Masters Swimmers Acting Like Triathletes

Nor are dog owners. :P Ummm, yes we are!:-)

So, I've been gone for a couple of months and am trying to get caught up. It's sort of like a soap opera that way! To recap: TheGoodSmith has been reincarnated (with a bionic shoulder that probably wasn't available to those swimmers back in the dark ages before goggles and swim suits) as Mr. Negative. Open water swimmers aren't real swimmers. Chris Stevenson isn't a big boy. People who maintain blogs and post pictures of themselves are self absorbed and take themselves too seriously. Former elite swimmers are amused with old, fat people trying to swim fast. Jim...well, Jim is still Jim:-). And we've all been trolled! See what happens when you stay away. You miss all this fun stuff.

I think that about sums it up, T.J. On the plus side its kept us from talking about suits for about a week!

Speaking of obsessed folks I like, my daughter shared a lane today with two of Puff's SwimAtlanta training partners, both older teens. They hold her in high regard. They asked me if I was as fast as Puff and I answered, "Indeed I am," then meekly added, "not."

Fort you know exactly what I'm getting at as I've described it clearly multiple times...but it is fun to see who gets worked up over what...and especially how the topic(s) gets twisted as each person weighs in/internalizes as if it is they are the ones that were personally called out. Purists aren't morally superior? I think it's funny (not necessarily bad) that you enjoy toying with people in an attempt to get them worked up and reacting on-line. It probably gives you a superior, almost Godlike feeling I suppose. :angel: R.I.P.

Mr. Thorton, This is an internet discussion forum. Follow the People magazine rule for your responses please. If you can't finish the post while on the toilet, don't bother writing it. Mr. Smythe, if we are going to use People magazine as our future style guide, perhaps you could casually look over at my forum name, which is, in point of fact, my actual name, and spell it correctly. That is one thing that People does right! Use actual, not anonymous, names--and spell them correctly! Why, even your Native American sycophant (alter ego? toadie?) White Buffalo spells his name correctly. He has not added the Dan Quaylian "e" at the end, which I admit to having done to Smythe as a small gesture of protest! On a completely different subject, did you used to swim for the Sewickley YMCA many, many years ago? If so, we still have a shrine built to you at our facility. You--or some other fast John Smith from back in the Breaker Breaker Convoy C.W. McCall era--have inspired something akin to a cargo cult. Hardly a day passes that a postmenopausal noodler doesn't visit the Smithery and regain, for just a twinkling second, a libidinous gleam behind her cataracts! Perhaps if you were to come visit the John Smith Memorial Shrine, it would give you the late life confidence you need to become a truly generative figure--like Leslie L., Chris S., Rich A., Michael R., and even the great exercise physiologist, David Costill, Ph.D.--top masters swimmers who know that competition at any age can inspire the pursuit of health and camaraderie that have been such blessings to so many! Oops! I must sign off now. It is time to wipe!

I'm 50, have gut, and I'm hoping FINA does the right thing next January and bans both the Jaked and LZR. LZRs did not become widely available until summer 2008. And thus at Nationals in May of 2008 the *only* swimmer who had a LZR was a JS. Draw your own conclusions...

Nice try. But my policy is not to "internalize" forum posts..... :P Now that's a stretch.

Mr. Thorton, This is an internet discussion forum. Follow the People magazine rule for your responses please. If you can't finish the post while on the toilet, don't bother writing it.

Jim, I believe that you have, however briefly, glimpsed the infinite and survived.