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.
David, I was just joking around. I know that Australia is a big place.
If you do happen to run into Ian Thorpe, could you run a money-making idea by him? I would like to license his feet, take molds of these, and then produce a line of latex Ian Thorpe replica feet-fins.
In the meantime, best of luck with the Australian masters movement!
LOL yep I figured, just playing along! :) Sounds like a good idea though!!
David
There's nothing sacred in these details, of course. They were chosen to mirror the USAS time standards. You may want to change them.
Ah thanks, I'll have a play with that. Thanks
David
There may be another factor too: in her book, Dara Torres also comments on the fact -- and cites research to support her statement -- that aging affects sprinting the least.
For men, but not for women (at least after the age of 40). Which makes her achievements all the more remarkable.
Great work with the motivational times! Very encouraging for those of us who were mediocre age group swimmers.
Yep there is. So the ranks are just based on a spread across the top 10?
Specifically: average times 6-10 in an age group, for the last 3 years. Then:
AAAA = 5% slower
AAA = 10% slower
AA = 15% slower
A = 20% slower
BB = 30% slower
B = 40% slower
There's nothing sacred in these details, of course. They were chosen to mirror the USAS time standards. You may want to change them.
The records chart in the USMS rulebook shows no more decay of speed with age for the 50 than the 1500/1650 for men, in fact the curves are very close. Unless very old competitors prefer sprinting events, this reinforces the claim that you don't lose sprinting ability more than endurance with age.
I posted the chart in post #52 (from work computer) but it appears to be in the wrong format.
Interesting that the curve is flat 45-50 and nearly flat 45-60.
The records chart in the USMS rulebook shows no more decay of speed with age for the 50 than the 1500/1650 for men, in fact the curves are very close. Unless very old competitors prefer sprinting events, this reinforces the claim that you don't lose sprinting ability more than endurance with age.
I posted the chart in post #52 (from work computer) but it appears to be in the wrong format.
I just looked at the SCM list for M35-39.
seems like they are on the slow side or maybe I missed something in the creation of the table.
are the AAAA times just outside the top 10 list, or does a 4A time put you in contention for getting a top 10 time.
I am by no means a freestyler or backstroker, but manage to be 3A on the spints, and 4A for 200 an longer in free and in back it was 2A, 3A, 4A from 50--> 200.
comparing my times to others in a little place like sweden I would have expected to have been in the 2A-3A in the Breat and IM events only.
but I will print this out and bring it to practice tonight.
are the AAAA times just outside the top 10 list, or does a 4A time put you in
4A is 5% below top 10.
I think since conditioning is less of an issue, it is easier to do better in the sprints than the distance events, if there is a good number of competitors.
Yes, the AAAA times are just outside the Top 10. Technically, they're 5% off the average of the 6th through 10th times. For longer events, where the gap from the 6th best time to the 10th best time can be significant, a AAAA time could be relatively close to a Top 10 time.
As an example for your M35-39 age group, in SCM it would have taken 2:05 to 2:06 to get in the top 10 in the past few years. The AAAA time is 2:10.39. So yes, just outside top 10 range in this case.
Note that SCM times are much less competitive in the US than SCY times, because we have fewer SCM meets. That may be why the SCM times appear slow to a European.
But if you see anything that looks like an error, please let me know.
