You're making a way bigger deal out of this than it is.

My point is that 11-12 year old AVERAGE girls, which are pretty typical of the YMCA swim teams (except clearly yours!) are NOT super fast. Most of 'em aren't even remotely fast in my area of Norcal, save the very best few at the top.

A lot folks always point to these super fast 11-12 year old girls who have been preselected over years of swimming, and imply that everyone should be able to reach these sorts of speeds, but in reality, it's pretty tough for most average AGers to match the talent of these selected fast 11-12 year old girls.

It's no different than trying to race the fast 7th grade runners who are running sub 5:30-miles- there aren't many of them, but go to a regional meet, and you'll see a whole slew of 'em. Doesn't mean you're not dealing with a very selective group, and they're far from average.

I think I just misunderstood what you wrote then. I can't go to any YMCA within 100 miles of here and swim a workout with the 12 year old girls on their competitive travel team. I'd be in the tank before it got started. I was just misinterpreting what you said thinking that you meant YMCA's didn't have competitive programs.

Well, it sounds like FLA has a very competitive swim scene, even at the YMCA level.

I still find it nearly impossible to believe that the only 11-12 year old swim clubs you can find are mostly A-level AG standard, though. If I recall, you swim a 25ish HIM, which is pretty darn fast in my book, so you must be swimming with only very competitive 11-12 year olds, or else simply don't even know about the ones that all the 'normal' swimmers swim at.

I can guarantee there are a ton more 'average' swimmers than USMS A-level 11-12 year olds, so you're probably just not even seeing the non-speedster clubs.

EDIT: Ok, if you same "swim with their COMPETITIVE TRAVEL team" (as per your post above), that's a huge difference than what I said, which is 'swimming at the average YMCA swim team." That would explain it. I'll bet if my Y had a competitive travel swim team, they'd be pretty fishlike too.

So since I'm fresh off the end of summer swim team, I thought I'd post some numbers. 11-12 girls don't swim 100s, so I look at 15-18 girls at our recent conference meet. This was in a good, fast pool. The winner swam 54.56. The median swim (out of 79 swimmers) was 1:05.11. The slowest swim was a 1:19.96.

For 15-18 guys, the winner swam a 47.70, median was 55.76, and the slowest was 1:17.27 (bit of an outlier, 2nd slowest was 1:04.79)

This is just summer league. Any swimmer with actual talent has already bailed for year round swimming at this point (or just doesn't want to do it full time)

Orlando is no joke especially if you go to the Aquatic Center. Four plus lanes of kids knocking out 1:10scm and they make it look easy. I know for a fact I've seen a couple of 12 year old boys push 1:00 (they were twins though I was told they're nationally ranked... or something... they were fast).

You see Rowdy around this year? I think putting him in charge of the area Y's is going to be huge downstream. No one loves the sport more than he does. And fast kids I hear ya. Heck the Blue Dolphins Masters holy balls. It's a wave pool of freakshow speed. I can't imagine swimming in the same water with RG every day.

Are you talking about Dr. Meisenheimer or the guy with the white hair and the glasses that always seems to be looking over the really fast kids? Or someone else? I don't socialize that much and thus don't know many people.

Edit: or the guy with the beard who looks like Alan from The Hangover who also seems to coach a lot of the fast kids. Damn, they're all so fast I don't really know which ones are the *really* fast kids.

Hmmm. Rowdy Gaines? Two ways you can find out what he looks like. Watch the World Champs coverage on Universal and he is commentating for NBC or check the podium for the 100m freestyle pics from the LA Olympic Games....he's the guy with the gold thing around his neck;) Just busting your balls. Rowdy was named the director for all 30 Central Florida YMCA's last year to really hop up the programs. He swims withe Blue Dolphins....if you are in Orlando that is one heck of a squad if you are looking.


Seriously if you swim up there I might send you a PM one of these days......I have always wanted to drop in on Blue Dolphin and swim with Rowdy's Kids.

Roddick had/has a two handed backhand. Got little to do with the backhand. All tennis players have bigger forearms with their dominant hand, as you said. Including me.

Oh heck I recognize him now! I've never seen him coaching any of the kids but I've seen him swim and never had any clue who he was. I've actually been in the lane next to him a few times. My impression was always "was this random guy an olympian in a past life?". Lol.

PM away. Come up on a weekend sometime and do Lucky's Lake swim. Dr. Meisenheimer is a beast! I'll definitely look into the Blue Dolphins.

Ok great I will thanks! I have a friend on Lake Conway I can stay with. That's hilarious you swam next to Rowdy. Go up and introduce yourself he is one of the most approachable nicest guys ever and will chat away with you. If you say 'War Eagle' he will answer back guarantee(he's an Auburn grad). Seriously I'm not sure you could find a better group to swim with than BD and there are some real talented folks in there with lots to offer. I'd kill to have a group like that to learn and suffer with!

Texas is very similar to Fla when it comes to YMCA swimming. The Y's around here are the very beginner swimmers for the most part. The real swimming happens at the club level.

Where do you live? From my experience the Y scene is better in the Northeast and Midwest.

Kicking always boils down to this:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."