Oct. 2018 Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Nov. 17th: 10th Annual Gladstone Masters Meet (Kansas City area)
Here’s some more info for that event from Facebook: “We are trying to break 100 swimmers for the first time for this decennial meet! I’ve offered to swim a 1000 IM if we break 100 swimmers. Don’t you want to make me do that?!?! Hope some of you can come! We are working on a commemorative participation medal”

A full list of USMS events around the country can be found here!

Meet your fellow swimmers

We hope you are enjoying our “Swimming Biographies” page on the Arkansas Masters website. Each month you can read about two new swimmers. If you haven’t participated yet, please complete this Google Form and let us know a bit about you. Highlighted this month are Starr Campbell and Rick Gerhardt.

Recent Meets and Records Broken

We had a fun meet in Bentonville this past weekend. Our youngest swimmer was 20, and our oldest was 83! Below are the state and citizen records that were set at the meet:

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English Channel Challenge by Steffan Sarkin

Many of you know Steffan from his English Channel swims. He recently completed another, very different, long distance event in Fayetteville. Read about it in his own words:

“In 2016, when Noah was applying for the University of Kansas SELF Scholars program, one of his requirements was to go in front of a live panel and pitch the idea for a community project in 2 minutes or less. The principal idea was to broaden swimmer participation in the English Channel Challenge for Children’s at a local level across the State to leverage the giving opportunities to Arkansas Children’s Hospital. This year’s English Channel Challenge for Children’s became ground zero for what was a very successful introduction of the idea. The Fayetteville High School Students Club for Children’s, founded by my younger son, Cade, put together a relay team of High School swimmers, parents and Masters swimmers, to lend community support to my personal challenge, with a goal of raising money to support the 2018 Children’s Christmas Toy Drive. Presented with a $2,500 matching dollar for dollar challenge donation, as of midnight, 16 hours into the swimathon, including the challenge donation, the Students Club had raised almost $10,000.

For my part, I reached a milestone in distance swum, covering 60km (37.5 miles)….which entailed 2,625 flip turns, 9.6 liters of water, Gatorade, flat coke and hot chocolate, 60 Gatorade Prime chews, one PBJ sandwich and one can of Spaghetti-O’s, consumed. I will report on total donations raised when I receive the final count.

The 2018 English Challenge for Children’s for me has been the most satisfying and special to date. All of my previous swims have been solitary events. This was truly an inspired community event…. 30 plus swimmers, numerous volunteers and visitors. I am especially appreciative of my son Cade, who not only was part of the Students Club organizing team, he swam on the relay for 20 minutes (longer than he had ever swum in a pool), and also prepared my 30 minute feeds, working not only from the start at 8am into the early evening, but then from 11pm to 6am, in outside temperatures in the low 40s. A special thanks also goes out to his classmate Sheil, who was tasked with building the relay team, swam on the relay team (twice… at 10am on the first morning and again at 2am on the second morning) and manned the pool deck for countless hours, the Fayetteville Athletic Club for entrusting their pool to us for 24 hours, Einstein’s Bagels for providing sustenance to the many hungry swimmers and volunteers, and to my wife, Casey, also my crew person when Cade had a break, and my loudest supporter on the pool deck till all hours, fundraiser and social media posting person extraordinaire.

As I have said before….. unfortunately the work is never done as no child will ever be turned away. It is important to continue to raise funds for Arkansas Children’s.”

….until 2019. Steffan