2009 USMS Short Course Nationals

By: Chris DeSantis, Senior Floswimming Writer

Last year, right around this time, I was insanely jealous. Its not an uncommon feeling since I got involved with floswimming. Garrett was at a fun meet and I was sitting around in Philly living it vicariously through him.

Sound familiar? Well in this case, that meet was Master's Nationals. Garrett saw the meet was happening on his doorstep in Austin, Texas and decided to take his one man show to the people. What he found was something surprising to him but not to the many proud USMS athletes. Nationals is a meet with a lot of facets. Lets break them down in list form.

1. Older people making you feel embarassed. Thats right, be prepared for swimmers in their 40s, 50s and beyond to completely humiliate you this weekend. And by you I mean all the 20 somethings who haven't figured out that they should just keep swimming yet. These swimmers are supposed to be "past their prime" only a lot of them haven't gotten the memo yet.

2. People who look at least twenty years younger than they are. I'm stealing this one from Tony Austin who continually cites a theorem on his blog that a master's swimmer will consistently look twenty years younger. Want some evidence? Lets watch a video from last year:

I ended up commenting on this video twice. I asked someone to guess how old he was. Their guess: 45. Actual age: 64. Nuff said.

3. A whole lot of fun. Beyond the record swims and ridiculously young looking retirees, this meet is about people that truly love swimming and cherish the experience of still being able to compete.

All reasons why I'm pumped I get to go this year. See you in Fresno!