Time comparison

Ill be 33 in May Dolphinccc

Since I began racing as an adult, I'll chime in here. First, I agree with the other people who have said that you should just go ahead and start racing. You may not be ready to win at this point, but there's a whole process of learning how to race, and if you wait until you're ready to do winning times before you start racing, you still won't be able to win, because you won't have learned how to race. At the same time, you need to realize that most of the people you are racing against won't by any stretch of the imagination be your peers. Age groups in kids' swimming are officially supposed to level the playing field, the argument being that a 9-year-old kid is mature enough physically to be able to compete fairly with a 16-year-old. But my experience suggests that that's about half the story. The other half is that the 16-year-old will swim better because (usually) he/she has been swimming competitively for a longer time. But you are likely to be be up against swimmers in you age group who have been racing literally for decades. So it isn't reasonable to compare your performance to theirs. I should also warn you that, in my experience, what cinc310 says isn't true. I've never turned in as good a time in competition in any stroke as I've done in practice. One of the problems, undoubtedly, is that I've done a lot more practice sets than competition sets, so there's been a lot more opportunity to excell in practice. But there are also a lot of other factors that come into play: racing in an unfamiliar pool, 25y vs. 25m vs. 50m pools, nervousness, having to perform at a particular time on a particular day, only having one shot to get it right, etc. The gap between what I've done in practice and what I've done in competition has been narrowing as I've gained experience, but you shouldn't expect to do better in competition right off the bat. If you do, consider yourself lucky. In my book, there are a number of different ways to "win" a race. One is to come in first, but another is to place higher than you've ever placed before and/or to do a better time than you've ever done before. If you think about things this way, it will give you a tremendous advantage at your first race, since every time you set and every placing you get will be better than you've ever done before. Even if you get DQed, that will still be better than you've ever done before. So you are guaranteed to win! And that's not entirely fictitious. Just by racing, you are already ahead of the vast majority of people, who have never raced. And don't be concerned about what other people are going to think of you. The worst you can do is to take last place or get DQed, and if that happens, there will be at least one person who will be very glad you were there - the person who comes in next-to-last! Consider each race to be a learning experience, and analyze it afterward. What went wrong? What could you have done to have prevented it? What should you do differently next time? Bob

gee ive never timed my 100s i think i did a 50 in less than 25secs last week but again i never timed ...maybe it was more...WHO KNOWS???Time is illusive in the water..normally i practice distance due to lack of time...hence do as much metrage as i can in an hour!!!!

What I said is true for most people. They swim faster in meets than practice. I never did a 1:34 breaststroke in practice. I was doing at best a 1:48 in 100 yard *** last year in practice and did a 1:43.31 in 100 meters at a meet. But I 46 years old turing 47. So, someone younger than me could do practice times closer to meet times.

I don't doubt that most people swim faster at meets than in practice. But what I am wondering is whether that's true for many new competitive swimmers. If anyone else began racing when they were an adult, I'd be interested in hearing how they made out on this. Bob

I swam my very first meet at age 40, and yes I did swim faster in the meet than in practice. For these reasons, in practice, I never push myself to the level of all out speed. So when I got to the meet, the competitive side of me did, and there was a significant decrease in times. I remember hoping I could go under 40 seconds on the 50 and did 33 with my goggles full of water and an open turn. The hundred was in the low 1:20's. Now I am 42 and a veteran of 4 meets :) and am trying longer distances. I also have learned to push myself harder in practice. I tried a 400 IM in a meet last weekend and did 6:53. I was timed in practice off the blocks, going 6:42. Differences, throwing up last Saturday night probably did not help it. The people in my heat were way faster, so no one to try and keep up with to push me. However, my fastest 100 *** in practice was a 1:44 and I went 1:40, and know I can go faster because I was being cautious since I had been sick the night before. BTW, going faster in practice is not restricted to us adult starters. My son has been swimming since age 7, and is now almost 16. There are certain freestyle races(200 and 500) that frustrate him because he has faster repeats in practice than he sometimes swims in meets. He knows he can do the time, and then falls flat at a meet. Eventually the time happens in a meet, because it is there, it just takes patience.

Originally posted by dorothyrd I remember hoping I could go under 40 seconds on the 50 and did 33 with my goggles full of water and an open turn.QUOTE] Try wearing your cap over your goggles. It worked for me 25 years aago and still works today. Paul