What I hate about not being a swimmer from my teens...

...that I can never make my practice intensity and thus swims anywhere near to race intensity... As somebody who never swam as a kid but took up the sport about 4 years ago at the age of 30, I'll give you my :2cents:. I've recently started swimming with our senior age group team and that has really brought out the intensity in my swim practice. When you get out there and have some people to swim against, it really gets you fired up and the lactate that's screaming at you tends to get ignored more often than when you are swimming solo. When I was swimming solo, I made it a point to feel some pain before I got out of the pool. Sometimes that meant a few 200's fast and sometimes it meant all out 50's on 2:00. Make no mistake, as hard as I thought I was swimming, I'm swimming much harder now.

...that I can never make my practice intensity and thus swims anywhere near to race intensity... As somebody who never swam as a kid but took up the sport about 4 years ago at the age of 30, I'll give you my :2cents:. I've recently started swimming with our senior age group team and that has really brought out the intensity in my swim practice. When you get out there and have some people to swim against, it really gets you fired up and the lactate that's screaming at you tends to get ignored more often than when you are swimming solo. When I was swimming solo, I made it a point to feel some pain before I got out of the pool. Sometimes that meant a few 200's fast and sometimes it meant all out 50's on 2:00. Make no mistake, as hard as I thought I was swimming, I'm swimming much harder now.