Today, I swam the 200 yards free in 2:09.11.
This beats my previous best of 2:09.54 from April 1994.
I challenged the 2:09.54 in the past 11 years, over 20 times, many times under what I learned the hard way to be the wrong preparation, and never came close.
My result will be posted officially in the USMS databse.
I won't be able to make the 2005 Short Course Nationals, but hopefully I will make the 2005 Long Course Nationals.
The reason that I bring this success here is that there are some lessons to learn from it:
1.) to pursue virtue and excellence by meeting the intrinsic requirements that come to having a worthwhile goal (in my case, the goal is to stay in my prime intellectually and physically, for longtime), that's intelligence and tenacious work;
I immigrated to U.S. and relocated within U.S. on job skills in science to live my lifestyle;
this lifestyle comprises now, over 39 weeks of the 2004-2005 season so far, of 1,093 kilometers of training (an average of 28.025 kilometers per week, or 30,828 yards per week, no matter the holidays, tapering or illness, that includes kicking, strokes, and technique quotas), the most mileage I slowly built my late starter physiology up to in life, mostly under a Masters club with primarly college and age group swimming expertise, which I searched for and choosed;
I also cross train consistently in weights and running;
2.) I scrutinize self-indulgence and greed (to an employer who was asking me to work overtime like his Japanese employees do, even though I was ahead in schedule in a project, and who thought that I am a slave to him giving me a work visa, I stated "You know, my life doesn't depend on you." and I walked away from a near six-figures salary because it was jeopardizing my swim training; I looked for and found another) and I scrutinize good intentions backed up by feelings without hard data.
2:09.11 and staying in my prime, that's a tribute to 1.) and 2.).
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Former Member
My interpretation of Ion's comments was that he was referring to the widely accepted fact that there is a period in your teens during which your body is able to make significant physiological adaptations that it will not undergo with the same training anytime later in life. A person who was training during this period gains an advantage that a person who didn't start until later will never attain. While I don't think there is much scientific controversy over this I don't know about the magnitude of these adaptations relative to regular training adaptations. In any case I think Ion's argument is that the person who starts at 50 has an upper limit on performance that is lower than a 50 year old who trained as a teenager.
Most of us who started later in life will never train with the intensity that is normal in age group and college swimming and I suspect this is a greater limitation. I expect that I'll be getting personal bests for years to come because there is so much room for improvement in my technique that age effects will be outweighed for some time.
I have a friend that swam exactly once in the two months between two meets we swam at and swam a 50 free seven seconds faster than me despite the fact I was training quite hard. I think that was because he has hardwired great technique into his neurons from many years of intense training years ago, it clearly wasn't due to his training in those two months! If I ever swim like he swims when he is out of shape I'll be quite satisfied.
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Former Member
My interpretation of Ion's comments was that he was referring to the widely accepted fact that there is a period in your teens during which your body is able to make significant physiological adaptations that it will not undergo with the same training anytime later in life. A person who was training during this period gains an advantage that a person who didn't start until later will never attain. While I don't think there is much scientific controversy over this I don't know about the magnitude of these adaptations relative to regular training adaptations. In any case I think Ion's argument is that the person who starts at 50 has an upper limit on performance that is lower than a 50 year old who trained as a teenager.
Most of us who started later in life will never train with the intensity that is normal in age group and college swimming and I suspect this is a greater limitation. I expect that I'll be getting personal bests for years to come because there is so much room for improvement in my technique that age effects will be outweighed for some time.
I have a friend that swam exactly once in the two months between two meets we swam at and swam a 50 free seven seconds faster than me despite the fact I was training quite hard. I think that was because he has hardwired great technique into his neurons from many years of intense training years ago, it clearly wasn't due to his training in those two months! If I ever swim like he swims when he is out of shape I'll be quite satisfied.
