Predict my time?

What are your 50M and 200M times?

use this: www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi And enter your specific info for the 100 to get a rating. Then take that rating and use it to estimate a time for any pool event you want. But it's only an estimate. If I used my 50 free to generate a base rating, then there is significant drift as I select longer events. My 50 rating generates a time .8 sec faster than my best for 100, 6 seconds faster than my best for 200, etc.. Great Bay Masters has a similar rating calculator here: www.egswim.com/.../RatingTime.php As mentioned in several other posts, there is no guarantee that you will be able to achieve the same rating in a long event as in a shorter one. In my case, my 200 rating is much better than my 100 or 50.

use this: www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi And enter your specific info for the 100 to get a rating. Then take that rating and use it to estimate a time for any pool event you want. But it's only an estimate. If I used my 50 free to generate a base rating, then there is significant drift as I select longer events. My 50 rating generates a time .8 sec faster than my best for 100, 6 seconds faster than my best for 200, etc..

use this: www.vaswim.org/.../rcalc.cgi And enter your specific info for the 100 to get a rating. Then take that rating and use it to estimate a time for any pool event you want. But it's only an estimate. If I used my 50 free to generate a base rating, then there is significant drift as I select longer events. My 50 rating generates a time .8 sec faster than my best for 100, 6 seconds faster than my best for 200, etc.. This is a good suggestion. But just so you know, the drift isn't always in one direction for everyone. For instance, I tend to do better the longer the race. So if I start with my 100 time, for instance, I get a 200 time that's 5 seconds slower than my best, a 500 time that's 20 seconds slower than my best, etc.

This is great info - the LMSC of Virginia Rating Calculator is exactly the kind of thing I've been searching for - thank you! I find that my times give me a lower rating the longer the distance. I do have a recent long course 400m time of 8:22 to go with the others. I go from a 63.0 for 50m, 59.2 for 100m, and 55.3 for 200m. My 400m LC is actually 52.6! I've been training for 3 years with masters swimming, initally about 3 practices a week, now 4 per week of 2000-3000m/practice. I've always enjoyed longer distance swimming much more than the sprints, but my sprint ratings seem to indicate I am actually better in the shorter events. Aside from my first swim meet (too excited!), my splits have generally been pretty even (can't remember them offhand though). Maybe I need to keep working on my endurance more to bring my longer distance ratings up? :)

By the way, Stillwater: did you chose your name because of the chestnut about waters running deep, or because there is a prison outside the Twin Cities known as Stillwater? While I have spent time in the Twin Cities, the chains I had upon me were of my own making, not the law. This month I am vacillating between cheap booze and an "Almost Famous" band. Next month will be different.

Thanks to everyone for their replies! The 1:28 was just for an example, my most recent 100m time is 1:38 and 50m is 41 seconds (haha, I know, I'm slow!) Never swam competitively as a kid but am loving masters swimming and just trying to improve for my own sake! My best 200m was 3:49 but that was about a year ago. There are running calculators online where you can input your time for a distance (ie 20 minutes for 5km) and it will tell you what is roughly an "equivalent" time for 10km, half marathon, mile, etc. Seems like the same thing might not exist in swimming? But the suggestion by Jim Thorton to double the time and add 20/30/40 seconds is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking - sort of a rule of thumb to get an idea of where you'd be at. Alternatively, I was thinking I could work backwards with it - ie I want to break 15 minutes for 800m, what kind of 100m times do I need to be able to get? Many thanks for any and all suggestions! :-)

... the drift isn't always in one direction for everyone. For instance, I tend to do better the longer the race. To add to the fun, apparently it is possible to peak at a certain distance, and decline at both shorter and longer distances. Attachment: Rating-Distance.jpg Since last October, I've managed to swim my own abbreviated version of the check-off challenge -- all the freestyle, backstroke, and IM events -- at least once each, in competition. The attached graph, plotting VA calculator ratings vs. distance, shows a clear peak at 200 yards, regardless of stroke.

Any good coach who knows you and how you swim should be able to help predict times for you. Back in 2000, after a workout, I asked Ron Johnson for help with seed times for an upcoming meet. He told me to do a 50 off the block. From that, he gave me times for 100, 200, 500, and 1000 free. He was nearly right on across the board, I think off by 2-3 sec for the 1000.