In golf, there is one feat few accomplish - to shoot your age.
The goal is simple - par is your age where everyone hits from the same tees and there are no handicaps.
To swim your age you must do a swim equal in kilometers to your age. So if you are 20 years old, you can if you do at least a 20K swim.
If you are 30 years old, you can Swim Your Age if you do at least a 30K swim. At 40 years, you must do a 40K swim. Obviously, this aquatic feat gets harder and harder as you get older.
The swim can be done in any body of water: an ocean, lake, reservoir, bay, estuary, sea, channel, canal, river, fjord or lagoon. It must be continuous (feeding stops are allowed) and completed according to the traditional rules of the sport (e.g., no touching boats, kayaks or piers and without a wetsuit) and is measured in kilometers (not miles which is harder).
With the growing number of Half Century Club members, the Swim Your Age achievement is within reach for many.
Shooting your age in golf is tough, but it's achievable if you're (a) at least in your 60's, and (b) an excellent golfer. I think the record for age-shooting is 59 - not exactly a young man's game, even by golfing standards.
A big part of the appeal of trying to shoot one's age is that it gets (slightly) easier as you get older. And that makes sense, right? Why would you want to "punish" longevity? I think that's the basis of the skepticism some folks are expressing here. If the target gets further from reach with each passing year, what's the incentive? Isn't getting older hard enough?
If the metric is distance, bigger numbers = better (the opposite of golf). So if you want to mimic the psychological incentives of "shooting your age" in golf, you need a more complicated formula.
Something along the lines of:
kilometers
It's ridiculous from a marketing perspective, but it's at least semi-realistic.
age km mi
20 50.0 31.3
25 40.0 25.0
30 33.3 20.8
35 28.6 17.9
40 25.0 15.6
45 22.2 13.9
50 20.0 12.5
55 18.2 11.4
60 16.7 10.4
65 15.4 9.6
70 14.3 8.9
75 13.3 8.3
80 12.5 7.8
85 11.8 7.4
90 11.1 6.9
95 10.5 6.6
100 10.0 6.3
This formula has the additional feature of important distance milestones for important age milestones:
- 25K at 40 years old
- 20K at 50
- 10 miles at 60
- 10K at 100 (it will happen someday, I'm sure!)
Finally...something that looks realistic!! :applaud: Not that I'm going to do any 18-20 mile swim.
Shooting your age in golf is tough, but it's achievable if you're (a) at least in your 60's, and (b) an excellent golfer. I think the record for age-shooting is 59 - not exactly a young man's game, even by golfing standards.
A big part of the appeal of trying to shoot one's age is that it gets (slightly) easier as you get older. And that makes sense, right? Why would you want to "punish" longevity? I think that's the basis of the skepticism some folks are expressing here. If the target gets further from reach with each passing year, what's the incentive? Isn't getting older hard enough?
If the metric is distance, bigger numbers = better (the opposite of golf). So if you want to mimic the psychological incentives of "shooting your age" in golf, you need a more complicated formula.
Something along the lines of:
kilometers
It's ridiculous from a marketing perspective, but it's at least semi-realistic.
age km mi
20 50.0 31.3
25 40.0 25.0
30 33.3 20.8
35 28.6 17.9
40 25.0 15.6
45 22.2 13.9
50 20.0 12.5
55 18.2 11.4
60 16.7 10.4
65 15.4 9.6
70 14.3 8.9
75 13.3 8.3
80 12.5 7.8
85 11.8 7.4
90 11.1 6.9
95 10.5 6.6
100 10.0 6.3
This formula has the additional feature of important distance milestones for important age milestones:
- 25K at 40 years old
- 20K at 50
- 10 miles at 60
- 10K at 100 (it will happen someday, I'm sure!)
Finally...something that looks realistic!! :applaud: Not that I'm going to do any 18-20 mile swim.
