Through Cypress Triathlon Club's discount program, members can join Fleet Masters Swim Team for the low, low price of $30/month. Man, you can't beat that ANYWHERE in town so I joined up. Fleet Aquatic Center is a beautiful facility. Really a nice pool.
I've been to two practices and there are some things I like about Masters swim and a few things I wish were different.
Things I love about Masters:
1) It gets me to the pool. I really look forward to getting there and swimming with a team.
2) Gives me a structured workout that I don't really have to think about. Coach Amy is on deck and all I have to do is execute what she tells me to do.
3) While a slow swimmer like me needs to focus primarily on technique, Masters gives me an opportunity to just swim, and swim hard if I need/want to. This fits well into my primary goal of losing weight.
4) Being part of a Masters Team, I can actually compete in Masters swim meets. This is a new thing for me and I'm kind of interested in doing it. We have a meet coming up in a month where if you are new to Masters Swim and you've never competed in a swim meet, it's FREE. I think I'm going to swallow whatever self respect I still have left and DO IT!!!
5) It's super close to my house and very convenient to get to practice either in the morning before work or in the evening.
Things I wish were different about Masters:
1) Since this is a real swim team, it is broadly focused on swimming and not on triathlon swimming. For example, last night's "focus" for the night was dolphin kicking off the wall. Well, I have no use for that skill in triathlon. Parts of the workouts include other stokes besides crawl. While this does me no good in triathlon, it DOES keep in interesting. And it's not like I HAVE to do the other strokes. Coach Amy is cool and gives constant guidance on what I can do "instead". But frankly, I'll give anything a shot.
2) The best thing for my swimming would be one-on-one instruction and technique work. I don't get so much of that at Masters practice, not would I expect to. As I mentioned before, my primary goal is losing weight and Masters swimming is doing me good. But as far as a secondary goal of becoming a faster swimmer, no so much.
So, overall, I give it 4 1/2 out of 5 stars and I'm really enjoying it. I'll likely try to hit 2 practices a week and then add a 3rd swim workout on my own to work on technique.
