The Long Beach Grunions just posted the results for this year's SCM meet.
This, by the way, is what a grunion looks like:
Moreover, according to Wikipedia:
Grunion are known for their very unusual [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating"]mating ritual. At very [/ame][ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide"]high tides[/ame] the females come up on sandy beaches and dig their tails into the sand to lay their eggs. A male then wraps himself around the female to deposit his sperm. For the next ten days the grunion eggs remain hidden in the sand, but at the next set of high tides the eggs hatch and the young grunion are washed out to sea. *
In any event, because this is a very well attended yearly meet, which Leslie told me some think of as the unofficial USMS "Nationals" for the SCM venue, and furthermore--and please correct me if I am wrong here!--it is held in the same pool at roughly the same time each year, I thought that comparing this year and last year might provide a bit of data for how much the loss of the body suit impacts aging men's swimming speeds.
Obviously, my interest here is 100 percent Jimcentric. It is quite possible that elite 20-year-old male swimmers might not be affected all that much by the loss of blubber compacting neoprene. I don't care! I am only interested in how much the loss of these suits is impacting my cohorts, how much the loss of these suits is impacting me, and whether, when the smoke clears, I will be hurt more, less, or the same as most guys in my age bracket.
A few caveats are in order:I looked only at my age group, i.e., 55-59
- I looked only at the men's freestyle events
- Some of the top swimmers this year had just "aged up" and I did not try to find out what times they had done the previous year in the 50-54 age group.
- Not everyone who swam in 2009 also swam in 2010. In fact, in several events, I found no repeat swimmers at all in the top 5 or 6 places.
- I have no idea what kinds of suits those who did swim the same event two years consecutively were actually wearing; I am assuming that most top swimmers took advantage of whatever was legal at the time, but I could be wrong about this.
- People do slow down a wee bit from year to year, at least on average. This effect is exaggerated in the post-50 age groups, and it really accelerates in the post-70 age groups. Thus, it is possible that some of the poorer times this year compared to last year could have been from aging, but I doubt this alone explains some of the whopping changes I found.
- Also, a lot of people train with a bit of extra intensity the year they know they are aging up, because they figure it's their best shot at making good top 10 times. So the fact that the repeat swimmers were one year deeper into the age group might also have lead to some slackening motivation, though once again, I find it hard to believe this would account for such whopping changes either.
ABSTRACT:
In every case I was able to find of guys who swam this year and last year, none did better in jammers than whatever they wore last year; all, in fact, did worse.
Much worse.
I had expected to see a second or so per hundred. The smallest deterioration in repeat swimmers was just over 3 seconds per 100. In some of the longer events, the deterioration was as high as 6.5 seconds per 100.
Again, this is an admittedly very small and select data sample. But if there is even a snifter of validity to it, the bottom line take away message--at least for the likes of me--is that the "new reality" is very likely to cause you significantly slower times than your peak performances in high tech full body rubberized body kayaks like the B70.
I think a lot of people have been telling themselves that the suits really don't make that much of a difference. This, at least, would indicate that's wishful thinking.
If you can keep your "jammer" times within a couple seconds per 100 of your "body kayak" times, you may, in fact, be swimming faster than before, despite the depressing digital readout on the scoreboard.
