I am just back from the SPMA meet where all the top finisher were wearing the latest generation tech suits,mostly B-70s(or were named Jeff Commings.)I have here to for been in favor of the suits,but now I am not so sure.First,they eliminate the old bench marks.I went my fastest 100m BR in 5 yr in my LZR,but it was only .3 sec faster than I did untapered 5 wk earlier in my first swim in the LZR.So was my swim good or not,I'm not sure.Also,instead of focusing on technique or pace I found myself ruminating over aspects of the suits,how many more swims did the suit have,is it the right size,was the reason I didn't get better results from my B-70 because it was too big?etc.The B-70 has somewhat mitigated the "too expensive,not durable" problem,but for how long.
Lets say a company comes up with a suit that is much faster,say 4 sec/100.Further that it is very expensive(say $1000) lasts 4 swims and is very hard to make so that quantities are always limited and the fastest way to get one is to bid up to $3000 on ebay. Now lets say your nemesis has one,or that getting one is your best chance to get TT or AA or a ZR or WR,or that your child is close to making JO cuts,or finally beating his/her nemesis etc. Is it worth it and where does it stop?
We seem to understand that the tech suits can help. Does it help if you don't train. Can I now drop 5 or 10 seconds for a 100 or 200 if I am not in condition???
My new suit I am going to wear is waterproofed with teflon, am I going to be able to automatically drop from my present 1:15 for the 100m to 1:05. When in condition will I be able to get my time to under 1 minute???
I do not buy into the "post pregnancy" theory for me and my swimming. In fact, I've always thought the opposite to be honest. Some of the fastest female Masters swimmers do not have any kids. Some are on my team, most notably Suzanne Heim-Bowen. I've always wondered what would my swimming be like sans kids. Not that I care to find out! I know with one baby I swam more, but then got viral meningitis when he was 8 months- that kind of threw a monkey wrench into life!
My body has been through 4 major surgeries (C-sections) and that nasty bout of meningitis. The only plus I ever got out of being pregnant was going a 1:03 or 1:04 (I can't remember) 100 back a couple of weeks before 2007 Nationals in practice w/a practice suit from a push. Other than that I've swam really slow and been really heavy. Almost 10 lb. Finnian really took his toll on me this time around!
I so wish someone would officially start a study about all of our physiological effects of babies/aging/ etc. I tried to document a bit in my pregnancy blog...
On the B70 thoughts, I can only share my times. People can take what they want away from them. I have shared that I've been doing A LOT of yards and my regular dryland, and now being sick. Keep in mind I am just a masters swimmer (no NCAAs, no Olys) in my past. I will say that I hope to surpass my life best times that occurred in my mid-20s as a masters swimmer, but I think that's still 20 pounds away :agree:
The B70 will definitely help with this goal.
I was intrigued by your musings on the potential psychological effects of a B70 ban, the fact that this might burst a bubble that would lead to post-B70 blues. The plain fact is that, as masters swimmers, in many ways we are pretty much fighting a losing battle against time.
Though I'll struggle mightily against it, I have little doubt that in 10 years I'll be swimming more slowly than now. The B70 does little to change this fact...except possibly momentarily delude us users into thinking that we are swimming younger than we actually are.
B70 or no, I think part of (competitive) masters swimming is setting year-to-year goals that are challenging but realistic/reasonable. If the goal is to get faster in every event, year after year, that's fine...but you need to be prepared psychologically to live with the inevitable disappointment.
No kidding. I feel I may have maxed out in some yards events myself. I think having yearly and age group times is a great idea. When I start slowing down, maybe everyone will stop yapping about my B70 love.
We don't know that the B70 will be banned. We just know that we can wear it until 2010. I plan to get ample use of mine. I liked the Pro just fine, so will be happy to swim in that. However, I guess I'd consider trying a LZR or a new modified generation of the B70.
As to LZRs, I still think it is ABSURD that the most performance enhancing suit likely will not be banned while the less performance enhancing suit (B70) mayl be. Makes no sense.
LZR question: I know the LZR stretches out in a nanosecond, literally in one swim and seems to have a best use life expectancy of 3-10 swims depending if you take it off after each race etc. Once it's stretched out, it's not of as much use to X swimmer, but is it still of some use? And would it be of significant use to a slightly bigger swimmer for whom it wouldn't be stretched out?
Puff, My fastest 50 free before Auburn was in an FS I in a slippery wall pool.
Sam and Geek: your Midols are wearing off. Time for an additional dosage.
Chris, as always, you are the voice of reason to which we should all aspire in our discourse. Even those who never whine except when whining about whiners they have whinily identified.
Wow, now I've read it all, tech suits and the crumbling economy are somehow related. And now responsibility is the new self-righteousnes? This is insufferable. I'm sick of this whining on every post. This thread is about swim suits, not insurance companies, take it somewhere else please. There are a million blogs and sites devoted to these economic topics, there is one forum for adult swimming.
Confession:
I have been a bit cranky of late.
...
Against this backdrop, I see a suit that allows Karen to drop 11 seconds in the 200 ***, despite being sick (I know, there are all other kinds of fudge factors that could partially explain this drop, too, but the suit absolutely counted for a significant portion), and I know I would love to be able to enjoy similar drops myself, but the question of affordability and fairness both do seem to enter the picture against the dispiriting backdrop of my other sources of whining lately.
For all this, I apologize to one and all!
Really sorry about your troubles, Jim! Good luck dealing with them.
But I have to say...no way in the world does the B70 allow someone to drop 11 seconds (or even a significant portion thereof) in the 200. If so, please point me to the 200 world record that was broken by close to this amount in the summer games, or any other time post-LZR/B70.
Today at the end of a 2800-yard set, I pushed a 200 free in 1:54. I was pretty tired before this swim, and wearing Speedo Endurance briefs -- yet it was only 10 seconds slower than I did the 200 free in a meet one week ago while wearing a B70. I rested/tapered for the meet, too, and it was my first event so I was fresh. My experience doesn't come close to matching Karen's.
I looked at the analysis of the predicted vs actual times for the 8th place time at the 2008 US Trials, and the difference was about 1.0-1.5% (on the lower end of the scale for women, on the upper scale for men).
For a 60-second 100, that comes out to somewhere on the order of 0.5-1.0 sec per hundred. Now, that is for elite swimmers in LCM (and mostly for the LZR), so it might be different for masters swimmers swimming short course...but still. It also jibes pretty well with my own experience, pre/post-B70 racing and expectations based on improving times in practice.
0.5-1.0 sec/100 is pretty darn significant at the top level, and can certainly account for the pace of WRs being broken. But I also haven't really seen Beamon-esque performances being commonplace -- most WRs are being broken by incremental amounts, not astonishing chunks.
So maybe, in an odd way, it can make you feel better that you haven't been paying several hundred dollars for what is, at the masters level, really a relatively small improvement.
I was intrigued by your musings on the potential psychological effects of a B70 ban, the fact that this might burst a bubble that would lead to post-B70 blues. The plain fact is that, as masters swimmers, in many ways we are pretty much fighting a losing battle against time.
Though I'll struggle mightily against it, I have little doubt that in 10 years I'll be swimming more slowly than now. The B70 does little to change this fact...except possibly momentarily delude us users into thinking that we are swimming younger than we actually are.
B70 or no, I think part of (competitive) masters swimming is setting year-to-year goals that are challenging but realistic/reasonable. If the goal is to get faster in every event, year after year, that's fine...but you need to be prepared psychologically to live with the inevitable disappointment.
But as they say, getting older sure beats the alternative. :)
Good luck with your trials & tribulations.
