little red wrote:
Not replying specifically to mck414 but to the thread in general. This may not be nearly as strange as what other people have seen, but it's strange to me since I don't usually see much stangeness at masters. Lap swimmers maybe, but not masters. I've been swimming with a new masters group and there is one guy just has to get his splits on his Garmin for every interval (yes, he's a triathlete and not a swimmer). He is so concerned with getting his splits that he never swims all the way to the wall at the end of an interval. He always stops a good 3-5 strokes before the wall to hit the lap button on his watch. This would be like doing track intervals and never running through the line, or running a race and stopping short of the finish line to stop your watch. This is new to me as I've never seen anyone even worry about their watch during masters, let alone taking splits on their watch, and I've definitely never seen anyone at masters not swim all the way to the wall. The coach gives intervals so other than maybe wanting to track total time swimming I'm baffled by the need for the Garmin at masters - just use the clock! I have no clue why the coach hasn't said something to him about this, unless she has and he continues to do it anyway.
I am also a triathlete who catches every split on the Garmin. However, I don't stop short of the wall. I have perfected the left-hand touch while the right hand finishes its last stroke to the wall/lap button.
Here's the reason and why it helps me: I am a strong runner who is still learning feel for the water and need constant feedback and motivation to get up at 4:30AM to go to my masters. When I do my running workouts, they are pretty easy to remember how I performed. If I'm running tempo, for example, I just have to remember five different mile splits which are usually pretty well centered around the same time. Doing quarters? 8 or so to remember. Not a problem. However, in a swim workout with lots of intervals ranging between 25's and 300's, it's hard for me to remember what I did in the current workout let alone what I did two weeks ago, the last time I swam a 300.
Again, in running, I have been doing it for years and my "good" work times are cemented in my head because I've done them so many times. Having just started swimming, I am still learning my pacing.
Also, my goggles are always fogged up so I usually can't see the pace clock anyway!
Anecdotally, just this week I repeated two of the workouts I did in the first weeks in my masters in September since we're off from masters for the winter break while the local college is closed. It was awesome to be able to export the workouts and compare them side-by-side. For me, one who struggles mightily in the pool, it's pretty motivating to see my times are down significantly (7-10 seconds off my 100-repeats, 3-4 seconds off 25-repeats).
The above notwithstanding, I am, and I proudly embrace my position as "runner guy" denizen at every pool I swim in.
