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Psyched

They posted the psych sheets for New Englands this weekend. I didn’t plow through and figure out where I would be seeded based on my times from earlier this year, since I’m only swimming one event. It’s really an exercise in masochism, anyway: in the 1,000y freestyle (“deep end,” since I decided to risk losing my goggles in trade for the one- or two-second advantage conferred by starting from blocks rather than starting in the water,) I am seeded 31st out of 50, and even that is something of a technicality. Six of us guessed we’d swim 14:00, so we’re all “tied” at 31. Some of us are sandbagging, and others, like myself, are optimists.

My brother is seeded fifth in the 1650y free, which was cool enough, but then I checked the sheets sorted by age group. All the four in front of him are under 30. Then I scrolled down to the 1000, and discovered that I’m seeded last in my age group by about a minute and a half.

Now Playing: Guitar Song from Strangest Places by Abra Moore

Posted by pjm on March 28, 2005 2:08 PM |

Comments

P, If you think that’s bad, try looking at what’s happening to me in age groups. I placed 69th in a recent 20K race and started to look at stats for how poorly I did (a 1:27:51 at age 45 or 7:04 pace). And quickly found that about 60% of those ahead of me were in the 40-45, 45-49 and 50-54. Now this race was a state USATF Master’s Championship, so you might argue that the results are stilted (results here: http://www.compuscore.com/cs2005/march/equinox1.htm) but the results were not terribly different at a recent half-marathon I was in (results here: http://www.lin-mark.com/results/search.asp?race_id=400) I thought this might be fodder for a story (the lack of young runners or something?).

Posted by: Scooter | March 28, 2005 6:14 PM

I think my issue in swimming is different; the younger guys are always faster, in swimming, and since I’m a “late starter” at Masters competition, I’m swimming with the guys who are ten and twenty years older than me and are really good for their ages. I’m not the swimmer that I am (was) a runner.

I’ve thought about the “where are the young runners” question before. The problem is that the demographics I can find don’t bear out what we’re observing empirically: according to the RRIC, for example, the young runners are coming out. Maybe they’re just choosing different races - or they’re not as fast?

Posted by: pjm | March 29, 2005 3:23 PM

P, I think there may be multiple factors involved here: 1) as you say, “not as fast” (an illogical conclusion since by all rational measures, they should be faster 2) RRIC (I believe) tends to focus on bigger races aka “happenings” where the bodies come out for social reasons, but this is different from the racing world or 3) which I believe is the case…young, serious runners don’t exist in meaningful numbers, either being diverted by career choices or by alternative sports.

Posted by: Scooter | March 29, 2005 10:46 PM

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