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.
Former Member
I'm sure there are others on this forum who could validate my claim about record-breaking swimmers who don't compete. Maybe they would chime in as well to help support my statement. I would be very uncomfortable with giving out names--even my own as you can tell by this forum. Surely I'm not the only person on a team with individuals like these.
I'm skeptical of this claim. I don't know a single ultra fast swimmer who doesn't compete and breaks records in practice. I guess it surely is possible but that person would have a serious swimming pedigree and a background of competition. Especially since Austin, the national records are very tough, most made wearing new tech suits.
We have a few guys on our team who are obnoxiously fast, but they compete very rarely, and when they do, it is usually only a few events. They like to swim fast and have good workouts, but they don't like competition and the "hassle" of a meet. Personally, I think they're crazy because I love meets, but to each his own.
A good post.
But let's be honest, Lady Dawg: who would apply for admission to a school that mispells its own mascot's name?:bump:
I'm a fan, but didn't go to college there. I went to a college in Atlanta that does not have a football team. Love to be able to claim I was truly a DAWG, especially if I had swam for them, but I will have to settle for saying I was a former Eagle.
My wife, for starters.
My sympathies, we all have our crosses to bear.
My wife went to Duke, as did her sister, and my mother-in-law is a rabid fan (much more than either of her daughters, actually).
I don't know how dook/UNC marriages can work, but they seem to. I have close friends who have this in common with you and they do not watch the two (at least) annual basketball games in the same room.
I imagine that when I applied to the college I graduated from, there were tons of people out there smarter than myself that could have gotten into the college and squeezed me out of the picture.
A good post.
But let's be honest, Lady Dawg: who would apply for admission to a school that mispells its own mascot's name?:bump:
A good post.
But let's be honest, Lady Dawg: who would apply for admission to a school that mispells its own mascot's name?:bump:
My wife, for starters.
I agree with the OP's sentiment that the top 10 times are not a good guide to how you compare against other swimmers due to low levels of participation. There are definitely significant numbers of people swimming to keep fit who would be very fast indeed if they chose to compete. Breaking national records in practice is at the extreme end of the spectrum, but I certainly know one person who swam at my health club who has never competed in a masters meet in his entire life, and he would have been there or thereabouts for the number 1 ranking in GB in his age group if he had competed. I know this for a fact because he swam the time in a meet, just not a masters meet, so the time didn't go into the masters rankings. He had no interest in competing, he only did the non-masters meet to help out the club in an inter-club competition.
Another guy who I train with every week had only done one masters meet in the last decade or two when I joined the club. With my encouragement, he now holds 3 GB Masters Records.
I would guess that Mark Foster, for example, was able to swim at approx Masters WR pace in practice prior to actually breaking it in a meet. Or if Nick Gillingham decided to have a crack at the 40-44 200 *** WR, I would guess he could probably break the existing WR in practice.
I like our GB age-corrected rankings a lot as a reality check. In my age group, I am ranked 8th in GB for SCM 100 fly. In the age-corrected rankings I am ranked 80th, which I feel is a much more realistic assessment of how good a swimmer I am. The points basically give you a measure of how good a time is for any event at any age, though it breaks down a bit at really old ages.
If anyone wants to work out their age-corrected time in this way, just stick the following formula into cell A2 in an excel spreadsheet and put your age in A1:
=SQRT((98-A1)*(98+A1))/94.757585
Then you multiply your race time by the resulting adjustment factor to get the time the system thinks you would have done at your peak.
You can choose to believe what you want.
These and more urban legends at www.darwinawards.com/.../
"These apocryphal stories are included as examples of Herculean Darwinian efforts. Be glad, be very glad, these people don't exist.”
