Seems inevitable, no? Even though my practice times seem to be pretty consistent with intervals I was able to hold 5 to 7 years ago (mid to early
30's), now that I am 40, my races just seem to get slower. Its an odd scenario to be in. As an age grouper and into college, the older you got, the more you trained, the faster you swam. Now, it seems, mother nature is kicking things in reverse. While I still love to train, I'm finding less incentive to compete.
Anyone else come to this conclusion?
Part of the solution is to do race pace sets in workout to keep up your competitive fire. If you don't push your body to do more swimming at insanely fast speeds, your body won't know what to do at a swim meet because you've only been training aerobically.
Dara Torres aside, one reason I have found that people can get faster in races as they get older is because they continually work on race pace swimming (such as broken 200s), or if you're a sprinter, doing a good deal of sprinting to keep the muscles firing.
Part of the solution is to do race pace sets in workout to keep up your competitive fire. If you don't push your body to do more swimming at insanely fast speeds, your body won't know what to do at a swim meet because you've only been training aerobically.
Dara Torres aside, one reason I have found that people can get faster in races as they get older is because they continually work on race pace swimming (such as broken 200s), or if you're a sprinter, doing a good deal of sprinting to keep the muscles firing.
