CWU Swim Club is hosting two home meets this year, as opposed to only one home meet last year. Swim advisor Sarah Olden believes a great deal of the increase in home meets has to do with the recognition herself and husband, Jaegger Olden, received last season.

The Oldens’ hope for the future is to alternate a year hosting the Inland Northwest LMSC Championship meet, while also hosting two meets on odd years.

A lot of preparation goes into these meets; for the Oct. 22 meet, planning began in June.

“There’s a lot of paperwork,” Sarah Olden said.

U.S. Masters Swimming events require paperwork to sanction the event, heat sheets, pool reservations, scheduling lifeguards and officials.

On the night before a meet, the team typically spends anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours setting up the pool. Setup includes putting in lane lines, setting up chairs and tables and booting up all the timing and scoring systems.

On the day of the meet, the team arrives to their final test run to make sure everything’s running smoothly before warm-ups begin. Once the teams are warmed up and everything is in order, the meet begins. The entire event, from setup to tear down after the final race, takes nearly five hours.

This Spring, the CWU Swim Club headed to the U.S. Masters National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina. Expenses for the trip totaled $9,000 and were greatly subsidized by the nearly $3,500 the team raised at a meet last season.

Of the 12 swimmers that competed in Greensboro, 10 are returning to the pool for CWU this season, including swim team advisor Jaegger Olden who placed seventh in the 400-yard individual medley.

“I felt good; it [was] the fastest I’ve ever swam,” Jaegger Olden said of his performance in April.

But Olden has a bigger focus this season. He has his sights set on swimming the mile, the 400 individual medley and the 200 yard butterfly at Nationals.

U.S. Masters Swimming differs from high school level competition because, even though a swimmer is registered with a team, they compete individually at meets. As a result, it is common to have 30 individuals competing from all over the country at one sanctioned swim meet.

In the pool, anywhere from two to five times a week, the team averages 2,000 to 3,500 yards swam per practice– the equivalent of just over two miles a practice at the most. Most of those yards consist of drills, like underwater starts and dolphin kicks. For senior backstroker Bryan Dahlgren, in order to improve breath control and better his overall form, these drills are essential.

The next home meet for the CWU Swim Team is Oct 22. The final meet will take place in January, with the exact date to come at a later time.

When the club isn’t in the pool or doing dryland practice three days a week, you can find the team doing a wide variety of team bonding activities, from movie nights to team dinners to river floats and visits to trampoline parks.