As it has for so many, COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into the normal activities for the Sedona Race Pace Swim Team. The team is not able to participate in meets or hold the type of fundraisers that it normally would in the summer. But the Race Pace team is adapting.
The Sedona Race Pace Team has a pair of big events coming over the next two weekends. The first, which will be held on Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19, is the SRPC 2020 Swim Fest. There, each swimmer will take to the pool for an hour and try to swim as many laps as possible. Sponsors will pledge money for every lap that their swimmers can complete.
The purpose of that fundraiser is to help the team keep the pool heated throughout the year, including the winter months. It was an idea brought to the team by Amy Raab, the mother of Race Pace swimmer Jillian Raab.
“My daughter has been swimming with different teams throughout her career,” Amy Raab said. “This is just one of the ways that a lot of the different teams raise money. Having the sponsors be based on how much [the swimmers] can swim in a certain amount of time — it’s no new idea; it’s out there. It’s just something that we’ve never done as a group here. To go ahead to help us keep this pool heated — which with COVID is really hard right now.”
Different swimmers have different goals for how many laps they’re hoping to swim. Juni Spielman, 9, hopes to complete 30 laps. Her sister, 12-year-old Lucy Spielman, has a goal of 200 laps. It’s a similar goal for 14-year-old Bryce Kirk, who wants to swim between 150 and 200 laps.
“I’ve never swam for that long before,” Kirk said. “I never even swam the mile.”
Following the Swim Fest, it will not be long until the Race Pace team is back in the water for its next big event. On Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26, the team will participate in the Summer League 2020 Intra-Squad time trials.
That will feature a total of 15 different events. As a way to promote social distancing, swimmers will show up for their meets, swim and leave. There will be four swimmers in the pool at a time with an empty lane separating each of them.
Jillian Raab is a distance swimmer, generally swimming in events that are longer than 500 yards. As the longest event at the Intra-Squad time trials is 500 yards, she has a goal of breaking 5:40 for the first time. To do that, she’d need to knock roughly three seconds off of her current best time.
Raab, who’s also entering her senior year of high school and looking forward to swimming in college, did note that this year posed some difficulties.
“It’s been a challenge to navigate not just club swimming but trying to get ready for college,” she said. “And trying to figure out how to get those times for that.”
Despite the challenges, the Race Pace swimmers are happy to be in the water and doing something that gives them a sense of normalcy when so much of the rest of the world is in constant flux.
“Swimming is really helping me get through it — and I think a lot of my teammates as well,” Kirk said. “It’s a good thing that we’re able to still do this.”
That sentiment was echoed by the elder Spielman sister.
“The season is going good,” Lucy said. “I’m just really glad to be back in the water.”
