The Swimming Thread

I noticed back when that running thread was around that tons and tons of smogoners happen to run on all sorts of different competitive levels, so, being pretty into swimming, i wondered if smogon was home to any serious or competitive swimmers.

For my swimming background, I've been on my high schools varsity swim team for the past 3 years. We just last night won our league championships for the third year in a row and we are going to the Eastern State Independent School Championships next Friday, although I doubt we'll have many place in the top 18. We're a decently competitive team, especially for a high school that doesn't draft athletes, and we have a few star swimmers who train with outside of school USS teams.

My best events are the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly, in which my best times as of yesterday are 23.40, 52.81, and 1:00.16 respectively (all short course yards). Just BARELY missing sub-minute in the 100 fly was SO painful, but hopefully i'll be able to hit it at easterns. In general I am only good at very short sprints, I have really terrible 200 free, 200 fly, and 500 free times lol

But I don't want to limit this to only serious swimmers on competing teams, I'm sure there are people here who swim once in a while to stay fit, or who go to the pool everyday and knock off a mile, so basically, this is a thread to discuss swimming, whether you're competitive or you doggy-paddle, love it or hate it, or even if you just watched it in the olympics.
 
Wow, that's certainly better than my times, lol.

I generally do the 100 free and 100 back, as for some reason, those are my best. Trying to get into the low minute range currently >.<
 
Couple questions first?
1. Guy or girl?
2. Those times short-course or long-course? (though I would assume short-course)

I frankly don't swim anymore, as I hated it. Butterfly was my only really good stroke, and my short-course time was about 54. Freestyle was about the same, and I never swam the other strokes. (In my swim club, all you had to do was say " 'Kay's real name' breastroke" and everyone would break out in laughter)
 
I'm a 16 year old male and all those times are in short course yards, they'd be pretty incredible long course lol. I'm assuming you're a guy if you're going 54 100 fly (if you are a girl that is absolutely insane (in a good way)), 54 is still a sick time for a guy, the best guy on our team goes around 56. I'm more sort of cannon fodder in the 100 fly cause i'm like our number 3 guy, but I still like it a lot =)

My problem with the 100 fly isn't so much the endurance and the second 50 like most people, it's my inability to sprint very quickly on the first 50. My butterfly stroke itself is very slow, heavy, and powerful, and i have a really long glide, which results in my splits being crazily close, closer even than my 100 free splits. two days ago when i took my time i went 28 mid 31 mid, so I don't have a problem coming back, my stroke and recovery is just too slow to sprint much faster than a 28!
 

Fabbles

LN_Slayer
is a Contributor Alumnus
Swimming is probably my favorite sport. I am not competitive at all in the sport, but I enjoy it over the summer. Winter swimming was just way too competitive and high strung for me personally.

My brother was a pretty good swimmer for the YMCA. He attended Nationals in Florida and such. He holds quite a few records on my summer team.

At MIAA championships in my High School region, a Junior on another team broke into the 19 second mark for 50 free (short course). Pretty incredible if you ask me.
 
This is a good thread!

I swam throughout high school, and I may try to pick it back up again next year. Sadly, it was against my school's league's rules for me to swim competitively outside of the school's swim team, so I had to drop my USS team in 9th grade and didn't get better as fast as I would have liked. I'm a bit afraid of swimming in college because my body type & endurance mean I would end up getting stuck as a distance swimmer, which means 10k yards a day, every day, while the sprinters get to do light yards and lift weights. I should have gone to a school with a shitty team.

My main events in HS were the 200 free (149 high) and the 500 free (4:58.14). I would get put into these almost every meet, but occasionally I would get to do something different. I was a 23 low 50 free, 50 flat 100 free (aargh!), about 1 flat 100 back, and a 58-59 100 fly. I can't remember exactly on that one, I almost never got to do it. I swam breaststroke occasionally in meets when my team was winning by a gigantic margin and my coach wanted to embarass me. It worked...I could barely break 1:20.

Every day of swim season I would be looking forward to practice, and my league championships was one of the best moments of my life. For the first time I managed to break 1:50 for the 2 free and 5:00 for the 5. Got myself into 7th place on my school's all-time 500 freestyle list, and knocked down my coach a spot on that list by .06 seconds. I miss it.
 
Awesome I didn't know any more of us existed ^__^

I'm a junior currently swimming third year varsity as well as USS (PLS). All I swim for high school are 100 and 200 free, 100 fly, 200 IM (blech don't know why I still do this).

I swim low :52 100 free, low 1:57 200 free (lol), :58 100 fly, and 2:07 200 IM. Nothing to write home about but nonetheless I make the sectionals team ^__^

Anyone else in the Pacific, specifically Zone 2 ?_?

edit: wow whoever posted above gives my 200 time the shaft :[
 
I suck at swimming. I can barely swim 30m, though I can scull and swim short distances, I swim mostly for fun.
 
Teabag, I would say of those times the 2im time is actually probably the most impressive, although that could just be because 2im has always been my teams weakest event and we've never had anybody sub 2:12 that I know of lol.

and Nate those 200 and 500 times are ridiculous, i have always always sucked at distance, like for example just yesterday i broke 52 for the first time in the 100 free going 51.89, but when i took a 200 time i went 1:59 high with splits something like :56 low 1:03 mid. I've never taken a 500 time but I doubt I'd be much below 6 minutes, probably in the 5:40s. On my team we only really have one really good distance guy who goes about 1:51 and 5:05 for the 2free and 5free, and then we have like two guys who go around 1:56/7 and 5:25/30.

although we do have one kid who is barely 14 and goes 53 high in the 100 back and 22 high in the 50 free (whaaaaaaaat???)
 

