I know that I have seen others talk about "how good am I if I swim the 200 in this time", or "if my mile is 17min".
and then the responses are typically, look at results from previous meets, or last years top 10 time.
But does anyone try to take into account how many actually swim that event/distance? Is one a good swimmer merely because only 12 people swim the 400 IM.
I looked at the 2007 top 10 SCM for Men 30-34. for *** and IM I would have been top 10 in 3 of 6 events/distances.
50 br 33.37 outside of top 10
100br 1:14.08 (10)
200br 2:42.20 (7)
400 IM 5:19.71 (7)
but how many 30-34 competed in those events in 2007? I would guess that more people competed in 2006 at the World Championships in Cali.
In Sweden I have top 10 times in nearly everything but 50-100 free, but that is only because it's not too often that there are more than 10-12 swimmers in my age grupp. I know of 4-6 swimmers that will be 35-39 in 2010 and all of them are significanly faster than me, just not sure swimming at the Worlds is something they plan on doing.
I recently looked at a German time standard, since they had one for every year 11-18 and then an open I used the open table. The table was scaled to 1-20. 20 being the fastest. something simliar to the US AAAA standards but with more divisions. I was at best 6 of a possible 20 in Breaststroke. and not even 1 in Back and Fly. and between 1-2 for Free and IM. to me that seems more like a realistic measurement of my ability.
(S)he-Puffy is very humble, trust me. (P)uff-Man lets the swimming do the talking, same with Fort.
But, (C)hecream-Puffman has changed her name so now I'm confused.
Is anyone else wondering if Geek started happy hour early? Or perhaps has too many endorphins jangling around from incessant power spinning?
Yea. I was really confused by his last post.
I'm just very confused about what your name is anymore. I need stability in my life in these tough times, (S)he-Puff.
And I had an evil lunch - cobb salad and bacardi and diet coke
THAT is evil? You really need to get out more.:)
The rankings are complete. People who actually get out there in competition and swim are the ones who deserve to be in there.
Everyone knows the somewhat volatile nature of top 10 times. Even if everyone competed, some years people get injured, or have to spend a lot more time at work, or need to spend more time with family, or whatever.
I agree with the basic idea the original poster had that season goals (or evaluation of success) should not be based too much on factors over which you have no control: how fast other people swim, who has aged in or out of an age group, who is swimming or not, etc.
If you drop a ton of time, or do a tough event for the first time, but somehow just miss the top ten, should you be disappointed? Of course not. Sure it is nice to improve AND be ranked highly, but if I had to choose, I know which I would prefer.
but people are exceptionally skeptical on this forum when someone mentions a swimmer doing something cool like swimming very fast.
I don't really think so, Michael. A lot of us just have the attitude that these purported 'fast' swimmers really need to "show us the money." Times done in practice aren't worth a hill of beans unless those performance can be replicated or bettered in actual competition.
One of them regularly swims around the 50 fly record. He decided to go with the team to compete at a meet not too long ago, and his time was like three tenths off the national record. I watched his swim, and he definitely goes faster in practice
I don't believe for one moment that he goes faster in practice.
Peter, I have given up hope of even being with sniffing distance of you in the evilstroke. (Or anyone else for that matter, truth be told.)
Anyway, as far as fast swimmers in practice, we have a couple guys that compete maybe twice a year tops. They are all very fast, but one of them regularly swims around the 50 fly record. He decided to go with the team to compete at a meet not too long ago, and his time was like three tenths off the national record. I watched his swim, and he definitely goes faster in practice, so I'm sure he could have broken it;
Seriously, get a grip. The clock doesn't lie. You get the record for MEET PERFORMANCE, not practice performance, not practice tales of legend. They haven't started handing out medals for practice performance but, if they start, looks like we already have a few national record standard bearers.
Have you ever heard the terms "practice swimmer" versus "meet swimmer" used?
Oh, and "regularly swimming around the 50 fly record" is about the strangest thing I've heard. What in the world does that mean?
If you take competition as the pinnacle of performance then allegations of records set in practice are meaningless. This isn't to downplay the importance of strong practices but the records exist for those who compete.
BTW - is that blog of yours for real? How much do your sponsors pay you?
I was just addressing the fact that everyone jumped on that person for mentioning fast swimmers that don't compete with allegations that she was lying.
You need to reread the post. No one has ever said people don't swim fast, very fast and even super duper fast in practice. The assertion made was that national records were broken in practice. There's a vast difference. We called the bluff.
The beauty of the internet is smack talking and being unable to back it up, until you go to a meet and get junkpunched. I speak from experience on this matter.
"Junkpunched," have to remember that one.
I'm sure mine isn't the only coach out there who can be slightly, um, generous with hand times? In practice, swimmers can anticipate the go and leave a little early. Or coaches start the watch slightly late. Or swimmers do one-handed turns, etc.
I don't think it is mean or incorrect to assert that top ten times are the fastest times done in official competition that season. There are no asterisks. Someone else can say wudda/cudda/shudda, but it is meaningless unless done in competition.
Rumor has it Jeff Comings broke a NR or WR in a blue seventy in workout recently (he however competes with some regularity and is legit).
That's a record that is more than plausible. Legit is putting it mildly.
