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.
It's really important to think of time as only one dimension in performance, and one that you don't directly control. Think like an elite athlete and evaluate your performance in terms of a range of factors, including preparation, technical execution, mental performance etc, which doesn't mean that you don't care about times or medals, but they are just one piece in the overall picture...
I want to thank everyone for their support. I'll miss this years Spring Nationals for a great reason, my oldest daughter is expecting her second child and the due date is in the same time as the meet.Grand kids are the best perk of aging.
The "shiny suits" were brought up. I didn't like the idea, there was too much sense of buying a faster time. The strange thing is that I did feel younger using them.Swimming a time I hadn't swum in 10 years made me feel 10 years younger,even though I knew it was the the suit.
Great.
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.
At last year's s.c. nationals , I aged up to 70!!! Holy "fat man" I did great except for the jerk "turn judge" that decided to DQ me for an "UNDER WATER RECOVERY" see going away from his position in the 200 fly that I would have taken 2nd in the country. I trained 43 pool day - 3 2 hour gym days - and a n night with a personal trainer that really worked me. I now find myself not wanting to work that hard this year cuz it hurts too much. Yes we are slowing down and don't like it BUT remember we are years ahead of others our age that move to ranch houses and do not do anything!!
Thanks for starting this thread, Allen. I am right there with you. When people used to say, ‘wow you’re fast’ now it ends with ‘for your age’. But that’s OK. For me, I am always needing to adjust my expectations. If I didn’t, I would never have fun anymore. The times I’m doing are the best I’ve done at 65—not at 55, but again, that’s OK. We’re all here and participating and in great shape and having fun. We don’t look or think or act our age. So life is good! BTW this week I had my third Grandchild--NOTHING BETTER!
Thanks for starting this thread, Allen. I am right there with you. When people used to say, ‘wow you’re fast’ now it ends with ‘for your age’. But that’s OK. For me, I am always needing to adjust my expectations. If I didn’t, I would never have fun anymore. The times I’m doing are the best I’ve done at 65—not at 55, but again, that’s OK. We’re all here and participating and in great shape and having fun. We don’t look or think or act our age. So life is good! BTW this week I had my third Grandchild--NOTHING BETTER!
Grandkids make everything better.
I just happened upon another online calculator, this one by the New England LMSC. I sent an email to Ed (not sure exactly who Ed is, but hopefully he will reply) and copied Chris Stephenson on this, too.
It seems to me that if New England is already calculating these ratings for their swimmers, it should be possible to adapt their computer code to the USMS tabulations in general. Anyhow, here is their calculator www.egswim.com/.../RatingTime.php And here is a link to their LMSC's all time 100 top rated swims for different events and age groups, men and women. Both Laura and Allen, I suspect, would place very high on these listings if they swam for New England-based teams. www.egswim.com/.../ratingEvent.php
Personally, I would love to see ratings automatically added for each swim we do that winds up in the USMS database. If they decided on a single time standard--perhaps the records as of the end of each course in 2016--then used these as a baseline, you wouldn't have to update each year. New records would simply get increasingly higher 100+ scores, but an individual could look at his or her times at, say, age 44 and see how the ratings for these compare to the same events at, say, age 67. What say ye?
LOVE the idea, Jim! :applaud: (Although, seeing my own ratings wouldn't do much for my psyche... :blush: )
Hey, Jim, that was another excellent article you wrote in the current edition of Swimmer Magazine. Keep up the great writing!:cheerleader:
Runners have an age grading system based on decades of data. Input age, distance and time and it gives you the equivalent for a younger/leaner you. www.heartbreakhill.org/age_graded.htm
