Without looking, I would say you would score in every event at masters nationals with those times. And my guess is the longer the distance, the higher you would score. Not because of some great fade off, just that it is a lot tougher for old guys to go fast in the distance events. So many ex swimmers can still bang out a great 100 on minimal yardage, but hard to fake a 1500..

Come on over to my neck of the woods this summer, nationals are at Mission Viejo I believe in august. No LCM for me, too much going on in the summer to focus. For SCY it is usually later April early may event, so you can train through the winter when nothing is going on...

Will be swimming nationals Monty...actually I live in Irvine and train with the Nads a couple of times per week. Would you say this is a pretty typical fall off, i.e. ~20% from 100 to 1500? I would've thought the fall off wouldn't have been that drastic. I'm pulling times from some of the other guys in my age group to calculate theirs. I was actually hoping I could find a swim predictor, something like the run predictor Garmin has on their watches. I haven't come across one yet.

I would've thought the fall off wouldn't have been that drastic.

So many variables go into trying to figure that out, were you a sprinter to begin with, or middle/long distance? But in reality, those look pretty good to me for a 60+ guy. Like I said, go plug in your times to an actual national meet, wanna bet which races you place better in? I just had a quick peek at '17 summer nationals, you are barely top 15 in the 100, but score in the 1500 top 10. To me, that is your answer, your falloff is better than most your peers..Age is the number 1 falloff factor past 60...

I would echo what Monty said. Depends on whether you come from a distance swimming background or were a sprinter. Also, depends on the type of training you've been doing. If you training for distance events, then that might be a little high depending on how much you are swimming. If you are training as a sprinter then that might be a little low. One of the things you want to be aware of is there is a trade off between sprinting and distance swimming. If you want the speed, you'll need to give up the endurance. And if you want the endurance, you'll give up the speed, especially when you get over 400/500.

Hope this helps.

Tim

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I'm more of a long distance swimmer as I am a longer distance runner (>400m, although today that would be considered a sprint :-) than a sprinter. I did trend the times of 4 other long distance swimmers in my age group who have better times than I do and the largest drop off is 24% and the least is 20%.
The bummer is I have to choose between the 800 and 1500 at nationals. I cannot swim both :-(

That choice is what started me on the road to looking at fall-off in times.

Unfortunately, I'm a one-trick pony. I wish I were good at other strokes. I never swam competitively until adulthood. Not being able to swim both the 800 and 1500 at nationals means I can only swim 4 individual events, 100, 200, 400 and 800/1500.

That is what started me on this journey.

I mostly train for endurance on my own, 200s, 300s and 400s. I do mix it up with sprint days and days where I do a lot of 100s on short rest intervals.

I was a distance person in running as well (>400m).

Not being able to swim both the 800 and 1500 at nationals means I can only swim 4 individual events, 100, 200, 400 and 800/1500. //

Hey, 4 events is pretty good, lucky you are a freestyler. If I were you, I would train more for the 100/200, at our age that will also translate to the 800/1500. You do have some speed, take a couple seconds off that 100 and I bet your get 10 or more off the 1500 too. Swimming is such an endurance work out sport, no reason you cannot get better at both distances, if you train for the short one that is. I can guarantee you will probably not get faster in the 100/200 if you do a bunch of 1500 stuff. Swim speed seems to work in one direction once you are pretty maxed out in all the events...

Thanks for reminding me of that monty.