As the name implies, the Guelph ‘Fast and Furious’ meet is geared to shorter events and is held over one afternoon, with a focus on 25, 50, 100 and 200 m for all four strokes, plus individual medley and relay events. If you plan on doing the maximum number of events of six as I did, one must plan the races accordingly. With only 105 registered swimmers the entire meet, including a 45-minute warm up, lasted only four hours. As such, this meet is a test of stamina that requires a strategy of how best to conserve energy, and perhaps swim fast in one or two races. This strategy worked reasonably well for me except for the last two events – 200 free and 200 I.M – which were only 12 minutes apart.

This was the first time that the Guelph Marlins (Masters section) hosted this meet. Swimmers were seeded slowest to fastest so there were different age groups, with male and female participants, mixed together. Dawn Larson, the meet manager, provided the results within an hour of the meet’s completion. She advised me that if there are more registrations next year, there will be separate events for men and women, but that there would not be age group heats. (Note: the MSO site has categorized the results by five-year age groups and M/F).

Here is short video of my 25 m fly at 15.08 seconds which was good enough for a fourth place finish out of 33 competitors.

If Guelph hosts the event next year, I would recommend that more PMS members attend. As a bonus, Dawn says that bell prizes will be offered in 2019. Other than a late start due to an age group swim meet in the morning that ran overtime, it was well run.

Andy Manahan