I just got back from the SPMS meet and I am in a funk. I have talked to several of my contemporaries who share my dysphoria at getting slower. From age 50-62 I slowed down very little. Ages 63 and 64 were one injury or illness after another, but at least there was a cause and I felt I would do better. Age 65 I aged up and for most of the year was healthy. That was a great year,but my times were all significantly slower than at 62. Since then it is very unusual to have one swim that is faster than I did the previous year.At 67(almost 68) I am notably slower than at 65. I have seen the graphs of how times slow with age, intellectually, if I am staying at the same rate of decline as my peers I should accept it, but I don't like it. I know most forumites are much younger and what I am saying may seem like something natural that I should just acknowledge and go on, that is what I thought until I was 63. I know that our having age groups every 5 years is a partial solution to the problem, but there is more difference between a 65 year old and a 68 year old than between a 40 year old and a 50 year old, in my experience. How do the other older swimmers out there cope and have a good attitude? The common saying in Masters Swimming is that "you are only competing against yourself",but my slightly younger self is kicking my butt and I am tired of it.
I wish USMS would consider adding an age-grading feature to our meet performances, one that doesn't just go by age group (i.e., 60-64) but by actual year. This would not only allow aging individuals to see how they are doing with regards to the predicted curve of deceleration, but also let people of different age groups potentially get "Best in Meet" honors despite how long their teeth are. Rick Colella's 5:14.48 400 LCM IM at age 65 is not only the age group record by 26 seconds, but no one in the previous age group (except for Rick himself) has come within 14 seconds of this time. It would also be the third, all-time fastest 400 IM in the 55-59 age group.
Chris Stevenson did some work on the kind of age-grading calculator I have in mind, though the algorithms and sloping curves would require more refinement since last he played around with it. Nevertheless, you can enter your time by year of your age when you swam said time, get your rating, them enter your time performed at another year and get your rating for this, too.
I think that if USMS could automatically post such "ratings" beside every swim performed at a regional or national championship meet, it would give us geezers a new metric to chase that is not quite so pitiless as the ticking clock!
To give an example of how Chris's calculator works, your best 200 LCM *** time at age 67, 3:00.01, earns a rating of 100.4.
You best 200 LCM *** at age 62, 2:50.44, earns a still great but lower rating of 100.00--this despite it being 9.5 seconds faster.
Check it out. And Chris, if you read this, give us an update--if any--on the record curves. As of now, it was last updated in 2008. Since then, the body suits have been outlawed, but new and ever faster cohorts of swimmers are ascending the ranks.
www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
PS despite your increasing magnificence in age, don't get too cocky, Allen. Rick's 400 LCM IM gets a rating of 110.4!
I wish USMS would consider adding an age-grading feature to our meet performances, one that doesn't just go by age group (i.e., 60-64) but by actual year. This would not only allow aging individuals to see how they are doing with regards to the predicted curve of deceleration, but also let people of different age groups potentially get "Best in Meet" honors despite how long their teeth are. Rick Colella's 5:14.48 400 LCM IM at age 65 is not only the age group record by 26 seconds, but no one in the previous age group (except for Rick himself) has come within 14 seconds of this time. It would also be the third, all-time fastest 400 IM in the 55-59 age group.
Chris Stevenson did some work on the kind of age-grading calculator I have in mind, though the algorithms and sloping curves would require more refinement since last he played around with it. Nevertheless, you can enter your time by year of your age when you swam said time, get your rating, them enter your time performed at another year and get your rating for this, too.
I think that if USMS could automatically post such "ratings" beside every swim performed at a regional or national championship meet, it would give us geezers a new metric to chase that is not quite so pitiless as the ticking clock!
To give an example of how Chris's calculator works, your best 200 LCM *** time at age 67, 3:00.01, earns a rating of 100.4.
You best 200 LCM *** at age 62, 2:50.44, earns a still great but lower rating of 100.00--this despite it being 9.5 seconds faster.
Check it out. And Chris, if you read this, give us an update--if any--on the record curves. As of now, it was last updated in 2008. Since then, the body suits have been outlawed, but new and ever faster cohorts of swimmers are ascending the ranks.
www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
PS despite your increasing magnificence in age, don't get too cocky, Allen. Rick's 400 LCM IM gets a rating of 110.4!
