One Hour Postal Swim Recap
Congratulations to everyone who completed the 33rd annual One Hour Postal (OHP) swim, or as we at Tamalpais Aquatic Masters (TAM) like to call it, “Happy Hour”. What an amazing event. We accepted online entries for the first time in the history of the swim and had blistering record levels of participation. A total of 2,961 swimmers ranging from ages 18-90 swam the event including 275 relays.
9 new records were set: 6 women’s, 3 men’s and 5 relays:
Alison Zamanian 35-39 5,560
Suzanne Heim-Bowen 50-54 5,180
Laura Val 55-59 5,090
Barbara Dunbar 60-64 4,500
Ronnie Kamphausen 75-79 3,525
Betty Lorenzi 80-84 3,250
Jeff Erwin 45-49 5,755
Jim McConica 55-59 5,445
David Radcliff 75-79 4,520
W45+: Illinois Masters: Heidi Kafka, Andrea Block & Marcia Cleveland 14,430*
W55+: TAM: Judy Eisenman, Laura Val & Linda Shoenberger 13,510
MX35+ Walnut Creek: Roque Santos, Peter Guadagni, Alison Zamanian, Suzanne Heim-Bowen 21,250
MX55+ TAM: Kenneth Frost, Richard Burns, Linda Schoenberger, Laura Val 18,325
MX75+ Oregon: Dick Weick, David Radcliff, Geraldine Kawabata, Pat Hunt 13,365
*Three other teams also broke this record previously held by TAM Masters: Walnut Creek (14,350), Conejo Valley (14,130) and Davis Masters (14,090).
Coach Susan Ingraham (Masters of South Texas) challenged her entire team to do the OHP fly, and 56 out of 85 swimmers went non-stop for a total of 142,500 yards butterfly. At IndySwimFit, Juliet Port swam the OHP 8 times during the month, once for 10 x 400 IM for 4,050 yards! Katy Sahm swam 8 months pregnant and John Weiss swam all fly. Liz Engelskirchen (3,265) and Phil Jonckheer (3,705 yards all breaststroke) from TAM Masters, both still nursing bad shoulders, kicked their way through the swim.
We also had international participation, with swimmers from Australia, Canada and Japan.
The undisputed overall winner was yet again, Davis Aquatic Masters with 312 swimmers and total yardage of 1,084,425. Relative newcomer, Asphalt Green from NYC clearly wins the “most improved” category, as they leap-frogged into the Extra Large Team Category (227 swimmers) from the Small Team Category in 2009 (6 swimmers). That’s what we like to see!
Congratulations to all for participating in this very challenging event!
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