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.
Steve,
I am impressed with the work you've done over the past few seasons on these motivational times. The USMS Championship Committee developed the NQTs strictly for the purpose of having time standards for our National Championship meets and weren't created to serve as any kind of motivational tool or yardstick (although it is inevitable they can be used as such). Your tables can indeed reach out to a larger audience and serve various levels of swimmers.
From what I have learned from your posts, you take the average 6-10 place times from Top Ten from each event/age group/sex and then average that time over the past 3 years and then apply a factor (+5%, +10%, +15, ..., +40% etc) to come up with times for each "grade." I personally like the idea of using the 3 year average instead of using only the fastest time from those three years (USS method). The 3 year average smooths the curves out better and you aren't as prone to have a "bump" when that fast time drops out the back (but the USS method tends to keep the times the same for a couple years, which some may like for consistency). Anyway, either method has its pros and cons. NQTs simply use the Top Ten 10th place average over the past 3 years and apply a scaling factor (can change meet to meet, but often it is 10% for events 200+ and 15% for 50s and 100s). For events that don't have 10 times in the Top Ten, we use the 5th place average and apply a larger scaling factor.
Since the 2010 SCY Top Ten list has been finalized, I have updated the SCY motivational times.
Not surprisingly, the motivational times got faster because tech suits were still legal in the 2010 SCY season. Time cutoffs got faster by about 1%, on average, pretty much independent of gender & stroke & distance.
That is interesting to see your observation about the times being 1% faster. How much of that do you think is the influence of 2010 times being added and how much is it the fact that 2007 times got dropped from the table? For SCY, our Top Ten is dominated by times done at Nationals (I've seen many instances where somebody got 10th place at Nationals and that time ended up being 10th in the Top Ten). 2007 (Federal Way) was a smaller meet than average and 2010 (Atlanta) blew away the average, so your tables saw a "double whammy."
For 2011 NQTs the Championship Committee will have to determine how to take into account the "tech suit" effect. But we can't really make any decisions until the HOD makes up its mind on which way we will go for SCY suit rules.
Jeff Roddin
USMS Championship Committee
PS. Steve - do you attend convention?
Steve,
I am impressed with the work you've done over the past few seasons on these motivational times. The USMS Championship Committee developed the NQTs strictly for the purpose of having time standards for our National Championship meets and weren't created to serve as any kind of motivational tool or yardstick (although it is inevitable they can be used as such). Your tables can indeed reach out to a larger audience and serve various levels of swimmers.
From what I have learned from your posts, you take the average 6-10 place times from Top Ten from each event/age group/sex and then average that time over the past 3 years and then apply a factor (+5%, +10%, +15, ..., +40% etc) to come up with times for each "grade." I personally like the idea of using the 3 year average instead of using only the fastest time from those three years (USS method). The 3 year average smooths the curves out better and you aren't as prone to have a "bump" when that fast time drops out the back (but the USS method tends to keep the times the same for a couple years, which some may like for consistency). Anyway, either method has its pros and cons. NQTs simply use the Top Ten 10th place average over the past 3 years and apply a scaling factor (can change meet to meet, but often it is 10% for events 200+ and 15% for 50s and 100s). For events that don't have 10 times in the Top Ten, we use the 5th place average and apply a larger scaling factor.
Since the 2010 SCY Top Ten list has been finalized, I have updated the SCY motivational times.
Not surprisingly, the motivational times got faster because tech suits were still legal in the 2010 SCY season. Time cutoffs got faster by about 1%, on average, pretty much independent of gender & stroke & distance.
That is interesting to see your observation about the times being 1% faster. How much of that do you think is the influence of 2010 times being added and how much is it the fact that 2007 times got dropped from the table? For SCY, our Top Ten is dominated by times done at Nationals (I've seen many instances where somebody got 10th place at Nationals and that time ended up being 10th in the Top Ten). 2007 (Federal Way) was a smaller meet than average and 2010 (Atlanta) blew away the average, so your tables saw a "double whammy."
For 2011 NQTs the Championship Committee will have to determine how to take into account the "tech suit" effect. But we can't really make any decisions until the HOD makes up its mind on which way we will go for SCY suit rules.
Jeff Roddin
USMS Championship Committee
PS. Steve - do you attend convention?
