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.
My team probably has a good 150 to 175 active swimmers, who show up with some regularity at workouts. Of those, I'd estimate only 30-40 really do any meets (at least one a year). When we hosted nationals a few years ago, the coach gave his sob story and got more to compete for that. For a typical nationals (that isn't local) there's about 10-15 who travel to compete.
Many of our very fast swimmers are triathlon only guys/gals. We had a practice last year (Paul Smith was there) and I'd swear one lane was doing 10 x 100 SCY repeats on 1:05. Gals included in that. I'm sure some of these really fast folks would break records, but they just don't want to do meets, or don't have the time for them.
Personally, I swim as part of an overall plan to keep healthy. I also run and lift weights. Meets are typically on weekends, which interfers with getting in runs and lifting. I also love to travel and am quite often out of town when meets are happening. It is easy to say you'll arrive and leave early, but when the coach asks you to help with timing and/or compete in a relay, it is hard to say no, so a meet usually means full days for me.
My team probably has a good 150 to 175 active swimmers, who show up with some regularity at workouts. Of those, I'd estimate only 30-40 really do any meets (at least one a year). When we hosted nationals a few years ago, the coach gave his sob story and got more to compete for that. For a typical nationals (that isn't local) there's about 10-15 who travel to compete.
Many of our very fast swimmers are triathlon only guys/gals. We had a practice last year (Paul Smith was there) and I'd swear one lane was doing 10 x 100 SCY repeats on 1:05. Gals included in that. I'm sure some of these really fast folks would break records, but they just don't want to do meets, or don't have the time for them.
Personally, I swim as part of an overall plan to keep healthy. I also run and lift weights. Meets are typically on weekends, which interfers with getting in runs and lifting. I also love to travel and am quite often out of town when meets are happening. It is easy to say you'll arrive and leave early, but when the coach asks you to help with timing and/or compete in a relay, it is hard to say no, so a meet usually means full days for me.
