I'm a 21 year old male, 5'8, around 155 lbs, with 7-8% body fat. I've been swimming now for about 1 year total. My background is in cross country, basketball, and track. I've dropped my times quite a bit in a year;
50 free from 28 high to 26.69
100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89
200 free from 2:24 to 2:16
500 free from 7:00 to 6:19
I'm from Missouri and I've got one more semester at a community college to get my associates degree, then I plan on transferring to Drury Univesity or Missouri State. I really want to walk on to one of their teams and I figure my best choice is to go the distance route, the 500 and up to have a chance at making one of these teams. Right now I'm swimming 30,000yds/m a week and doing dryland work (weights) 3x a week. My stroke is very solid, keeping me injury free (knock on wood), and I figure I can get up to around 50,000+ yds a week by the start of summer and train like a madman this summer before fall semester. I can swim with a masters team once a week without having to pay a monthly fee and the rest of my training is solo. My test meet will be the end of July, Show-me-State games in Columbia. Any words of advice?
Yes, the Division III cuts are very competitive, not too far from Division I cuts. There is a huge gap, however, in depth at the Division III level.
As an example, since it was mentioned, lets look at the 500 at 2007's conference championships. In D1, very few swimmers in the men's 500 who are slower than 5:00 at the conference meets. In the ACC, for example, not known for its swimming, had 20 people make B cuts. 42/43 people were under 4:55 (slowest guy was 5:01). The Colonial Athletic Conference (GMU, UMBC, etc.) featured a few B cuts, and their absolute slowest guy was 5:18.
However in D3, I found one conference where only one heat was UNDER 5:00, and someone finished in 7:00. The North Coast Athletic Conference (with Kenyon and Dennison), probably the nation's fastest d3 conerence, has only two heats under 5:00, and their slowest guy at 5:46.
Swimming D3 gives him the best chance at making the team. But he's still got a long way to go and a lot of hard work.
Yes, the Division III cuts are very competitive, not too far from Division I cuts. There is a huge gap, however, in depth at the Division III level.
As an example, since it was mentioned, lets look at the 500 at 2007's conference championships. In D1, very few swimmers in the men's 500 who are slower than 5:00 at the conference meets. In the ACC, for example, not known for its swimming, had 20 people make B cuts. 42/43 people were under 4:55 (slowest guy was 5:01). The Colonial Athletic Conference (GMU, UMBC, etc.) featured a few B cuts, and their absolute slowest guy was 5:18.
However in D3, I found one conference where only one heat was UNDER 5:00, and someone finished in 7:00. The North Coast Athletic Conference (with Kenyon and Dennison), probably the nation's fastest d3 conerence, has only two heats under 5:00, and their slowest guy at 5:46.
Swimming D3 gives him the best chance at making the team. But he's still got a long way to go and a lot of hard work.
