Swimming with LUST (now B_LUST)!
Swimming with LUST with Birkbeck!
This winter 2018, as a second-year part-time Masters student at Birbeck I have had the opportunity to compete again for the London University Swimming Team (LUST), at both national and London-based events.
In February I was part of a ten-strong team sent up to Ponds’ Forge in Sheffield for the BUCS (British University Championship Sports) Long Course event, using the fabulous international standard 50m pool. The town was packed as that weekend alone saw universities from across the country compete into 11 sports including ice hockey, tennis and football.
Teams were allowed two swimmers per individual event, so I got to swim the 50m freestyle, 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly as well as the 4 by 100m medley relay where I swam the butterfly leg. I had unfortunately been ill with a throaty cough that week and didn’t do as well in the shorter swims as I would have liked, I think because I couldn’t summon that burst of pure power needed for an outright sprint.
I was however really pleased with my individual 100m butterfly time of 1.14.1. Butterfly in a long course pool is a test of endurance and this was only 4 seconds off my lifetime personal best set a full decade ago, when I was a sprightly teenager training over ten hours a week in the pool!
The highlight of the weekend however was our ladies’ medley relay team where we won our heat. Diving into the third leg I held second place and then our freestyler Alice brought us first! It was a great team effort.
More recently in March, LUST hosted the first London League gala in current memory, at none other than our very own 33m Energybase pool in Student Central on Malet Street, just next door to Birkbeck College. UCL, King’s College, Queen Mary and Imperial all sent their best teams forward.
As LUST alumni were allowed to swim our mens’ team was well padded out, but with only eight ladies and two LUST swimmers in every event we women had to pack a punch! With less confident swimmers getting to swim the shortest events, as a more experienced swimmer I raced the 100m IM, 66m butterfly, 100m butterfly, 100 freestyle, 66m butterfly in the ladies’ medley relay, 66m freestyle in the ladies’ freestyle relay, and 33m and 66m in both mixed freestyle relays!!
It was exhausting but so much fun. It is a really chilled out atmosphere while remaining competitive!! At LUST we saw lots of swimmers who thought they had sworn off competitive swimming show up and have a great time. We had a big dinner nearby afterwards and I was passed out in bed by half 9. If you enjoy swimming and fancy joining - don’t hesitate to come to one of our sessions just down the road - who knows, you could be travelling up to BUCS next time!
Eimear Hogben
20.03.2018
