By Phillip Whitten<\/p>\n
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 19. FORTY year-old Jeff Erwin, swimming for Sawtooth Masters (SAWS) may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but his stroke remains that of a swimmer half his age.<\/p>\n
On this, the first day of the USMS National Short Course Championships in Fort Lauderdale, Erwin pulled off a rare feat. Swimming both the 1000-yard freestyle and the 1650 free, with only the women\u2019s 1000 between his two events, Erwin not only won both races, but he set national records in the men\u2019s 40-44 age group in both as well.<\/p>\n
The man got game!<\/p>\n
Erwin, 40, began his day by stroking to a 9:39.98 clocking in the 1000 to slice six seconds off Brett Phillips\u2019 standard of 9:45.97, set in 2001. Even-splitting his race, with a 4:49.74 for his first 500 and 4:50.24 for the back half, Erwin fought off a determined challenge by Bobby Patten, DAM, who finished in 9:51.73.<\/p>\n
Not long afterward, Erwin broke Patten\u2019s national record in the 1650 with a 16:10.93 effort, three seconds under the mark of 16:13.92 set by the former SMU ace last year.<\/p>\n
In the 45-49 age group, Colorado\u2019s Kirk Anderson, 45, hacked 10 seconds off Brett Phillips\u2019 2003 standard of 10:04.49 in the 1650, touching in 9:54.65. Mark Drennan was second in 10:08.96, not far off Phillips\u2019 former mark.<\/p>\n
Jim Clemmons (55-59) notched the only other men\u2019s record set this day. The Manatee Aquatic Masters distance ace sped to an outstanding 17:40.12 to lop more than 18 seconds off Tod Spieker\u2019s 17:58.73 set last year.<\/p>\n
There were no records set in the women\u2019s 1000 free and, as we posted this story, results for the women\u2019s 1650 were still not finalized.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s most exciting race came in the 1650 free for men 75-79. In that race, Arizona Masters teammates Dan Gruender and Lou Silverstein duked it out for 66 laps, with Gruender, a former USMS president, getting his hand on the wall first in 31:23.60, just 35-hundredths ahead of Silverstein.<\/p>\n
Gruender\u2019s victory made him half of the only husband-wife team to take double gold today. Edie Gruender took the women\u2019s 1000 in 17:55.47.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Phillip Whitten FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 19. FORTY year-old Jeff Erwin, swimming for Sawtooth Masters (SAWS) may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but his stroke remains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-masters","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n