I was just wondering if anyone out there knows of masters swimmers who don’t compete and that have achieved Top Ten Times, American Records, World Records, etc. in practice. I know that stories have circulated around about swimmers like Mark Spitz who have done this (although I think he did compete :)). I was just wondering if there are similar stories in the masters ranks. It seems to me that it would be highly probable in masters swimming because so many of its members do not actually swim at meets. Therefore, I would think there are people out there who achieve these (unofficial) times during a practice session and are relatively unknown. If you’ve got a story to share, please do.
the real question is why dont they compete???
Mostly it is becuase they still view swim meets as those endless ordeals that we all went through as age groupers or as the high pressure world of big time college/national swimming. Either way it left a bad taste and they walked away.
I think we call them workout swimmers. Folks who can drop 10 X100 faster than all get out but will never show at a meet.
this is my pretty much my take. for me to spend a whole weekend for a competition, when I got 3 kids involved in their own activities, plus job, wife, other things going on, is just too much hassle.
the other aspect was as a kid/college student, swimming was the one big factor in my life. I'd spend months training for some big end of season meet with little or no chance for distraction, there really wasn't anything else as important in my life (and I was an only child).
Now all it takes is work getting crazy the week before championships, a kid getting sick or having their own sporting even or dance recital come up. This has happened to me more than once, and I just got tired of the frustration of trying to train and taper for a meet, only to have it all fall apart last minute because of other priorities out of my control.
the real question is why dont they compete???
Mostly it is becuase they still view swim meets as those endless ordeals that we all went through as age groupers or as the high pressure world of big time college/national swimming. Either way it left a bad taste and they walked away.
I think we call them workout swimmers. Folks who can drop 10 X100 faster than all get out but will never show at a meet.
this is my pretty much my take. for me to spend a whole weekend for a competition, when I got 3 kids involved in their own activities, plus job, wife, other things going on, is just too much hassle.
the other aspect was as a kid/college student, swimming was the one big factor in my life. I'd spend months training for some big end of season meet with little or no chance for distraction, there really wasn't anything else as important in my life (and I was an only child).
Now all it takes is work getting crazy the week before championships, a kid getting sick or having their own sporting even or dance recital come up. This has happened to me more than once, and I just got tired of the frustration of trying to train and taper for a meet, only to have it all fall apart last minute because of other priorities out of my control.