Anyhow, here is the data:
1 Gandee, Brad 55 GMUP-10 26.43
2 van Boer, Eric 55 RHMS-38 26.54
3 Wilson, Robert 58 NMMS-42 26.55
4 Williams, Bruce 56 RICE-25 26.59
5 Dickson, Dave 56 CMSC 27.32
6 O'Keeffe, Peter 59 UCLA-33 27.50
7 Mc Bride, Duncan 55 LAPS-33 27.60
1 Krauser, Larry 57 Hydropower Maste-35 26.27
2 Blatt, Michael 55 Ventura County M-33 26.50 7
3 Djang, Philipp 56 Fort Lauderdale-50 27.03 6 4 4 Behun, Bill 59 San Diego Swim M-44 27.85 5 5 5 Miller, Chris 57 Las Vegas Master-33 28.05 4
* (No repeat swimmers in top 5 in this event)
_______________________________________
1 van Boer, Eric 55 RHMS-38 58.74 9 28.14 58.74 (30.60)
2 Williams, Bruce 56 RICE-25 59.07 7 28.21 59.07 (30.86)
3 Mench, Lee 57 HSAM-44 59.12 6 28.91 59.12 (30.21)
4 Dickson, Dave 56 CMSC 59.51 5 28.28 59.51 (31.23)
5 Wilson, Robert 58 NMMS-42 59.91 4 27.98 59.91 (31.93)
6 Phillips, Rick 55 ROSE-33 1:01.63 3 29.48 1:01.63 (32.15)
1 Blatt, Michael 55 Ventura County M-33 58.15 9 27.61 58.15
2 Krauser, Larry 57 Hydropower Maste-35 58.68 7 27.81 58.68
3 Behun, Bill 59 San Diego Swim M-44 1:01.50 6 29.27 1:01.50
4 van Boer, Eric 56 Rolling Hills Mu-38 1:01.90 5 29.31 1:01.90
5 Adkison, Bill 55 Rolling Hills Mu-38 1:02.77 4 29.60 1:02.77
6 Heather, Michael 56 Mission Viejo Ma-33 1:03.09 3 30.75 1:03.09
* (One repeat swimmer in top 5 in this event)
58.74 to a 1:01.90--a 3.16 second difference
_______________________________________
1 Wood, Larry 55 TXLA-43 2:08.42
2 Dickson, Dave 56 CMSC 2:11.13
3 Townsend, R Scott 56 LVM-33 2:12.34
4 Penn, William 58 PNA-36 2:33.00
5 Quinn, John 59 SCAQ-33 2:30.38
6 Sicard, Federico 59 SDSM-44 2:30.51
1 Krauser, Larry 57 Hydropower Maste-35 2:09.27
2 Blatt, Michael 55 Ventura County M-33 2:10.80 3 Heather, Michael 56 Mission Viejo Ma-33 2:22.34
4 Miller, Chris 57 Las Vegas Master-33 2:42.82
5 Astudillo, Fabio 58 San Diego Swim M-44 2:49.26
* (No repeat swimmers in top 5 in this event)
_______________________________________
1 Wood, Larry 55 TXLA-43 4:32.85
2 Dickson, Dave 56 CMSC 4:39.79
3 Phillips, Rick 55 ROSE-33 4:41.84
4 Penn, William 58 PNA-36 4:43.16
5 Leonard, Dan 55 SCAQ-33 4:49.05
6 Mench, Lee 57 HSAM-44 4:50.
1 Krauser, Larry 57 Hydropower Maste-35 4:39.87 9 32.13 1:08.41 1:44.18 2:20.07 2:55.87 3:31.21 4:06.57 4:39.87
2 Phillips, Rick 56 Rose Bowl Master-33 4:58.51
3 Leonard, Dan 56 Southern Califor-33 5:06.39 4 Penn, Bill 59 Pacific Northwes-36 5:09.63
5 Bias, Philip 56 Unattached 5:45.24 4 39.32 1:22.73 2:07.33 2:51.85 3:35.45 4:19.87 5:03.23 5:45.24
* (Three repeat swimmers in top 5 in this event)
4:41.84 to 4:58.51 16+ seconds slower (average 4 sec/100 slower
4:43.16 to 5:09.63 26+ seconds slower (average 6.5 seconds per 100 slower)
4:49.05 to 5:06.39 17+ seconds slower (average 4.25 seconds slower)
_______________________________________
1 Townsend, R Scott 56 LVM-33 9:26.04
2 Wood, Larry 55 TXLA-43 9:33.71
3 Penn, William 58 PNA-36 9:42.73
4 Dickson, Dave 56 CMSC 9:45.91
5 Phillips, Rick 55 ROSE-33 9:51.01
1 Krauser, Larry 57 9:42.94
2 Penn, Bill 10:28.29
3 Bias, Philip 56 Unattached 12:03.27
4 Ferguson, Howard 12:39.67
* (One repeat swimmer in top 5 in this event)
9:42.73 to 10:28.29 45+ seconds or 5.5 seconds slower per 100
______________________________
* Final thought: Who knows? Perhaps male grunions who swim in the waters of Long Beach, California are exhausting themselves in ways that have nothing to do with swimming. Such speculations, of course, are beyond the scope of the present inquiry.
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