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.
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?
I also took a look at various meet results I found in the USMS database over the past few weeks, thinking I may do a meet sometime this year. I'd estimate 95%+ of the people who do meets have a decent chance at a top 10 time. Unless my team is unique with an abundance of slow swimmers, that leaves a ton of swimmers who don't do meets. For the lower age groups (say 18 up to 50), we probably only have 20 swimmers who would be in top 10 contention.
So I think it is a combination of what others wrote above....the fast getting faster. And those who aren't or were not fast to begin with, simply not participating. In another thread a few weeks ago, someone provided data that proved only about 25% of USMS members do at least 1 meet a year.
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?
I also took a look at various meet results I found in the USMS database over the past few weeks, thinking I may do a meet sometime this year. I'd estimate 95%+ of the people who do meets have a decent chance at a top 10 time. Unless my team is unique with an abundance of slow swimmers, that leaves a ton of swimmers who don't do meets. For the lower age groups (say 18 up to 50), we probably only have 20 swimmers who would be in top 10 contention.
So I think it is a combination of what others wrote above....the fast getting faster. And those who aren't or were not fast to begin with, simply not participating. In another thread a few weeks ago, someone provided data that proved only about 25% of USMS members do at least 1 meet a year.
