Did you go straight into Masters Swimming or did you take time off.

I took a break for 20 years. Started again when I turned forty, after my kids were old enough and I could spend the time to swim. I tried to come back to swimming when I was about 30 years old but my heart was not in it. This time around I am enjoying every aspect of the swimming and masters comunities.

I started 17 years ago when I was 23 - and if I had known where to get information about how to join, I probably would've started four years earlier. Three years after joining USMS, I participated in my first USMS Nationals (1992, Chapel Hill). To date, I have attended 22 USMS pool nationals. Ya think I'm hooked? SB

Did two years of "B" team swimming in high school in the U.S. 1967-68. Prep school had plenty of fast or faster swimmers, but I was content to train together and be in the B team. Swam the 200 I.M. and the 100 butterfly (because no one else wanted to swim the darn fly). Started swimming or training with a local masters club a year ago. The only swimming in between had been playing around while water skiing, scuba-diving, snorkeling, but no lap swimming. One month after I started with the group I entered a 50 meter butterfly race and one of the girls asked me "can you swim 50 meters butterfly?" I could, but did it slowly. I am getting into shape but have lost no weight yet. The speed is there but the endurance has gone. And yet the quality of swimming in Brazil is so low that I actually win plenty of meets in my age group. Take care, billy fanstone

Only three paragraphs, Matt, you are losing your touch.

Originally posted by Leonard Jansen P.S. Mollie - What is this "Terrapin" nonsense? We ARE Penn State. :D i will always be a nittany lion (always have been!), but now i'm a registered terrapin master. not to mention my boyfriend is a lifelong terrapin (poor misguided soul!) can't i be both? ;)

I started Masters swimming my senior year of college. I had a boyfriend who rowed crew. When we hung out, he'd talk about crew and all I had to talk about was my major (chemical engineering - seriously BORING!) I had just quit my sorority, was a high school swimmer, and needed something else to do other than just engineering. Within the first month of swimming, I'd broken up with the boyfriend (unrelated to swimming) and met my future husband (the coach!). :D We'll be married 7 years this June.

Great Poll! I took about 6.5 years off after getting out of college in 1981, simply because I had never heard of USMS. A year or two after college I found a Masters group at a local Y and swam a workout or two with them. Unfortunately they weren't that competitive and told me that you had to be 25 to compete at Y nationals back then. That was a few years off for me at the time so I had no motivation to swim short uninspired workouts without the possibility of competing. They never mentioned USMS. When I found out about USMS a few years later, I swam on my own for a while and did a few meets until I found a local team to join. I definitely would have continued swimming right after college if I knew about USMS back then. I don't think it's likely that many age group, high school, and college kids today are unaware of Masters, so I don't think this would happen to many of the potential new Masters swimmers now. If it is likely, this is a huge market for USMS to go after. If nothing else, we can get Masters into their heads so that they'll remember us after they take whatever time off they may need or once they've gained enough weight to realize that they NEED to swim again.

Swam Div III varsity 79-83. Played on the water polo club while in law school, and during the summers worked out with a "masters" group at the municiple outdoor pool. We should note that USMS at the time had not penetrated into all regions at the same level, and finding info about local teams and places for group workouts was much more difficult in those pre-www. days. I remember looking forward to a masters "meet" one summer in Ann Arbor at our pool, but my teammates informed me I should not get my hopes up to high about a competitive race, because the participation was pretty lame. Their predictions were correct. At the start of the meet, the organizer caucused all the distance swimmers of both genders and all age groups (all 5 of us) to determine if we were going to swim the 800 or the 1500. As I was the only one interested in the 1500, we settled on the 800, and there was no real doubt as to who would finish in what order after the first 100 meters or so. Fortunately, USMS has come a LOONNNGGGG way from those beginings, and we all owe a huge debt to the pioneers who got this started. I remember what a revelation it was to participate in '94 SCY Nationals, and see so many swimmers, and so many swimmers taking their races seriously and out to swim their very fastest. That was the part I thought I had left forever when I graduated from college, and I was thrilled to see I could find meets like this. Billy F, great personal icon--unique, colorful, very distinctive. I agree that Brazilian masters swimming is actually pretty impressive. When I participated in '99 Pan-Pacs, in Perth Aus, the Brazilians had the third strongest contingent in my opinion. The Aussies, obviously, had the strongest team, and the Japanese showed up with quality and especially quantity. Brazil sent a smallish squad, but with some of the very best younger swimmers who had some of the fastest swims for any age group in the meet. Matt

I am in one of the older age groups, and I didn't have the opportunity to compete for some 20 years. I did so some swimming, but not as much as I do now that I have the incentive to get in there and see what kind of a time I can do. Back in the "olden days" people in their thirties didn't go out and run around the neighborhood or get into a pool and do intervals. My "hat" is off to the pioneers who made competition possible for older folks. I'm sure I'm a lot of healthier as a result. I remember the first time I ran in a four mile race when I was in my forties. My mother was horrified and said I should do something more appropriate for my age - like play bridge (and inhale everybody else's cigarette smoke in the process).

I didn't learn how to swim until I was 39, so no priors for me. Did my first race (2 mile open water) about 1 year after starting. Only joined USMS because they made you for that race. Every year I keep telling myself I'll compete in pool races, but I can't even get warmed up in 1650 yards... -LBJ P.S. Mollie - What is this "Terrapin" nonsense? We ARE Penn State.