When I started swimming masters a few years ago, I soon found myself wanting some time standards to compare myself against. Sure, tracking my own PRs is motivating, but I also wanted some sort of objective mark to measure myself against.
There is the Top 10 list, of course, but I'm not close enough to those times for them to serve as realistic motivation. Nationals qualifying times provide a slightly lower bar, but these are still out of many masters' reach. It seems like there should be some sort of time standards that are more widely applicable -- like the A, AA, ... motivational times in kids' age group swimming.
I did use those USA Swimming motivational times for a while, but I got tired of comparing myself to 12-year-olds. Eventually I decided to create my own masters' motivational time standards, using the same method that is used for the kids.
I have really enjoyed using these motivational times over the past couple of years, and I'm guessing they might be useful to others as well. Especially for those, like me, who are competitive enough to be motivated by a quantitative benchmark, but not fast enough to aspire to the Top 10 list.
I have just updated the SCY list, and figured I would post it here for others to use.
Please enjoy. I'd also love to hear any feedback.
Yes, these times are based on 3 years when tech suits were becoming more and more common. As the tech suit times roll off the list and get replaced with non-tech suit times, the times should get a little slower.
Guess I'm doing better than I thought since I kinda drug my feet about getting a tech suit, and have just raced in legskins and jammers. I see that I need more endurance since I'm at or just below the AAAA times in my 50s, but am in the AAA times for 100s. Also noticed that I fair better in scm than in scy, which I suspected, although I'm not sure why that is. Neat tool, I appreciate the time put into doing this.
:bliss:
Yes, these times are based on 3 years when tech suits were becoming more and more common. As the tech suit times roll off the list and get replaced with non-tech suit times, the times should get a little slower.
Guess I'm doing better than I thought since I kinda drug my feet about getting a tech suit, and have just raced in legskins and jammers. I see that I need more endurance since I'm at or just below the AAAA times in my 50s, but am in the AAA times for 100s. Also noticed that I fair better in scm than in scy, which I suspected, although I'm not sure why that is. Neat tool, I appreciate the time put into doing this.
:bliss:
