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.
Hi, David, not sure how much of this thread you have looked at, but I highly recommend checking out Chris Stevenson's formula for age-grading swims in the different courses. www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
Chris (I think it was Chris, though it might have been another mathematically inclined US swimming god) also told me at one point that in England, it's not uncommon to use this sort of calculation at masters meets so that the oldsters can compete in a sense with the youngsters.
I just did a review of my own swimming times for the past 12 years and posted my amateur analysis of the effect of different suits and training volumes on a decidely less than swimming god-like shlub (Meditations on a Swimming Bubble) here forums.usms.org/blog.php
Good luck with your efforts! It's nice to know that Australians visit this forum. Say hi to Ian Thorpe for us, and wish him good luck on his diet.
Hi, David, not sure how much of this thread you have looked at, but I highly recommend checking out Chris Stevenson's formula for age-grading swims in the different courses. www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi
Chris (I think it was Chris, though it might have been another mathematically inclined US swimming god) also told me at one point that in England, it's not uncommon to use this sort of calculation at masters meets so that the oldsters can compete in a sense with the youngsters.
I just did a review of my own swimming times for the past 12 years and posted my amateur analysis of the effect of different suits and training volumes on a decidely less than swimming god-like shlub (Meditations on a Swimming Bubble) here forums.usms.org/blog.php
Good luck with your efforts! It's nice to know that Australians visit this forum. Say hi to Ian Thorpe for us, and wish him good luck on his diet.
