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'm 66, never was fast, but I did manage to eke out a sub-2 min. 100 free last year at a meet, and lately with my swim practice times, I don't see that as a likelihood this year. Even so, I've spent enough time in this sport and in running to recognize not only the benefit of achieving goals (mine are way more modest than Allen's--wow, w breaststroke, the only chance at finishing the same day I start is doing a 25BR) ;) but also the social benefit. I love connecting with others in the sport--same true of running where I also have slowed down a lot.
After our open water swims during the summer, the coach would fire up the grill and we'd have burgers, hot dogs, and various snacks, plus beers, and relax, enjoy the bonfire, look at the stars, just hang out and enjoy one another's company.
In winter, we sometimes will go out for food/drinks after a workout or meet.
Same with the running group--the coach of that group owns a running store, and we typically gather in the back, in his office, and he sets out a case of beer (hmm... I'm beginning to see a theme here...). ;) People again relax, drink, eat whatever protein bars and such they brought or someone might order pizza to share.... And fast or slow, everyone's welcome. The coach will often give good advice--or just as often talk football or politics. ;)
I'm not getting podium finishes so much (though I do get some... aging up to 65 seems to help), but more important, I enjoy the stress beating therapy of redlining a sprint even if Missy Franklin I'm not. I sometimes try different strokes in races (working on butterfly at the moment--mine is...let's just say a work in progress), and so I know I'll have slower times in these races, but then I'll have the benefit of trying something new.
Then too, I think of friends older than I am who are still going strong, in spite of physical and other challenges they've faced... a friend in her 80s, a swimmer, who has survived pancreatic cancer... a friend in her 70s (a runner) who survived *** cancer and still beats me by a lot in races. (She was always faster--I've known her for a while.)
Sometimes I'll feel frustrated when I'm the slowest swimmer in a practice, but my coach is good about it--he's encouraging yet demanding. He'll ask for something I think I can't do, and then realize I can. And if I"m feeling ragged on a given day, I keep thinking of something the running doctor George Sheehan wrote in Running and Being about "playing defense."
There are days when you can’t get the ball in the basket, no matter how hard you try…. But there is no excuse for not playing good defense.
Offense…is a spontaneous, joyful unification of the body and the mind. Therefore there are days when it won’t happen.
Defense needs none of this. Defense is dull, boring, commonplace. It is the unimaginative plodding attention to duty. It is grit and determination and perseverance. It requires simply…an act of the will. There is never a day you can’t play defense. All you need is the decision to put out. To give one hundred percent.
Offense is a showplace for talent and even genius. What defense discloses is character.
I enjoy my play. Enjoy having the ball. But I know that my talent is something I carry. The real test comes when that is absent. When I am filled with fatigue and boredom and the desire to be off on a vacation or a short drunk.
Defense therefore narrows down to character, the ability to persist in the direction of greatest resistance.
And sometimes, in the process of "playing defense," I find a different kind of joy.
I'm 66, never was fast, but I did manage to eke out a sub-2 min. 100 free last year at a meet, and lately with my swim practice times, I don't see that as a likelihood this year. Even so, I've spent enough time in this sport and in running to recognize not only the benefit of achieving goals (mine are way more modest than Allen's--wow, w breaststroke, the only chance at finishing the same day I start is doing a 25BR) ;) but also the social benefit. I love connecting with others in the sport--same true of running where I also have slowed down a lot.
After our open water swims during the summer, the coach would fire up the grill and we'd have burgers, hot dogs, and various snacks, plus beers, and relax, enjoy the bonfire, look at the stars, just hang out and enjoy one another's company.
In winter, we sometimes will go out for food/drinks after a workout or meet.
Same with the running group--the coach of that group owns a running store, and we typically gather in the back, in his office, and he sets out a case of beer (hmm... I'm beginning to see a theme here...). ;) People again relax, drink, eat whatever protein bars and such they brought or someone might order pizza to share.... And fast or slow, everyone's welcome. The coach will often give good advice--or just as often talk football or politics. ;)
I'm not getting podium finishes so much (though I do get some... aging up to 65 seems to help), but more important, I enjoy the stress beating therapy of redlining a sprint even if Missy Franklin I'm not. I sometimes try different strokes in races (working on butterfly at the moment--mine is...let's just say a work in progress), and so I know I'll have slower times in these races, but then I'll have the benefit of trying something new.
Then too, I think of friends older than I am who are still going strong, in spite of physical and other challenges they've faced... a friend in her 80s, a swimmer, who has survived pancreatic cancer... a friend in her 70s (a runner) who survived *** cancer and still beats me by a lot in races. (She was always faster--I've known her for a while.)
Sometimes I'll feel frustrated when I'm the slowest swimmer in a practice, but my coach is good about it--he's encouraging yet demanding. He'll ask for something I think I can't do, and then realize I can. And if I"m feeling ragged on a given day, I keep thinking of something the running doctor George Sheehan wrote in Running and Being about "playing defense."
There are days when you can’t get the ball in the basket, no matter how hard you try…. But there is no excuse for not playing good defense.
Offense…is a spontaneous, joyful unification of the body and the mind. Therefore there are days when it won’t happen.
Defense needs none of this. Defense is dull, boring, commonplace. It is the unimaginative plodding attention to duty. It is grit and determination and perseverance. It requires simply…an act of the will. There is never a day you can’t play defense. All you need is the decision to put out. To give one hundred percent.
Offense is a showplace for talent and even genius. What defense discloses is character.
I enjoy my play. Enjoy having the ball. But I know that my talent is something I carry. The real test comes when that is absent. When I am filled with fatigue and boredom and the desire to be off on a vacation or a short drunk.
Defense therefore narrows down to character, the ability to persist in the direction of greatest resistance.
And sometimes, in the process of "playing defense," I find a different kind of joy.
