How do you determine whether you would be better off training and racing sprints or distance events?
I'm back into competitive training this winter after ~2 decades since high school. I used to coach age group, and I've been hitting some master's practices, so I'm not without direction for what I should be doing to get back in shape. I am, however, clueless about distance swimming.
I have no exposure to distance racing or training so I am starting to read up on it (Maglischo). In high school, with the longest event being the 500 free, everyone was a "sprinter" whether they were suited to it or not.
Since I'm basically rebuilding myself from the ground up, I am wondering whether I might give distance a try? What sorts of physiology, technique or psychology lend themselves to doing distance as opposed to sprinting? Or does this not really matter for a nearly 40-year-old masters swimmer that's been out of the pool for nearly forever?
Your training is nothing like the typical USMS person.
Well, since the vast majority of my workouts are with a USMS team, they are closer to that than to the USAS group I occasionally work out with.
But you did make me curious, so I used my FLOG entries to calculate that in the 108 days since I started swimming after summer nationals, I have averaged a shade under 3800y per workout, and swam an average of 5.25 days per week. Yardage/volume doesn't tell the whole story, but I don't think those numbers are very far outside the norm for masters swimmers.
What age do you use? I'd be inclined to choose something like 20/21 to compare myself with my fastest-ever-age.
Yes, and you are a glutton for punishment. I don't need to know how many points away from Phelps I am in the 200.
18+ are all grouped together, but I would use 8 if I were putting in some of my stroke times, IM times or distance times, so I could get a 2 digit number back.
I would like to be a "distance" swimmer. I would like to be a triathlete (but I don't like running and biking). I do the 3000K, 1 mile, and 1 hour postal, and I do not always dread them. I enjoy how I feel afterwards, when the shakes wear off.
I know I am NOT a distance swimmer, when I drop f-bombs in my head when coach tells us our next set will be something painful (where painful = going moderately fast to fast for 2000+ yards). I also know I am not an IM-er when we have to do IM sets for the same reasons. For some reason though, I keep coming back to swim, 3-5 times a week, hoping for some fun, sprint sets.
The dirty little secret of swimming and life is this: Deep down, everyone wants to be a sprinter. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to convince themselves so they can sleep better at night. The guy with the honda civic may brag he can go 600 miles on a tank, but he secretly envies the guy with the 400 hp corvette.
The next step is to realize that breaststroke is the greatest test of a swimmers mettle. So if you can sprint a fast 50/100 ***, welcome to the ranks of swimmings elite. Ignore your teammates who say otherwise; it's just jealousy.
(Disclaimer: I can't swim a fast 500 to save my life, so I may be biased. But seriously, be a sprinter. All the cool kids are doing it....)
Nope...not true. I have no desire to be a sprinter...never want/wanted to be a sprinter. I am very happy being a mid-distance swimmer of 200's.
I like SUV's. I hate small cars and don't give one rat's butt about little fast cars unless a truck like bigfoot is crushing them.
You may think everyone wants to be a sprinter but you are wrong. I think 50's are absolutely pointless. Wish they would do away with them.
For me, since my level of training is closer to USMS than USAS, I'd probably rather use a masters-based rating system.
Really? You would rather use that tool? Didn't some crackpot chemist come up with it? :)
Your training is nothing like the typical USMS person.
I have vetted your tool, it still says my 50 is better than my 1500, and it has the benefit of taking a much larger range of times and spitting out a number > 1.
Thanks for this link, it is helpful. I found that my current times plugged into the USAS calculator all gave me the same point ranking: 1.
Sorry, that is a real problem with the power points :(
If you are already comfortable swimming 3k workouts, and your 25 time is a 12.5 and your 500 time is an 8:20, then yes, 12.5 I wish, more like 13.5 seconds for a 25 m push. Thanks for the suggestion to do 500's, I just have to not go out so hard at first.
Except for Chris claiming that mid distance folks are "swimming gods." That seemed rather diva-ish. I would substitute the words "tools who always follow the written workout without complaint."
Okay, I laughed out loud at that one. I have tried to branch out into middle and long distance but I think I will always be a sprinter at heart...
I'm going to have to agree with Chris and ehoch. Except for Chris claiming that mid distance folks are "swimming gods." That seemed rather diva-ish. I would substitute the words "tools who always follow the written workout without complaint."
I think Chris and I are on the same page... but as for following workouts without complaint: 1. Complaining is annoying, so not complaining is a good thing. 2. I have no workout to follow! True story from Wednesday: a woman who often swims at the gym around the same time of morning that I do asked me if I was about to start a set. I had just finished my warmup so I said "yes, I'm about to start my main set." She wanted to swim along with me so she said "what are we doing?" Me: "Ummmmmmmm... ok, I'm going to do 50 flys on 1:15." Her: "How many are we doing?" Me: "I haven't decided yet!" After the first two I let her know that the number was 8... I descended from 200 fly race pace to 100 fly race pace... she swam freestyle... it all turned out fine in the end even though nothing was planned out.
Patrick reminded me of something, my stellar 1500 must make me cool and intellectually vibrant. Also, he reminded me of the power point calculator.
www.usaswimming.org/.../DesktopDefault.aspx
This won't be of much use to you until you have times to put into it, but it is a nice way to compare how good you are at different strokes and distances, since you are scored compared to a database of USA swimming times.
For example, comparing my times, my 50 free is my best event and my worst event is the 200 back (followed closely by the 1500). My sprint frees are much stronger than my backs. It also makes it easy to chart your progress across seasons, since the SCM/LCM/SCY all get converted into a number.
The problem with that is that the points are based on all USA-S swimming so the ratings top out at 18 years of age. So 18 or 40 is the same rating.
