I have seen some discussion of why USMS isn't attracting the typical fitness swimmer. Here are a few suggestions from an old slow poke newbie.
1) Motivational times. This may be of interest to many on this forum, but to someone starting out with no race experience, they can be highly de-motivational because they all look unattainable. If one cannot even approach these times, one may feel he does not belong in USMS. Why not extend the chart all the way to double the time in the first column? Say 10 columns from 10-100% slower.
2) One Hour Swim. An hour is a long time for the casual or new swimmer. In running, a marathon is too long for a newbie, but almost anyone can train for a 5K, 10K, even half-marathon within a short time running regularly. Why not have a half hour and 15 minute swim too?
3) Embrace Triathletes. In summer I swim with a Tri club at a local lake. There are often upwards of 100 people there doing 1, 2, or 3 laps on a half mile loop. And they are not slow. I swam a 1 mile USMS event in Lake Placid, NY last August with far fewer than 100. Why not partner with Tri clubs for some events, pool in winter, open water in summer?
Most of our members are non-competing fitness swimmers and we also have quite a few triathletes. In fact, our coach makes out a separate workout for triathletes that is more freestyle and distance focused than the regular IM stroke-based workout.
The biggest push back I get when trying to recruit new members is the early morning practice schedule (M-F 6:00AM-7:30AM, Sat 6:45AM-8:00AM). Our pool is heavily utilized during the day. There are a lot of adult fitness and lap swimmers who use the pool in the afternoons, but most of them see no point in paying dues to be in Masters if they're still just going to do their own thing anyway.
There are a few of us that compete regularly. We have a couple "studs" with top ten times, but most of us are more in the "developmental" category and still working to improve. In that light, I find the Motivational Times are helpful in my personal goal setting. This year my goal is to make the "B" standard in all the events I regularly compete in. Pretty close on a couple of them, some work to do on others...
Yes, the standards helped me when I swam back around 2002 to 2004 in the 45 to 49 age group I got some A's and maybe a double AA in long course meters. Some double BB's in short course and even a B time in 200 meter freestyle and 50 yard butterfly according to the times. The Times I did the best are of course in breaststroke when I recently swim in the senior olympics and the first meet since 2004 and about a 6 yo 7 year break of barely doing any swimming laps in the 55 to 59 I got two B times in the 50 yard and 100 yard. This helps me since I'm way far off the top 10 times for my age group and by April I will bumped up to 60 to 64.
Yes, the standards helped me when I swam back around 2002 to 2004 in the 45 to 49 age group I got some A's and maybe a double AA in long course meters. Some double BB's in short course and even a B time in 200 meter freestyle and 50 yard butterfly according to the times. The Times I did the best are of course in breaststroke when I recently swim in the senior Olympics and the first meet since 2004 and about a 6 yo 7 year break of barely doing any swimming laps in the 55 to 59 I got two B times in the 50 yard and 100 yard. This helps me since I'm way far off the top 10 times for my age group and by April I will bumped up to 60 to 64.
Another thing is the masters meets don't get enough people in each age group to go by the old C,B,A meets of age group swimming where the slowest are in C and the fastest in A. Swimsaur is on to something, swimmers that make it to a B standard need some recognition as much as the ones that make National Time Standards. Most swimmers that swim middle age and up do this for fun or to see how well they do with swimming with age.
