The Fastest Age

Ion, the issue is the constant "qualifying" you add to your claims and accomplishments. If you are measuring yourself by time against others, that means you are only interested in the COMPETITIVE swimmers in USMS. That being said, the numbers you are offering (faster than 80 to 90%) isn't fair because as you note, less than 10% of the 40,000 registered swimmers participate in meets. Therefore, comparing you to only those that compete (4,000), you have to look at your subset (men's 40-44) and there are less than 200 (I'd guess). None are classified as "late bloomers", "former high school swimmer", "DI swimmers", "late-late bloomers" (started in 30's), etc; just SWIMMERS. That is the group you are in, the only groups we are scored, ranked, and compete against, and in that group you ARE NOT RANKED HIGH. If you just listen and take some healthy advice (repeated often by many), you CAN improve with attention paid to technique, diet, and mental preparation. Just try it for one season. Tell no one where you got the advice; be brilliant and claim a newfound training routine! Just try expanding your training horizon and see what happens. What do you have to lose? You are a competitor and should only be looking at/comparing yourself to (if you REALLY must) to competitors, not registered swimmers. It is apples to oranges and does not reflect your efforts and how far you can still improve.

Ion, the issue is the constant "qualifying" you add to your claims and accomplishments. If you are measuring yourself by time against others, that means you are only interested in the COMPETITIVE swimmers in USMS. That being said, the numbers you are offering (faster than 80 to 90%) isn't fair because as you note, less than 10% of the 40,000 registered swimmers participate in meets. Therefore, comparing you to only those that compete (4,000), you have to look at your subset (men's 40-44) and there are less than 200 (I'd guess). None are classified as "late bloomers", "former high school swimmer", "DI swimmers", "late-late bloomers" (started in 30's), etc; just SWIMMERS. That is the group you are in, the only groups we are scored, ranked, and compete against, and in that group you ARE NOT RANKED HIGH. If you just listen and take some healthy advice (repeated often by many), you CAN improve with attention paid to technique, diet, and mental preparation. Just try it for one season. Tell no one where you got the advice; be brilliant and claim a newfound training routine! Just try expanding your training horizon and see what happens. What do you have to lose? You are a competitor and should only be looking at/comparing yourself to (if you REALLY must) to competitors, not registered swimmers. It is apples to oranges and does not reflect your efforts and how far you can still improve.