Looking at one-hour results, and just finishing New England Masters SCY Championships at Harvard, how is it that older swimmers are getting faster and faster, and pretty much everyone is getting faster and faster compared to a few years ago when there seemed to be more mortal swimmers?
What are older (45+ women; at this point 65+ men) swimmers doing that keeps them at such elite levels? Weights? Extensive training? How much of both? How do they have jobs and families and train? The field of fast swimmers is getting deeper and deeper. Anyone have idea as to why?
I want to know the secrets. Are the people who race now self-selecting more and more as elite swimmers? Has everyone swum all their lives? I know to swim hard you have to train hard, but I am baffled by sudden increase in amazing fast times and so many records getting broken.
Also, the meets don't seem as fun as they were a few years ago; people seem more competitive and intent on bettering their times and less like a community of avid swimmers. Just an impression.
At my first masters meet maybe 20 years ago there was a beer relay. I thought I had died and gone to heaven: THIS is what I had been waiting for all my life!
I should sue for false advertising: there hasn't been one at a meet I've attended since then!
That aside, I am unsure of the difference between being an "avid swimmer" and being "intent on bettering your time." The meets are pretty enjoyable for me, especially since swimming is a pretty small community. At Worlds in Stanford, I bumped into the swim coach I had when I was 14 and living in Greece. I mean, how cool is that?
Possibly middle-aged folk, intent on denying the reality of aging and trying to recapture the glory days, may take meets more seriously than younger folk who are close to their "real" competitive days. I'm no different; as mid-life crises go, it isn't such a bad thing.
Also, the meets don't seem as fun as they were a few years ago; people seem more competitive and intent on bettering their times and less like a community of avid swimmers. Just an impression.
At my first masters meet maybe 20 years ago there was a beer relay. I thought I had died and gone to heaven: THIS is what I had been waiting for all my life!
I should sue for false advertising: there hasn't been one at a meet I've attended since then!
That aside, I am unsure of the difference between being an "avid swimmer" and being "intent on bettering your time." The meets are pretty enjoyable for me, especially since swimming is a pretty small community. At Worlds in Stanford, I bumped into the swim coach I had when I was 14 and living in Greece. I mean, how cool is that?
Possibly middle-aged folk, intent on denying the reality of aging and trying to recapture the glory days, may take meets more seriously than younger folk who are close to their "real" competitive days. I'm no different; as mid-life crises go, it isn't such a bad thing.
