Why do some return and some do not?

I burnt out on dealing with coaches rather than the hard work most people burnt out on, so it wasn't all that difficult for me to come back. My wife is the one who convinced me I would enjoy swimming masters, and she swam quite a while before I was willing to give it a try. More to the question, I swim with two ex-elites that have no desire to compete. They enjoy swimming, and a masters team is an excuse for them to hop in a swim, but they really would rather not compete. Neither will swim in my lane if there is space in other lanes. SCY we have lots of space, so there are only usually 1 or 2 people in a lane. LCM they are stuck with me and my silly desire to swim fast. One has told me flat out that I bring out the worst in her, and she has no desire to bring the hyper competitive swimmer back. She doesn't like that person and would I stop egging her on. :angel: The other guy is like if Lance Armstrong decided to take a beach cruiser out for a leisurely rides around the neighborhood for exercise. He is fast, but chooses to swim on slower intervals, have lots of rest, chat between sets. As far as I can tell, he is swimming purely for enjoyment and maybe to get a little exercise. I wonder if he was this laid back when he swam with pwb? My guess is that people are not returning to swimming because they remember more negatives than positives.

I let this thread out there and only got some time tonight to read through all of these thoughtful responses. I definitely can relate to burnout and experienced it myself. I've also had periods where I've trained without competing, trained & competed and periods of near complete swimming inactivity. I keep coming back to it, though, and keep re-discovering why I like the sport and how it makes me feel. As I read through the responses (like Muppet's below), I realized that the underlying question is really more along the lines of what can we do to market to our former teammates the joy of Masters swimming? To address the thread topic, I think it would help if more people understood that most of our membership have a 40+hour/wk job and put our kids ahead of our own schedules and still somehow find time to squeeze in workouts and swim a meet or two now and then. That may help some of our missing comrades back into our sport.

Nothing. If he did match his old times, most people's jaws would drop. You are not supposed to be as fast as you get older as you were in your prime. Not everyone understands that of course, but when you are conning Vols into competing again, don't tell him about the swimmers who are actually getting younger as they age up. I will be sure not to pass that on to him :) By the way, I am getting faster as I age. I am now, at 39, beating my high school times. Probably not something I want to tell Jeremy to get him to compete, huh?! I guess I wasn't in my "prime" back then though.

Where I train there are 4 other guys,all around my age who are regulars.They work hard and really push each other(they swim standard middle distance freestyle sets,while I am doing my sprint BR stuff in an outside lane.) One is an Olympian with nothing to prove,one was a really fast Masters Swimmer in the 80s who decided he doesn't like meets,one swims about 1 meet a year but meets are not a priority for him,and one had a heart attack 2 years ago and was told he shouldn't swim fast so he doesn't swim meets though he still blasts in workouts.Each has his own reason,but I am the only one who swims meets.(If I tried to keep up with them in a workout it would kill me,conversely I am the only one doing sprints.)

there's bunches of reasons why former swimmers never get back into it: + burn out + swearing "I'll never wear a speedo again" + ego / fear of sucking + being so out of shape they think it's hopeless each person has to reach threshold, they have to find the reasons and desire to get back into it It's been cool for me over the last few years seeing and competing against a number of guys from both my age group and collegiate days. However, when I think back to my college team, in particular, I'm struck by how many guys are NOT back swimming and competing in Masters. I realize this is probably the wrong audience to ask (since we're back in the pool), but, since for me swimming & competing go hand in hand and I love swimming, I'm still puzzled why more people don't come back to the sport and to racing?

I believe he's one very, very fast Breaststroker with the initials JL who went to Tennessee in the 90s. Nice racing yesterday, btw, especially the 400. You got it! Jeremy Linn is my coach. I am blessed to have such a wonderful coach, too. He is the coach of Curl Burke. I think another misconception of non-competitive swimmers is that when they hear the word "masters" they think we are experts. I tell people "masters doesn't mean we're fasters, it just means we're older." I wonder how many former swimmers and lap swimmers don't join masters over the fear of that one M-word.

You could try to tell him that he doesn't have to swim breastroke. He could do other events. As graceful of a breastroker that he was, I am sure he would do just as well in other strokes.

Masters swimming is full of Olympians, US and foreign as well as NCAA finalists, etc. I have yet to meet one who thinks it's realistic (or sane) to think they can approach the times they did when they were at their peak. IMHO, that is not the competitive message of masters swimming; rather, it is "how fast can I swim at this age, given the amount I train?" I agree. It took me 15+ years to try a meet. By then I'd had kids and been away long enough not to be depressed by my times. Now it is fun to see how close I can get to those old times when I'm much older and training so much less. I can see, though, that people who were super successful and well-known would have a bigger hurdle to overcome.

The memory of hardcore workouts with sergeant-like coaches probably keeps a few away. Some don't have the desire to be in organized group workouts and aren't motivated to do workouts on their own. I can only stomach two organized workouts a week myself - too many memories of 10 x 100 fly on 1:30 (and having to start the whole set over if anybody dared to do one-arm fly) and major chewing out/punishment for being a few minutes late to practice. Maybe getting some folks to come watch a masters workout to see the easier intervals and the laid-back attitude of the coaches and swimmers would put some at ease.

I think it is those of us who didn't burn out on USS/AAU back in the day who are swimming better than we did as youths... I didn't really start swimming seriously until I was 16 and didn't swim USS - so am relatively new and missed all the "fun" stuff.