butterfly (30.62) and 100-yard individual medley (1:07.76).
Island summer resident Sue Jensen of Cambridge and Aquinnah, an honorary Vineyard Master, swam in 14 events and amassed an amazing 129 individual points to rank as the second most prolific point scorer in the women’s 50-54 year age group.
Ms. Jensen placed first in the 200-yard individual medley (2:44.17); second in the grueling 400-yard individual medley (5:52.85); and third in the 1,000-yard freestyle (13:01.94), 200-yard butterfly (2:56.48) and 100-yard butterfly (1:15.38). She also raced on the winning relay team in the 400-yard medley.
Now, Rainy, Leslie, and Sue are actively preparing to compete in the 2013 National Masters Short Course Yards Championship, which will be held in Indianapolis, May 9–12.