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I am a 30 year old parent, and am the middle of my daughter’s first summer league swimming season. When I was younger, I swam in summer rec. leagues and was a pretty good swimmer, but didn’t stick with it through high school when I got involved in other sports. Last night, I went to the gym for a swim and felt like I was going to pass out after doing 8x50’s freestyle with 30 seconds rest in between. Is Masters the way to go? Should I try and get in swimming shape first? If so, what do you recommend? Any other guidance would be greatly appreciated.--Matt L, Houston, Tx
Response from
Kyle H., College swimmer, Swim coach---
I have no experience with masters swimming myself, but my mom has been swimming masters for as long as I can remember. She started swimming with a masters club in the Houston area, but the program fell apart when the USA-S club did not want to sponsor them anymore. For several years after that, she tried swimming on her own at the YMCA. She went on and off, a few days a week; sometimes more, sometimes less. She was not happy. A few years ago she joined another Masters team in the Houston area. She absolutely loves it. She has made great friends on the team, has people to train with, a coach to provide workouts, and even though it is a 30 min drive from our house, she does it every day that she can (including Sundays, which I think is insane!).
For you, I would suggest swimming on your own for a while. Just to get back into some sort of swimming shape. But I think you will find it very difficult to stay motivated. Most USA-S teams have Masters’ programs. I would suggest you try and join at some point. I think it will be much more beneficial for you to have a group of people there to associate and train with. I absolutely cannot train by myself, but when I have a team with me, it makes it so much easier (easy is a term I use very loosely in this context). There will be people of all skill levels at Masters’ practices, so I wouldn't worry about fitting in. I have been to several Masters’ practices, and they are broken up by training speed into different lanes with different workouts. So you can just pick your lane or set, and you'll be with people your same speed.
Another thing to remember about masters, as compared to high school, club, or college swimming, is that there is no pressure. Nobody is forcing you to be there, you just are because you want to be. You will not be pressured to make a certain interval, or to go any faster than you feel comfortable with. The coach will not be saying: "Kyle, you know you're better than this. You should be doing the set 10x50s on 45, not 8 on 50". But I don't feel good today coach. "I don't care how you feel, you're not going to get any better training like that". --there will be none of that. What you do is entirely up to you. You will have the support of the rest of the swimmers there, and they will be working hard all around you for mostly the same reasons.
As for competing, it will be completely up to you as well. There is no requirement to compete. If you feel like you want to swim a meet after you've been training for a while, then go for it. If not, then you can just keep training.
