Some elite masters swimmers appear to be almost quasi "professional" in terms of the time and energy they devote to the sport and my impression is that there are more and more of such swimmers competing in masters now. At least in my two masters age groups to date, women's 40-44 and 45-49, there is a true professional swimmer (KPN), past Olympians swimming amazing times, professional triathletes and professional engine builders. (My spies tell me about their yardage.) Times across the board in my age group were much faster this year than last year. Not sure about the men's times or other women's times. Is it similar?
It seems like a massive amount of time is involved to put in all the yardage, weights, drylands, stretching, RC exercises, cross-training necessary and to go to all the PT, ART, orthopod and massage appointments. Their dedication is admirable. But I have difficulty fitting this all in. :violin: I'm sure most others must too. Life and kids definitely interfere with even getting to practice, wholly apart from a total devotion to swimming. So I can't out-train anyone.
Am I only imagining that masters swimming is getting more competitive? The phenoms are all just genetically talented swimmers? Thoughts anyone?
JUST TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR, I AM NOT CRITICIZING ANYONE, JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.
very interesting thread, Fortress...
I was curious to see if the data supported a true downward trend in times vs. the eyeball look you gave it.
I took data for 45-49 Women 50/100 free from 1998-(est.)2007 and plot the 1st, 5th, and 10th fastest times. You see a big-time downward trend for the 5th and 10th times. The 1st place times jump around (basically, they were very fast, then Laura Val aged up, and now KPN aged up and they are very fast again... you really see this in the 100). I looked at the 1997 times too, but these were significantly slower and I didn't want to bias the plot too much with potential outliers for my first datapoints.
In the 50 free, based on linear regression, 10th place times are improving at 0.15 sec/year and in the 100, they are improving at 0.31 sec/year.
What does this mean? By the time I'm 45, it will take a 24.5 to make Top Ten!** I'm screwed! :p
**actually, a linear regression can't hold indefinitely, but still... times are definitely improving!
very interesting thread, Fortress...
I was curious to see if the data supported a true downward trend in times vs. the eyeball look you gave it.
I took data for 45-49 Women 50/100 free from 1998-(est.)2007 and plot the 1st, 5th, and 10th fastest times. You see a big-time downward trend for the 5th and 10th times. The 1st place times jump around (basically, they were very fast, then Laura Val aged up, and now KPN aged up and they are very fast again... you really see this in the 100). I looked at the 1997 times too, but these were significantly slower and I didn't want to bias the plot too much with potential outliers for my first datapoints.
In the 50 free, based on linear regression, 10th place times are improving at 0.15 sec/year and in the 100, they are improving at 0.31 sec/year.
What does this mean? By the time I'm 45, it will take a 24.5 to make Top Ten!** I'm screwed! :p
**actually, a linear regression can't hold indefinitely, but still... times are definitely improving!
