Masters Motivational Times

The 2009 SCM Top Ten list has been finalized, so I have updated the SCM motivational times. The file is in the first post in this thread.

Is there a reason all the times seem to end in a 9? Sure: because the USA Swimming chart that I'm mimicking has its times all rounded to end in a 9. I can't tell you why USA-S does it that way. My guess it's because everyone tends to round down. I.e. if I tell you I went a :30.5, that means :30.5x. All of which beat a time standard of :30.59.

If you compared the previous (2009) SCM times and the new (2010) SCM times, chances are you noticed that the times got a little faster in your age group. The benchmark top-ten times are averaged over 3 years, so the 2006 times have rolled off the list, and been replaced with 2009 times. The 2009 times are faster than the 2006 times in most (but not all) age groups and events. One obvious difference between 2006 and 2009 times is tech suits. But there are other differences, too, like increased participation. I'll leave it to others to discuss the reasons for the changes. But here are a few observations: If you're a woman between 45 and 59, times are getting tougher. Benchmarks improved in all or all but one of the SCM events in your age group. This competitive age range is even broader for men. For the five age groups from 45 through 69, times got faster in either 17 or 18 of the 18 SCM events. The pace of progress is slowest in the oldest age groups, which have the least participation. Times got faster barely more than half of the events in W75-79, W80-84, M70-74 and M80-84. In these age groups, there are few enough swimmers that it probably makes a big difference who ages up, or swims which events. The oddball age group is M35-39. That's the only age group where more times got slower than got faster. 8 of 18 times improved, but 9 of 18 got worse. (One stayed the same.) What about events? In general, the sprinters improved most consistently. 25 of 26 age groups got faster in the 50 and 100 free, for example. All events got faster in at least half of the age groups, but the least popular events were also the most inconsistent. Only about 2/3 of the age groups improved in the 1500 free, 200 fly, and 400 IM.

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. Hi Steve, I recently decided to undertake the development of a motivational times list too -- without knowing about your good work on it already. Since it's an awful lot of work, I'll stop my effort and use your charts instead. I do have a few comments, if you're interested. - Your percentages do correctly follow the USS calculations, but nut not your seeding methodology. USS uses the fastest ever 16th place annual ranking as their seed time. www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx This has the benefit of making the updating of your tables easy. When each year's top list comes out, compare your current seeds with the new 16th places, and keep the faster of the two. No averaging, no rolling windows. - USS has a huge number of kids, so using the 16th fastest time as a seed is a reasonable way of excluding the freakishly fast, but still getting a very fast and relatively stable time base. Masters, however, is much smaller, so going as deep as 16 might not have the same result. I found that using the fastest sixth (or eighth) place in the USMS top ten database as my seed time would work pretty well. - Non-textile technical suits screw everything up. They've been banned. They had a big effect on 2008 and (more so on) 2009, and will continue to do so in 2010 until their ban takes hold. For example, in my age group, 13 out of a possible 18 seed times would come from 2009 if I didn't exclude that year. It looks to me like these suits result in a 1-2% speed increase. I was going to ignore 2008-2010 lists. Again, thanks for the charts. You've done a nice job. -Ted

Excellent info, thanks. I had looked for some description of what baseline (seed time) USA Swimming used, but didn't find the info you linked to. Lacking that info, I had actually tried a few different options to see what combination of the top 16 times they were using. It turns out that averaging times 9-16 over the previous quad comes very, very close, but I knew I was missing something. Using the best ever 16th place time makes sense -- it would make the list more stable and less susceptible to fluctuations from year to year. Especially in the less populated age groups. I guess I would use the best ever 10th place time, since USMS' Top 10 list is the equivalent of USA Swimming's Top 16 list. And it makes sense (to me) to view the Top 10 list as the next step above a AAAA ranking. I agree that tech suits wreak havoc with the lists (under either method). Using the best ever Nth place time, the tech suit times would skew the motivational times semi-permanently (until the tech suit seed time gets beat). Using the rolling average, the effect is smaller, but takes 3 years to roll off the chart. The next time I update the charts, I'll crunch some numbers to see if it makes sense to switch over to using an Nth best time as the baseline.

Thanks, Steve! I have a love-hate relationship with your chart, but I'm learning to make it all love... :D At least, I'm trying to have a good sense of humor about the fact that my non-specialty strokes are, uh, not even on the chart yet. But I LOVE the fact that I'm almost an "AA" in 50 breaststroke (unfortunately, the meet didn't count) and determined to work my way further up the chart. As a newbie, your chart has been a great way for me to set goals and stay motivated, since I don't live close to a USMS team and workout on my own. Keep up the great work! :applaud:

Since the 2010 SCY Top Ten list has been finalized, I have updated the SCY motivational times. Oh my goodness! I can actually make a B cut in the freestyle events! MY MIND == BLOWN

Thanks, Steve. It's a great way to set goals for all levels.

Since the 2010 SCY Top Ten list has been finalized, I have updated the SCY motivational times. I can no longer edit the first post in the thread to replace the link there, so the new chart is attached to this post. 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.

Thanks - I was just thinking I needed to look this up and see how I did over the summer. Now I know - B for 50 free, A for 100 free, AA for 200 free, maybe I should keep going, swim a 1650 and I'd be on track for a top 10 :)