Ted Swims

Ted gives Jeff a quick fist bump before the two of them, and six other men, all swimmers, all 60-64 years old, and walk across the bulkhead to find their lanes at the end of the 50-meter pool. The Florida sun’s heat, climbing through the day, seems exceptionally brutal now, in the early afternoon. Ted pulls his swim cap down and tightens his goggles one last time. He shakes out his shoulders as he walks to his lane. Lane 2.

Jeff Gould lives in Sarasota and has been buddies with Ted since they were in grade school. They swam together on various teams and co-captained their high school team. Both continued swimming after high school though Jeff is arguably swimming at a more competitive level recently, which is to say, he swims on an organized masters team while Ted swims mostly on his own, with a high school team swimming next to him for motivation. But when Jeff and Ted both turned 60 in November 2022 they decided to both train hard for a big swim meet in August 2023.

Left to right, Jeff Gould, John Luddy and Ted Clark

A few seconds later he is on his block. “Swimmers, Take your mark.”

Ted stands, one foot back and one forward, like a standing running start in a track meet. His knees are bent, head down, hands back, his hips lowered. He leans back, coiled. He takes a breath in, and then out, blowing through his mouth, puffing his cheeks. He breaths in.

The horn blows.

The swim meet, officially the US Swimming Masters Nationals Long Course Championship event, held this year in Florida at the Selby Aquatics Center, is a huge swim meet, drawing competitors, 18-years old and up, from across the country. Everyone there is a serious swimmer. There are former Olympians. The event takes place over four days with heats starting at 7:30 AM and running straight through to 6:00 PM on three of those days. Only Sunday has a shorter day because most people have to travel home. Approximately 1,200 swimmers. 657 heats in total. It is a big deal.

Arms thrust forward, legs push off the blocks. Out over and into the water. Hands together, head tucked, shoulders pressing against his ears. Get the entire body through a hole in the water. His hands break the water’s surface creating an opening, his head and shoulders follow, then his hips and finally his feet, ankles as one, toes pointed.

Eyes on the bottom of the pool, arms still in the diving position over his head, he kicks, one, two three, butterfly kicks, feet together, like a porpoise. But there’s no time to enjoy gliding beneath the surface. Ten meters from the starting blocks he surfaces.

Ted’s thinking one thing, turn the arms over as fast as he can. There no thought of technique: whether the catch is far enough out, whether his hand is rotating to face backward creating a big surface to grab water; whether the pull is going straight back without too much sculling which would dump water and render the stroke less efficient; whether the hand is accelerating through the pull past the shoulder, down to the hips and toward the thigh; whether the finish is timed correctly, maintained long enough to help stabilize the body while the other arm enters the water but not so long as to delay the recovery. And then the recovery for another stroke: hands too high waste energy but hands too low smash the water creating resistance. Ted’s not thinking of any of this. Techniques has to be second nature, automatic, the result of hundreds of thousands of meters of practice in the pool. No, Ted is thinking of one thing, turn the arms over as fast as he can and don’t breath, not yet.

If you prefer sprint events, as Ted does, you’re likely signed up for the 50-meter Freestyle, referred to as the 50 Free. The 50 Free is to swimming what the 100-meter dash is to track and field. It is the drag race. THE sprint. Where the powerful fast swimmers go to test themselves. It is all out, fast as you can go from the moment you leave the blocks to the instant you touch the wall at the other end of the pool. There is no “push” at the end. It is all out all the way.

There are 42 heats for the men’s 50 Free and a similar number for the women. Four heats are necessary to accommodate just the men ages 60 to 64. In Ted’s heat all eight of the entrants predicted a finish time in order to be seeded. Estimates were between 31.85 and 32.50 seconds. Just over half a second separating first place from last if predictions are to be believed. The races are that close.

11, 12, 13. Ted counts.

Twenty strokes before taking a breath. Head down. Legs kicking furiously. He cannot see the other swimmers, not even in the lanes right next to him, and frankly, what good would seeing them do? It’s a race against the clock, right? Maybe. Everybody wants to win their heat if only for bragging rights. But it is all moot. He can’t see any of the other swimmers so he just strokes and kicks like hell.

16, 17, 18.

I called Ted in the car with Jeff and another high school swimming friend, John Luddy, while they were on the way to the aquatics center over the meet weekend. Neither Jeff nor John are has-been athletes with ironman races a lots of marathons between them. Ted put me on speaker phone so I ended up talking to the group. I expected a lot of trash talking among the threesome, competition and rivalry five decades in the making. “I think you’ve got it wrong.” Ted says. Jeff then tells me about Russ, who’s on his Masters team in Florida. Russ is an autistic swimmer that Jeff’s coach saw him swimming with his Special Olympics team. But Russ was too fast for that group so the coach invited him to swim with the Masters team, and Russ did, improving as the months went by, eventually joining Jeff in his lane (teams often group swimmers by ability and pace). Russ wanted to swim more and faster. So, the group collectively redoubled their efforts turning 3,000-meter workouts into 5,000-meter efforts. As a group, they probably all improved. Well, the day earlier, at the National event, Russ raced to two top ten finishes in an extremely competitive (30-35 years) age group. Not top ten among Down’s athletes, top ten among all athletes. He received medals for both races which he wore proudly.

Left to right, Jeff Gould (smiling), John Luddy (smiling), Ted Clark (game face?)

At twenty strokes Ted takes a breath, his first. He knows that by not breathing, by keeping his head down, he’s faster. Turning the head, rotating the shoulders just that little bit, not only creates more resistance, it’s slowing the turnover, but he needs oxygen. He takes another breath. His shoulders burn. When will this be over? He’s used to 50 yard races in a 25 yard pool…this is very different….Where is the wall?

Or the story of the of the guy who swam the 50-meter butterfly in 38 seconds – an acceptable time by any measure – except that he had no arms. He swam it with a butterfly kick and an extremely sleek body stroke.

Or how about the man who swam in the Rome Olympics in 1960 and he is still competing and still kicking ass. Not turning in times faster than Ted or Jeff, but still.

Ted takes his third breath determined that it will be his last. The wall must be coming soon. And then there it is, at the top of his field of vision, where the pool bottom meets the wall. He takes one last long pull and stretches. Finally, he feels his fingers meet the rubber of the electronic touch pad. He braces with his open palm so that he doesn’t smash his head into the concrete. Then he pulls his head out to the water, and breathes. He looks at the clock: 30.96. Better than he expected.

“We are cheering for others as much as we are cheering for anyone. That’s pretty much the vibe of the weekend.”

Toward the end of the call John piped in that he thought he was going to put the Speedo back on and train to swim at the event next year. “It’s that kind of event. It just makes you want to swim and compete.” The three decided after the weekend that they would all race again in 2024 at the Nationals in Indianapolis. Why not?! They need to improve their times.