These days I’m actually surprised when a new swimmer even mentions wanting to enter a Masters meet or open-water race someday. New runners seem ready to fill out their first road race application the minute their Nikes are broken in. What is it about swim meets that makes lap swimmers—even those who have been at it for decades— think the contests are just for experts? If runners were such pessimists, every 10K race would be over in a blink, maybe under forty minutes. No one who took longer would bother showing up.
Swimmers don’t know what they’re missing. After you’ve been practicing your Total Immersion drills for a while, and your stroke has begun to feel smoother, easier, and faster, the best way to test your progress is swimming in a Masters meet.
“But I’m not in it for the medals,” you say. Good. Neither are most other Masters. The best way to once and for all explode the myth that Masters meets are for blood thirsty award hounds is to watch one. Grassroots pastime or National Championship, you’ll see competitors of all ages who might not stand out in any YMCA lap session. True, the whiz kids might knock off 100 yards of freestyle in under fifty seconds, but others may take three minutes … and they’ll get hearty applause for a job well done.
What most astonishes former college swimmers like me, people who remember meets as pressure-cooker contests of grim determination, is the relaxed, folksy feeling at Masters meets. Having a good time comes first, turning in a good time comes second. Competition is against the clock, not against each other.
Most people don’t talk about why they won’t race. People who admit their reluctance to enter Masters meets often describe feeling intimidated by the thought of facing these expectations:
1.You must execute a racing start off a high platform. No you mustn’t. Masters swimmers are free to start their races in the water—and often do, simply because they feel more comfortable that way.
2.You have to be able to do racing flip turns. Wrong again. The easily learned open turn is common at Masters meets. I’ve seen swimmers in older age groups win national titles with them.
3.You’ll be racing against former collegiate stars. Nonsense. First, only a third of the swimmers at Masters meets have had any pre-Masters competitive swimming experience. Second, if you’re new to this, you’ll be swimming with other new swimmers anyway since heats are seeded by estimated time. Many meets even offer novice-only races, restricted to those who have never swum the event competitively. You could be a medalist your first time out.
It generally works this way: At meets, men and women are divided into five-year age groups for scoring purposes, beginning with nineteen to twenty-four and continuing up to one hundred plus. But heats are normally seeded according to time, with no regard for age or sex. A twenty-four-year-old woman could be swimming next to a sixty-two-year-old man if their times are expected to be similar.
In fact, you’re ready for a Masters meet if you can swim two lengths of a 25-yard pool in good form (50 yards is the minimum distance in Masters meets). Most people can finish off a 50-yard race in 30 seconds to a minute. Freestyle and backstroke are the least technical events. Forget breastroke and butterfly for now. Legal breaststroke requires a frog-like kick that feels ungainly to many novices and as for butterfly, even two lengths is a challenge for anyone.
And when Masters say freestyle, they mean free style. As in free to choose any style you like. Most of us use the so-called crawl because it’s generally fastest, but you’re the boss. In 1992, I watched two ninety-something gentlemen race neck-and-neck in a 200-meter freestyle contest in the Masters World Championships. Both were using an elementary backstroke, perfectly legal under the rules.
Finally, pick any event distance you want—right up to the longest, which is the 1500-meter freestyle, just this side of a mile—so long as you can complete the race without standing up or holding on to lane lines. Masters National and even World Championships are all-comers meets, with competitors usually guaranteed the right to swim in three events without meeting any qualifying times. Local, state, and even regional meets never require qualifying times for entry to any number of events.
Don’t mistakenly think the best ways to ease into swim racing are the short 50- or 100-yard events because they’re over fast. Shorter races take more skill, power, and speed to avoid being left way behind. You’re better off going maybe 500 yards, which also gives you time to work on things you’ve been practicing, like form and pace. Besides, it will feel more like your practice swimming than the breakneck speed of a short sprint.
You needn’t be in superb shape to handle 500 yards, either. Remember our “Rule of 70”: 70 percent of your swim performance comes from your stroke mechanics and only 30 percent from fitness. Once you can swim for about eight minutes nonstop in a practice, you probably have a 500-yard event inside.
MAIL-IN MEETS: THE FIRST-CLASS STAMP SWIMMING TEST
Want a race all your own? No spectators, no specific starting time, no noise, no pressure? Postal meets (you just mail in your results and officials handle the scoring) are as no-pressure as they get. Betty Barry of Victor, New York, directed a postal meet called the Fitness Challenge for several years and says a third of her entrants are people who have never been in any kind of organized swimming event before. “One woman sent me a note with her entry that said, ‘I don’t want to get up on the blocks; I don’t want to have to race anybody; I’m so happy that you’ve given me the opportunity to do something meaningful by myself in my own pool.’ ”
Like a chess match played by mail, you never meet your rivals face to face in a postal event. Swim in whatever pool suits you, at your own convenience, the only required spectator being a lap counter/timer of your choice. When you’re done, write your result on the entry form, have your witness sign it, and mail it to the tabulator. A couple of weeks later, you’re notified how you placed against everyone else who did the same thing. It’s as private and civilized as an unpublished phone number.
And more varied than a “real” meet. Short events, long events, one for the maximum distance swum in one hour, another for the grand total of your February yardage. Awards are always tabulated by gender and five-year age group, as they are in regular Masters meets.
Postal events can juice up your training with the motivation that can come only from entering a race. And they’re real money savers. You can compare yourself to other swimmers your age from all over the country without ever having to buy a plane ticket. Check the USMS Web site (www.usms.org) for a schedule of postal events.
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