Here in the DVLMSC we area a little thin on meets this time of year. I imagine that this is true in many other places as well. Therefore, for fun, and to help sustain the motivation to train, I set forth this Independence Day challenge: Swim an 800 IM, time yourself and report your result here.
To kick off this challenge, (and since I know that someone would call my bluff on this if I didn’t do it myself) I did my 800 IM today (SCY) and swam it in 11:50. Splits were:
2:55 (fly in 2:55)
5:44 (back in 2:49)
8:13 (*** in 3:29)
11:50 (free in 2:37)
(Next stop, :bed:)
To compare swimmers of different ages and genders, compute your rating as follows:
1) Go to the Australian Masters Swimming records and find the record for the SCM 800 IM for your age group and gender.
www.portal.aussi.org.au/.../records.php
For example, for my age group, M45-49, the record is 10:53.34, held by someone named Mark Smedley. (What a great name for an IMer!)
2) Convert the Australian SCM record to SCY with the swimming world time converter.
www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../conversions.asp
(Just use the 400 IM conversion. Hey, this is for fun, we don’t have to be precise here.) For example, Mr. Smedley’s time converts to 9:45.39 SCY.
3) Convert both your time and the record time to a total number of seconds, and take the ratio of the record time to your time. For example, Mr. Smedley’s record time is 585s and my time was 710s, so my rating is 585/710 = 0.82. In other words my speed is 82% of that of the record swim for my age group and gender.
4) If you swim it SCM you won’t have to convert. If you swim it LCM, you can use the Austrailian LCM record and you will also not need to convert.
Anyone who completes this challenge gets a :banana: .
The highest overall rating gets a :bow: .
If you complete this challenge LCM, you are :weightlifter: .
So are there any takers? tjrpatt, That Guy, pwb, jaadams1, gdanner, couldbebetterfly? I know that there are some distance fly/IM types out there just itching to do this, so find a pool and celebrate the holiday! Any non-US swimmers, here is your chance to show that your motherland outshines the ‘States.
I'm going to try this at Lake Minnewaska tomorrow. The cable in the lake is either 200 yards or meters long, but there are no walls to rest on... And I think no one to time me. I'm just going to see if I can make it.
I completed this challenge today. Since I'm tapering, my workout was pretty short:
Bike 5 miles to gym
800 IM stroke drill
800 IM for time
400 warmdown
Bike 5 miles home
This was the first time I've ever done an 800 IM full stroke. Swimming in SCY, I went 10:31. I think pwb has a good chance of beating my time, even though he's swimming in SCM!
:cheerleader:G0 :cheerleader: pWb :cheerleader: gO!:cheerleader:
Great job That Guy! I am curious to see what your 200 splits were.
I'll have to take a "rain check" and will try this again later this month. I did attempt it today (forums.usms.org/blog.php, but my body (calves in particular) weren't cooperating.
Great job That Guy! I am curious to see what your 200 splits were.
Thanks! I don't know for sure what my 200 splits were. I was in the worst lane in the pool for seeing the clock. The only split I saw for certain was at the 400 mark, which was 5:05. I did see 2:30 when I was about halfway down the pool to start the backstroke, so I was probably in the 2:20 to 2:22 range for the 200 fly, which would mean a 2:43-2:45 backstroke leg. My freestyle leg was perhaps 2:20, so that would put my breaststroke leg at 3:06. Again, only the 5:05 and 10:31 times are solid, the rest are guesstimates.
:weightlifter: :applaud:
That was my experience as well, it didn't turn out to be as long and painful as I expected... but then again, I didn't do it long course. If this challenge has convinced you to do more stroke swimming and given you a way to enjoy your workouts more, I'd be very happy.
Yes it did!!!! Thank you for the suggestion to do this challenge karl!!
I think LCM was probably the easier way to do it unless you're trying to go hard. A 200 fly isn't so bad if you breath a lot and really glide after the breath. It's slow, but not too painful. I thought the 200 *** was the most difficult to do. I am a horrid *** stroker. It make my knees hurt and took forever!!
I did it yesterday very SLOWLY in Long Course Meters! I was amazed how quickly the 800 passed by. I'm going to start doing more stroke swimming. I'm so sick of freestyle!
Yes it did!!!! Thank you for the suggestion to do this challenge karl!!
I think LCM was probably the easier way to do it unless you're trying to go hard. A 200 fly isn't so bad if you breath a lot and really glide after the breath. It's slow, but not too painful. I thought the 200 *** was the most difficult to do. I am a horrid *** stroker. It make my knees hurt and took forever!!
I agree with you on this...200 *** is the worst...it feels like it will never end!
I did it yesterday very SLOWLY in Long Course Meters!
:weightlifter: :applaud:
I was amazed how quickly the 800 passed by. I'm going to start doing more stroke swimming. I'm so sick of freestyle!
That was my experience as well, it didn't turn out to be as long and painful as I expected... but then again, I didn't do it long course. If this challenge has convinced you to do more stroke swimming and given you a way to enjoy your workouts more, I'd be very happy.
Do you happen to have a link to this "forum 50" by chance? I tried every which way, and because of the stupid 4 character limitation for searches, I really can't search on it easily. I'd look by username but I have no idea who "jim" is, and you can't search jim either :( Sorry for my unrelated post, carry on.
Here is is:
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
I had a heck of a time finding it again too because the thread was stared by qbrain, not Jim Thornton as I had (wrongly) remembered. I plead for forgiveness.
I'll have to take a "rain check" and will try this again later this month. I did attempt it today (forums.usms.org/blog.php, but my body (calves in particular) weren't cooperating.
I think I'm going to have to do the "rain check" as well with this challenge. I would've done it today, but my body was cramping so badly it wasn't going to happen. I'll have to wait till I get back in practice shape in September after the work schedule dies down...
