North Toronto – On Thanksgiving Monday, Douglas Vanderby was enjoying the brilliant fall colours at the lake - only he was actually swimming over the leaves near his cottage on the shores of Lake Simcoe. He was admiring the shimmering watery reds, oranges and yellows of the leaves that had already sunk to the bottom.

“There’s nothing better,” he says. “It was so cool. I was just looking at the leaves and having a great time.”

Vanderby was also putting in his metres as he surged ahead to become the first Master to reach the 1.5 million-metre milestone in Masters Swimming Canada’s Million Metre Challenge. The head coach of North Toronto Masters, also known affectionately as – and officially branded - Swim or Die, was the second Master to reach the 1 million metre mark behind Jay London of Moncton, NB.

The Challenge motivates Vanderby. He monitors his mileage to see whether he is overtraining. But this fitness program is also a competitive one, at the top of the swimming food chain. Rumours abound among the network of Toronto and 905 area code swim clubs about which club is pushing it to win the monthly total. Vanderby adores mixing it up with Trillium Y’s Wes Musial, who reached the million metre milestone just after Vanderby. “He is a hard trainer. If we get into it, it’s all in fun, I guess,” he laughs.

“On the other hand, [the Million Metre Challenge] sometimes becomes compulsive. It’s like a bad car accident; you can’t help but look.”

Vanderby is an 18-year veteran with the Greater Toronto Fire Department with a schedule that gives him the flexibility to swim and coach as he does. The World Police and Firefighter Games brought him to Masters swimming.

Although he swam at his cottage for years, he came late to competitive swimming, joining as a 16 year old, nearly a Master’s swimmer already. He joined Swimtec, which was also the home to some of Canada’s top swimmers, including Swim Canada president Dan Thompson and Judy Garay. Vanderby discovered an affinity for breaststroke, which carried him through varsity swimming. He was fourth at the 1982 Canadian University Championships, swimming the 200 metre breaststroke in 2:25.75 and won two Ontario University Championships in the 200 metre breast, until his third year when “some guy named Alex Baumann” took his title and OUA record. After university he took a break from competitive swimming though “I was always keeping my toes in the pool. I just enjoy it. That’s the bottom line. I’ve never burned out.”

In 1991 he attended his first World Police and Firefighter Games. He still holds several Games records. The Games attract over 10,000 Police and Firefighter competitors. “[It’s] the second largest sporting event behind the Olympics,” he says). His interest in Masters swimming was piqued. In 1992 he offered to form the North Toronto Masters Swim Club (NTMSC). By 1998 the club was able to privatize.

In 1996, Vanderby achieved a swimming grand slam: winning the 50m breaststroke at the Canadian Championship in Victoria, the FINA World Championships in Montreal and the U.S. Championship in Buffalo.

These days, swimming is also about coaching. He updates the club’s website at www.swimordie.ca. He recently became a certified personal trainer but he hesitates to classify himself as a swim coach. The term doesn’t fit his vision of Masters swimming: a ‘swim coach’ is either an age group coach or University of Toronto varsity coach Byron Macdonald, he says.

Taking a holistic approach to his coaching and training, Vanderby prefers to consider himself a swim pro, like a golf pro. And why not, he asks? Someone should step up and claim this title as other sports do. “I have and my club will back me. Being a trainer is not an easy thing. You have to know your stuff. “

After all these years, his passion for swimming remains as strong and infectious as ever. As a coach, “It’s very humbling to be in a position where I can share [my passion] with other swimmers. I take a great amount of pride in helping them achieve their goals.

And still there is the call of the cottage and the early morning swims in the rapidly chilling waters of Lake Simcoe. “I still haven’t forgotten my roots. The other week I was swimming around a point and came across 20 or so loons in the water. I just stopped and watched and listened to them for 10 or so minutes.”