I'm slow, but at almost 69 I'm OK with that since being here at all is something of a triumph. What I'd like to know is what percentile I might fall into for my age group and then eventually figure out what I need to do to improve. I see here all sorts of top 10s, motivational times, and personal bests, but I have not seen a percentile spread by age. I don't come close to the "motivational" times. I'm a fitness swimmer with no past performances to compare. I have never done a pool race and only 1 OWS where I intentionally held back from the start to complete it comfortably. I intend on doing the USMS 1 hr swim on my 69th B-day in January.
I have a Swimovate Poolmate watch so I can track data. At a casual pace it tells me I have an effiency between 50-60. The help info. says that's "average", but avg for whom? Would that be everyone, all ages? I don't care a whit what a 28 yr old can do. I'll do 500y at 12+, 1000y in 25+, a 1650 in 42+, and the 1 mile OWS was about 48. My all-out 50y is 55 sec. and a 100y in 2:03. So where might that fit in with my peers?
What I'd like to know is what percentile I might fall into for my age group ...
Percent of what? Percent of all masters swimmers in your age group who compete in USMS meets? That's the only thing we can measure accurately. But it only counts a small number of people, essentially all of whom are very good swimmers. And it doesn't mean anything except with respect to that small population.
Percent of fitness swimmers who don't compete? People who actually swim in the pool every day? There's no way to know how many fitness swimmers there are, or how fast they are, so you can't calculate a percentage.
How about the whole population, including people who don't swim? Glenn got it right. You're right at the top. 3rd percentile. :)
You're lapping everybody who's sitting at home on the couch. Keep it up!
Thanks crew. This gives me a baseline from which to begin working. Now I can proceed to build a program to improve. BTW, Glen's 3rd percentile means 3 from the bottom with 97% above. That is not insulting, it's what I was looking for and expecting.
You can view the USMS Event Rankings for your age group to see all of the times swum for a given course and event in a given year.
You'd want to look at a complete year, so for the SCY course you'd view the 2016 rankings:
1) go to usms.org
2) mouse over the red "Events & Results" tab
3) select "Event Results"
4) in the left-hand column, click on "Event Ranking"
5) in the Short Course Yards form, search on:
--- Season: 2015-2016
--- Gender: Men
--- Stroke: Free
--- Distance: 500
--- Ages: 65 through 69
--- Display top: 500
The above search returns a list of 131 names.
The fastest time was 5:29.10 and the slowest time was 21:51.97.
You can view the USMS Event Rankings for your age group to see all of the times swum for a given course and event in a given year.
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This is my favorite tool to see how I'm doing in a particular event.
