What are the odds of getting back to your high school or college times? I'm 40 and just got back into it 7 months ago. I was an age group swimmer from 9yrs old till 18yrs old.
Right now my freestyle is off about a second per 50yd. My 100yd *** was my specialty in high school and I am still about 5 seconds off that time... although I don't swim it nearly enough in practice.
How far off is everyone else off? Is there hope of being as fast as you were as a teenager?
Parents
Former Member
We did not have a year-round program when I started swimming age 15. I was a walk-on 2 years in college and we had 5 workouts a week, probably 3000y each practice. I was still getting big time drops when I quit despite not getting enough yardage to swim the distance events. Title IX kicked in and the sport got too competitive for me so I was no longer earning points for my college team. With limited team resources and pool space, I reluctantly quit with no other opportunities to swim.
I started swimming Masters about 17 years later and made a run at my lifetime best times. Unfortunately I did not have my "old" college times recorded; and back then we were swimming the 400y free, not the 500y. Based on estimates I got very close on my 200y Free and went faster than the 500y Free on the few times I had swum it as a teenager. I also did not have a tapered+official 400y free time but was close on 500y splits.
The big deal for me about matching HS/college times for me was that feeling that I had never achieved what I was capable of doing. I always wanted to see how fast I really could go.
We did not have a year-round program when I started swimming age 15. I was a walk-on 2 years in college and we had 5 workouts a week, probably 3000y each practice. I was still getting big time drops when I quit despite not getting enough yardage to swim the distance events. Title IX kicked in and the sport got too competitive for me so I was no longer earning points for my college team. With limited team resources and pool space, I reluctantly quit with no other opportunities to swim.
I started swimming Masters about 17 years later and made a run at my lifetime best times. Unfortunately I did not have my "old" college times recorded; and back then we were swimming the 400y free, not the 500y. Based on estimates I got very close on my 200y Free and went faster than the 500y Free on the few times I had swum it as a teenager. I also did not have a tapered+official 400y free time but was close on 500y splits.
The big deal for me about matching HS/college times for me was that feeling that I had never achieved what I was capable of doing. I always wanted to see how fast I really could go.
