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.
On the basis of my experiences with running twice a day, I would guess that swimming doubles would help with the 25k swim and hinder on anything of 10k or less. (And yes I do mean 10k swim.)
Can provide the specifics, but of course, running and swimming are not quite the same, but doubles really only help you to write bigger numbers in a log.
Back in college I swam doubles regularly. During my junior year I was trying to figure out why sometimes I came up flat in dual meets. I noticed this pattern in my performances at meets:
Two days before dual meet: double workout
One day before dual meet: single workout
Dual meet: MONSTER PERFORMANCE
Pretty much any deviation from the above -> CRAP PERFORMANCE
The current version of this is that I run two days before a competition, do not run one day before the competition (biking and swimming are fine), and then light it up on race day, no matter what the race is (swim meet, triathlon, etc). I have no idea why my body responds so well to this type of 48-hour preparation cycle, but it does.
On the basis of my experiences with running twice a day, I would guess that swimming doubles would help with the 25k swim and hinder on anything of 10k or less. (And yes I do mean 10k swim.)
Can provide the specifics, but of course, running and swimming are not quite the same, but doubles really only help you to write bigger numbers in a log.
Back in college I swam doubles regularly. During my junior year I was trying to figure out why sometimes I came up flat in dual meets. I noticed this pattern in my performances at meets:
Two days before dual meet: double workout
One day before dual meet: single workout
Dual meet: MONSTER PERFORMANCE
Pretty much any deviation from the above -> CRAP PERFORMANCE
The current version of this is that I run two days before a competition, do not run one day before the competition (biking and swimming are fine), and then light it up on race day, no matter what the race is (swim meet, triathlon, etc). I have no idea why my body responds so well to this type of 48-hour preparation cycle, but it does.
