Aging Just Swimmingly : Seniors Are Discovering Their Competitive Edge Does Not Dull in the Pool

Louise Jobson, 67, enjoys knitting and bingo.

She also runs errands a few times a week for her friend, Alma Green, 93, who lives in Leisure World, Laguna Hills.

And she is also one of the country’s Top 10 freestyle swimmers . . . in her age group.

Jobson, from Irvine, finished the Southern California Regional Short Course Competition (25-yard pool) last May with three first places and three second places in the 65-to-69 age group.

She will spend the next two weekends trying to improve her times at the Southern Pacific Assn. Long Course Swimming Championships (50-meter pool) at Irvine’s Heritage Park Aquatic Center. The meet begins Sunday at 9 a.m. and will continue Aug. 9-10. Of the 350 entrants, more than 50 are over age 65.

“I’m not a housewife and I hate housework,” Jobson said. “I’d rather swim than do anything else in the world.”

She has discovered a network of people who share her interest.

There are more than 2,000 registered master’s swimmers and more than 40 teams in Southern California. Anyone 19 or older can compete in the appropriate five-year age categories in about 20 sanctioned meets a year.

“It’s the only sport where it’s fun to get older,” Jobson said. “The older you are, the better you feel because you can do it.”

But that first meet can be difficult.

Jobson taught swimming lessons at an athletic club in New Jersey for almost 20 years before she was encouraged by a friend to enter her first meet at 54.

“I was scared out of my bird,” she said. “I just kept thinking, ‘What am I doing on this block?’ ”

Jobson won the 50-yard free that day and soon began attending workouts with the New Jersey Masters three times a week.

When she moved to Irvine in 1979, she and three Orange County women in their 50s formed a swimming relay team.

Betty Garwood, 59, an elementary-school teacher and a Newport Beach master’s member, introduced Jobson to Kathy Dixon, 59, and Gloria Marianthal, 61. Dixon swam competitively when she attended Oxford University, and Marianthal was the top freestyler among 10,000 students at her all-girls high school in New York.

The foursome took fifth place in the freestyle relay at the 1984 National Short Course Competition. As a threesome, Jobson, Dixon and Marianthal took first place in both the 1984 and ’86 British Relay, an international competition based on best times from local master’s meets.

Dixon achieved a Top 10 ranking in the breast stroke for the 55-to-59 age group in 1982.

Marianthal says she hasn’t missed a workout in two years, sparing illness and vacations.

“I want to be the first in the country in the 400 I.M. (individual medley) when I’m 70,” she said. “I don’t know if I will actually enter it, but that’s my goal.”

Garwood has arranged master’s team trips to China, Japan, the Soviet Union and Scandinavia for international competitions. She and 33 Newport Beach Master’s members returned this week from their second trip to China and Japan, where they competed among 3,500 entrants from 19 countries.

Clyde Garwood, Betty’s husband, said: “When (people) say they can’t do it, (my wife) says, ‘Why don’t you just try? Just go splash around.’ Pretty soon, they’re out here everyday and they love it.”

It may not be a big surprise that Green asked Jobson about swimming lessons last month.

At 93?

“She’s a very proud person,” Jobson said. “I don’t like to deprive an old person just because they’re old.”

Besides, the 90-plus category is just waiting for new talent.