Okay... I know, this is perhaps a little bit of a tongue in cheek question...
So often I hear people complaining about not enough 'distance' swims in zone and national meets, or meets in general.
Just having been involved in organizing my firat more serious swim meet I have to ask... Almost noone, or very few people want to swim the 200 fly, or 200 Brast or 200 back?
Is that not 'distance enough?'
I just got a zone meet medal in 200 back, not because I'm fast, but because noone wants to swim it.
How about some real endurance testing events like 400 or 800 Fly? 800 IM? How about a postal 800 IM?
Or 30 minute stroke check off challenge? One for each stroke, rather than just freestyle?
Okay, now that I tossed this out there, I think I'm gonna duck and run. ;)
Parents
Former Member
Originally posted by knelson
You know, it is sort of strange. Most of us train nearly year-round, several days per week. Yet we get to a meet and decide a 400 IM is too much pain. Heck, you're done with it in 5 minutes, give or take!
One problem with distance events (200s of stroke, 400 IM, or 500 and above free) is you can't fake your way through them. Anyone who's a good swimmer could step up on the blocks and knock out a nice 50 even if they haven't been in the water for a couple years, but I'd like to see them try a 500 free :) So maybe that's part of the problem. In Masters many of us can't devote a huge amount of time to training and it's just to humiliating to swim the longer events where you come nowhere near the times you swam when you were 12 years old. So this might be one area where you "late bloomers" have an advantage!!
Yarg, I wish 5 minutes give or take. Of course I wasn't swimming as a 12 year old so have nothing to compare to. Just finishing the 400 IM was triumph enough!
Originally posted by knelson
You know, it is sort of strange. Most of us train nearly year-round, several days per week. Yet we get to a meet and decide a 400 IM is too much pain. Heck, you're done with it in 5 minutes, give or take!
One problem with distance events (200s of stroke, 400 IM, or 500 and above free) is you can't fake your way through them. Anyone who's a good swimmer could step up on the blocks and knock out a nice 50 even if they haven't been in the water for a couple years, but I'd like to see them try a 500 free :) So maybe that's part of the problem. In Masters many of us can't devote a huge amount of time to training and it's just to humiliating to swim the longer events where you come nowhere near the times you swam when you were 12 years old. So this might be one area where you "late bloomers" have an advantage!!
Yarg, I wish 5 minutes give or take. Of course I wasn't swimming as a 12 year old so have nothing to compare to. Just finishing the 400 IM was triumph enough!
