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.
To Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Stuart,
What do you think the odds are that the two best and most active, mathematically proficient, swim-data curve fitters would both be from the south and have surnames beginning with St?
Let me quickly reference yet another swim-math motivator I have personally found useful, especially before discovering St. Chris's formula.
St. Chris, for his part, knows of this other formula, but it is possible that St. Steve does not. It's an age regression swimming time calculator that Phil Arcuni posted a number of years back on this forum, that is, in the pre-speed suit era. Phil included the ability to also check the "Finnish formula" option, which is basically the same thing as the American version, but invented by a race of people who live on reindeer milk and cell phone dividends much of the year, and thus arguably more accurate.
http://n3times.com/swimtimes/
One thing the Phil Arcuni and Chris Stevenson approaches have in common is that they are adjustable by each year of a swimmer's age, not just the 5 year age group. Hence, a fellow such as myself, in the dotage of his 57th year, can still "improve" over his 55 year old performances despite the absolute times getting worse.
I do think that the next major need for motivation, at least for me, will be coming to grips with what I suspect will be a relatively huge uptick in times in the coming post-speed-suit era.
Would either of your fellows care to turn your keen mathematical minds to the job of predicting "equivalent times" with and without such suits--and do so before we need to wait several years for new data to filter in upon which your new curves can be fitted and hung?
Or, barring that, what do you predict, generally speaking, will be an average time change before and after B70s go to jammers? Obviously, for St. Chris and his hairless ilk, the differences have not been too great. But for us lumpkin types, what seems reasonable? Would 2 seconds per 100 be too much of an expected increase in times--or too little?
At last year's Colony Zones championships, for instance, I swam a B70 aided 52.86 in the 100 free. At this year's meet, all other things being equal, should I be delighted if I can break 55--or should I lapse into catatonia?
To Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Stuart,
What do you think the odds are that the two best and most active, mathematically proficient, swim-data curve fitters would both be from the south and have surnames beginning with St?
Let me quickly reference yet another swim-math motivator I have personally found useful, especially before discovering St. Chris's formula.
St. Chris, for his part, knows of this other formula, but it is possible that St. Steve does not. It's an age regression swimming time calculator that Phil Arcuni posted a number of years back on this forum, that is, in the pre-speed suit era. Phil included the ability to also check the "Finnish formula" option, which is basically the same thing as the American version, but invented by a race of people who live on reindeer milk and cell phone dividends much of the year, and thus arguably more accurate.
http://n3times.com/swimtimes/
One thing the Phil Arcuni and Chris Stevenson approaches have in common is that they are adjustable by each year of a swimmer's age, not just the 5 year age group. Hence, a fellow such as myself, in the dotage of his 57th year, can still "improve" over his 55 year old performances despite the absolute times getting worse.
I do think that the next major need for motivation, at least for me, will be coming to grips with what I suspect will be a relatively huge uptick in times in the coming post-speed-suit era.
Would either of your fellows care to turn your keen mathematical minds to the job of predicting "equivalent times" with and without such suits--and do so before we need to wait several years for new data to filter in upon which your new curves can be fitted and hung?
Or, barring that, what do you predict, generally speaking, will be an average time change before and after B70s go to jammers? Obviously, for St. Chris and his hairless ilk, the differences have not been too great. But for us lumpkin types, what seems reasonable? Would 2 seconds per 100 be too much of an expected increase in times--or too little?
At last year's Colony Zones championships, for instance, I swam a B70 aided 52.86 in the 100 free. At this year's meet, all other things being equal, should I be delighted if I can break 55--or should I lapse into catatonia?
