Any good resources or rules-of-thumb to predict race/meet times from training? Do you just use time trials, can you use your 100 base-times, descend sets or pace work? I'm curious as to where I am at early in this season and would like to compare/project that to a meet setting. I feel like once-upon-a-time I had a gestalt for judging practice performance that let me understand where my training was at.
Alternatively, does my question even make sense?
If those are high school or college times and you are just six weeks into getting back to swimming then you must be a new masters swimmer. Take those times and throw them away. You are starting fresh and need to establish new baselines. Just start swimming in meets to see where you are. For me, I can never come close to meet times at practice even though I think I am working very hard at practice. Must be something about preferring to swim in meets I guess. But that is just me. I have a lot of fun at meets. I have fun at practice too but, well, you know, its just practice. . . I can tell you that I have come to within 10% of my college days times in the shorter races but nowhere near those times in anything over a 400. I just do not have time to put in that much training. But I still have a lot of fun and get a lot of satisfaction from my swims as a master.
If those are high school or college times and you are just six weeks into getting back to swimming then you must be a new masters swimmer. Take those times and throw them away. You are starting fresh and need to establish new baselines. Just start swimming in meets to see where you are. For me, I can never come close to meet times at practice even though I think I am working very hard at practice. Must be something about preferring to swim in meets I guess. But that is just me. I have a lot of fun at meets. I have fun at practice too but, well, you know, its just practice. . . I can tell you that I have come to within 10% of my college days times in the shorter races but nowhere near those times in anything over a 400. I just do not have time to put in that much training. But I still have a lot of fun and get a lot of satisfaction from my swims as a master.
