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.
Parents
Former Member
When masters swim slow, they swim too fast. When they swim fast, they swim too slow.
Sweet fancy moses! This happened to me and my group this morning.
BTW, I was swimming with the kids so it applies to them as well. When it was time to swim SLOW, they went FAST. When it was time to swim FAST, they were dead tired.
Main set was:
1x1500 neg split
2x750 neg split
3x500 neg split
Descend by rounds.
Interval was 1:09 per 100 pace - so not a scary interval by any means.
Swimmer A - Ascended the whole thing; he started out scary fast w/ 6 beat kick (I knew this was wrong) and almost lapped me on the 1500; by the 1st 750, I was ahead; he got out on the 500s.
Swimmer B - Ahead of me on the 1500; then it flip flopped for the 750 where I got way ahead; then he disappeared on the second 750 and 1.5 of the 500s only to reappear for the last 1.5 500s
Swimmer C - swam the whole thing at a slow pace but he did complete the set
Anyway, I thought it was going to be a very long practice as these guys were swimming circles around me during warm up (again, full on 6 beat kicks during the 4x450 warm up) only to die right after the first 1500. Very interesting. I see what you guys are talking about. I managed to descend; however, my 1st and 2nd 500 were pretty close with the 2nd one being only about 2 seconds faster than my 1st. Knocked off a good 10 seconds for the 3rd 500. I still went out too fast on the 1500 AND went too fast in warm up. It's sort of like we were all trying to claim our territory and position in the pack up front. Very silly.
Right on w/ your assessment Rich. I'm trying hard to SLOW DOWN my warm up and BE PATIENT on the long sets.:shakeshead:
It is swimming 101. But you throw in some testosterone and it makes things a bit dicier.
When masters swim slow, they swim too fast. When they swim fast, they swim too slow.
Sweet fancy moses! This happened to me and my group this morning.
BTW, I was swimming with the kids so it applies to them as well. When it was time to swim SLOW, they went FAST. When it was time to swim FAST, they were dead tired.
Main set was:
1x1500 neg split
2x750 neg split
3x500 neg split
Descend by rounds.
Interval was 1:09 per 100 pace - so not a scary interval by any means.
Swimmer A - Ascended the whole thing; he started out scary fast w/ 6 beat kick (I knew this was wrong) and almost lapped me on the 1500; by the 1st 750, I was ahead; he got out on the 500s.
Swimmer B - Ahead of me on the 1500; then it flip flopped for the 750 where I got way ahead; then he disappeared on the second 750 and 1.5 of the 500s only to reappear for the last 1.5 500s
Swimmer C - swam the whole thing at a slow pace but he did complete the set
Anyway, I thought it was going to be a very long practice as these guys were swimming circles around me during warm up (again, full on 6 beat kicks during the 4x450 warm up) only to die right after the first 1500. Very interesting. I see what you guys are talking about. I managed to descend; however, my 1st and 2nd 500 were pretty close with the 2nd one being only about 2 seconds faster than my 1st. Knocked off a good 10 seconds for the 3rd 500. I still went out too fast on the 1500 AND went too fast in warm up. It's sort of like we were all trying to claim our territory and position in the pack up front. Very silly.
Right on w/ your assessment Rich. I'm trying hard to SLOW DOWN my warm up and BE PATIENT on the long sets.:shakeshead:
It is swimming 101. But you throw in some testosterone and it makes things a bit dicier.
