When a new masters swimmer asked on a different thread for a meters to yard conversion utility, I referred her to the following site:
www.swiminfo.com/.../conversions.asp
Unfortunately, as another poster quickly pointed out, this site will soon be available only to those who pay for it.
I am wondering if someone with some computer savvy could recreate this very useful utility for us masters, then post it in an area of the USMS web site where we could access it for free.
This same area could also include some other useful tools for swimmers. There is, for example, a fun (though perhaps somewhat suspect) "future times predictor" for aging swimmers at:
http://n3times.com/swimtimes/
In addition, my friend and teammate Bill White wrote an Excel spreadsheet (so far not posted on the web) that allows you to easily calculate your 100 pace for distance swims. You can either input the total distance and total time and it will give you your average 100; or you can input the average 100 you hope to swim and the total distance, and it will crank out what your overall time will be if you can hold that pace.
Anyhow, I propose the USMS web site add a new section called something like "Swimmers Tool Box" that collects, in one place, all these useful and/or just fun-to-play-around-with utilities we can come up with. I know many of the posters here are brilliant amateur mathematicians, who enjoy inventing these things; maybe we could even have an annual award for whatever new calculator we users vote as the most interesting! Kind of like a Touring Prize (is that the right name) for swimming math esoterica!
hi, lefty. you should check out the lengthy discussion on this topic from the old forum. your proposal to take top 10 times was suggested, but the problem here is that different cohorts of swimmers would confound the results.
Case in point: one of my friends won the 200 m backstroke last year at the long course nationals in Rutgers. He swam in the 40-44 age group, and turned in a time that ended up being the #1 time in the country for the whole year. He's a great swimmer, and I don't mean in any way to detract from his accomplishment.
However, if he had swum in the 45-49 year old age group, he would have come in 5th just at Rutgers! The older guys clobbered him!
My own theory is that there was a Mark Spitzian "bubble" of male swimming greatness/popularity during the early 1970s that is now making its way, like a pig through a python, through the masters ranks (this "pig" consists of swimmers from about 45 to 54) . Swimming as a male sport has subsequently waned in popularity in the US, thanks in part to the ascendancy of competing sports (bball, hockey, winter soccer, etc.)
You're probably correct is suggesting that males peaking at 19 is ludicrous. But on average, we must peak sometime--you see very few octagenerians in the Olympics, after all. So we're just quibbling over when this peak most likely begins--and how best to determine the age.
By the way, I have a pug named Lefty. You don't, by any chance, have a coat of fawn fur, do you?
hi, lefty. you should check out the lengthy discussion on this topic from the old forum. your proposal to take top 10 times was suggested, but the problem here is that different cohorts of swimmers would confound the results.
Case in point: one of my friends won the 200 m backstroke last year at the long course nationals in Rutgers. He swam in the 40-44 age group, and turned in a time that ended up being the #1 time in the country for the whole year. He's a great swimmer, and I don't mean in any way to detract from his accomplishment.
However, if he had swum in the 45-49 year old age group, he would have come in 5th just at Rutgers! The older guys clobbered him!
My own theory is that there was a Mark Spitzian "bubble" of male swimming greatness/popularity during the early 1970s that is now making its way, like a pig through a python, through the masters ranks (this "pig" consists of swimmers from about 45 to 54) . Swimming as a male sport has subsequently waned in popularity in the US, thanks in part to the ascendancy of competing sports (bball, hockey, winter soccer, etc.)
You're probably correct is suggesting that males peaking at 19 is ludicrous. But on average, we must peak sometime--you see very few octagenerians in the Olympics, after all. So we're just quibbling over when this peak most likely begins--and how best to determine the age.
By the way, I have a pug named Lefty. You don't, by any chance, have a coat of fawn fur, do you?
