Sth East Masters Long Course – Crawley: January

Mark Lewis claimed his first Beds County Masters record at the South East Region’s Masters Long Course Championships in Crawley. Alastair Gibb also claimed a County record on a weekend that saw Karen MacKenzie, Mark and Alastair set a total of 7 new Club Masters records to kick – start the new year.

Mark’s time of 1:18.10, for which he picked up the bronze medal  in the Men’s 40-44 years’ 100m Butterfly, also beat his personal best short course time. He proceeded to set a new Club Long Course 50m Breaststroke Masters age group record with his 6^th placed finishing time of 39.49.

Over the two days of competition Alastair picked up a total of six bronze medals from his eight events. Having just moved up into the 65 -69 years’ age group, Alastair took the opportunity to reduce the Club’s Long Course Masters records over freestyle distances from 100m through to 800m. Those events had not been contested by any of the Club’s swimmers since 2010 and were relatively easy targets.  Alastair took more satisfaction from breaking Colin Mayes’ 200m IM Club and County record from 2022 with his time of 3:21.32.

Despite nursing a shoulder injury, Karen claimed a silver medal for her 200m Backstroke and proceeded to be just 0.35 seconds outside her 50m Freestyle Club record where she finished 5^th. Undeterred, Karen’s  Club record came with her 4^th place finish in a time of 40.80 in her 50 – 54 years’ 50m Butterfly.

Competing in the 70 – 74 years age group Colin Mayes collected three gold medals in unopposed races and a both a silver and a bronze medal. To ensure his participation at the Meet, Colin had chosen to enter under his South East based club in the first phase of the entry system. Consequently, none of his times in his new age group were unfortunately eligible for either Beds County or Club Masters records.