So I am new to Masters. Swam in HS and barely in college before getting burnt out. It has been about 10 years since then. I am 32 now.
I have been practicing for about 6 weeks for 3-4 evenings a week, and about 3000-3500 yrds per workout.
My high school personal best in the 50Y Free was 21.53. After only 2 weeks of workout, I did about 27-ish and in my recent meet this weekend, I went 25.41, so I have already improved somewhat, but I think getting down to 21s may take some time.
So I was just curious if anyone else had a similar story, how long did it take to get back to your HS times, if it was even possible for you? Years? Many Years?
-David
Parents
Former Member
David,
Welcome to Masters swimming!
Although my story is different from yours and most others here (I started Masters straight out of College), I would caution you not to make your best times the end-all be-all for your swimming. Remember, you have the rest of your life to swim and live, try to enjoy the trip. That being said, HS times are a great goal to work for, as long as you realize that training now is not as simple as when you were in school. Unless you have won the lottery, you have work, family and other social commitments to deal with, so put swimming into perspective, but enjoy the time you have with it.
This may seem like a lot of burden to deal with, but I have witnessed too many good people set high swimming goals for themselves. Even if they accomplished some of the goals, they burned out getting there. USMS is a lifestyle, not just a sport. We want you when you are 90, too.
This is really a reply back to everyone who posted, I appreciate the encouragement. As to the comment above, I definitely agree not to focus solely on those original times, I want to do this for fitness first. Those times are just a good motivational tool for me. Even if I never reach them, I will still enjoy getting as close as I can!
It would be really neat if there was a site where you could track your race times over weeks/months/years and see a graph of % change, etc etc. Then after enough data was gathered, you could see averages by age group.
David,
Welcome to Masters swimming!
Although my story is different from yours and most others here (I started Masters straight out of College), I would caution you not to make your best times the end-all be-all for your swimming. Remember, you have the rest of your life to swim and live, try to enjoy the trip. That being said, HS times are a great goal to work for, as long as you realize that training now is not as simple as when you were in school. Unless you have won the lottery, you have work, family and other social commitments to deal with, so put swimming into perspective, but enjoy the time you have with it.
This may seem like a lot of burden to deal with, but I have witnessed too many good people set high swimming goals for themselves. Even if they accomplished some of the goals, they burned out getting there. USMS is a lifestyle, not just a sport. We want you when you are 90, too.
This is really a reply back to everyone who posted, I appreciate the encouragement. As to the comment above, I definitely agree not to focus solely on those original times, I want to do this for fitness first. Those times are just a good motivational tool for me. Even if I never reach them, I will still enjoy getting as close as I can!
It would be really neat if there was a site where you could track your race times over weeks/months/years and see a graph of % change, etc etc. Then after enough data was gathered, you could see averages by age group.