Malfunction

nice desu ne
I only swim for fun. I don't do these 'tricks' you people do. Heck, I can't even flip inside the water :O
But, I have a question. How much time do you guys stay under water? I really hope I'm not the only one who can barely stay for 30 secs..
 

Stallion

Tree Young
is a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Three-Time Past WCoP Champion
I can swim ok I guess, and I was swimming captain for my house. But at my school in Oz, we have the junior world champion backstroker so he raped me, I think he got 27 or 28 here in the 50 metre but in proper competition, he might go better lol.
 

Caelum

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Eh, I was captain of my swim team in high school so I guess I'm relatively good. I did pretty well at states (I missed first in one event by like 1/16 of a second lol). I probably suck now since it's been months since I swam competitively but whatever.

Danyul said:
My best events are the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly, in which my best times as of yesterday are 23.40, 52.81, and 1:00.16 respectively (all short course yards). Just BARELY missing sub-minute in the 100 fly was SO painful, but hopefully i'll be able to hit it at easterns. In general I am only good at very short sprints, I have really terrible 200 free, 200 fly, and 200 im times lol
I'll have to pull up my times since I don't remember but my best events were 100 free (seems like everyone says that?), 200 fly, 200 breast. I was pretty good at the 4 x 100 relays too but I guess that's more of a team thing.
 
Well, I swim since I was 6, I'm a swimmer of 100, 200, 400 meters and I'm 14 years old, I plan to swim untill my 18 years :)
 
I've been swimming for around 8 or 9 years, currently a freshman. My best event is 100 fly. Last week I got 1:03.2 in SCY. I also like sprint free (50, 100) and I kind of enjoy the 500, but I'm not that great at it.
 
I like swimming, I just don't like being in water. So I could never really get into it unfortunately. Oh and I sucked at it, so thats probably another reason. Great exercise though.
 
I forget how long I can stay under for. I remember last summer I was really pushing myself and got to about 45 seconds I think.

Anyway, I have a pool in my backyard and I swim for fun!
 
Swimming is the one and only sport I participate in anymore. I'm a high school sophomore and my best events are the 200 Free and 500 Free, and I literally cannot do anything else. I went 1:46 in the 200 yd Free and 4:45 in the 500 yd Free, but my time in the 100 yard Fly (3rd best event) is like 1:11 (I always drown the 2nd 50). I get on the relays at my school and that's easily the most fun part of swimming for me. Anyone else love relays?

On a different note, I think I hit 42 seconds underwater on vacation once. Then I got all excited cause I thought I could get a minute but I ran out of air after about 20 seconds.

Also really sad everyone is making such a big deal out of michael phelps smoking marijuana. Seriously people, not a huge deal. The guy is still the best athlete ever, so give him a break.

And I'm swimming my first 400 IM in about a week and I feel like I'm going to crap myself. I have a bad 100 Fly...and then another 300. I don't get how anyone does that event.
 
Hey everyone. I'm new on Smogon (kind of- I created this account quite a while ago but never actually bothered to post anything until now), but I've been lurking for quite some time. I figured this would be a good thread for my first post, seeing as competitive swimming is a huge part of my life.

Currently I compete for my college swim team. My school is a smaller engineering school in the northeastern US- I won't name names, but kudos to anyone who manages to figure out which school I swim for (mabye I'll make mention of it sometime in the future). I'll be starting my sophmore year in August, with my swim season starting in mid September.

I swim mostly the distance events, namely the 500 free (4:57.51), 1000 free (10:38.73), 1650 free (17:35.09) and the 400 IM (4:26.09). I swim some of the shorter events as well, as I'm also pretty strong in the 100 free (50.38), 200 free (1:52.63), 100 fly (57.90) and the 200 IM (2:08.24). For relays, I generally do freestyle on medley relays and just swim whatever position my coach wants me in for the freestyle relays.

By my senior year, I hope to have all my school's distance records, a feat I think is within my capabilities. By the time I graduate, I hope to have broken 4:40 in the 500 free, 9:50 in the 1000 free, 16:00 in the 1650 and 4:00 in the 400 IM.

All that being said, If anyone has any questions relating to swimming- competitive or not, or about me, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

At MIAA championships in my High School region, a Junior on another team broke into the 19 second mark for 50 free (short course). Pretty incredible if you ask me.
@Fabbles: you're not by chance referring to Massachusettes' Nick D'Innocenzo are you? Either way, that is indeed pretty incredible.

Also, I haven't timed myself in years, if ever, but I imagine I could probably stay underwater for at least 25-30 seconds. A kid on the club team I'm training with for the summer did 3 minutes once- it was ridiculous.
 
For lifeguard training I had to be able to swim a 300m, and it nearly killed me. Mind you, I'm a very athletic and competitive person and am in really fit shape. So swimming was somewhat intimidating.

However, my best friend is an avid swimmer and has sort of gotten me into it - I bought some jammers the other day and have gone out swimming twice. I have a lot of work ahead of me but I've found it's an awesome upper body workout and that it's a more enjoyable form of cardio than running (especially in the Las Vegas heat).

I'll hopefully be posting here more often ;).
 

drcossack

I'm everywhere, you ain't never there
I only swim for fun. I don't do these 'tricks' you people do. Heck, I can't even flip inside the water :O
But, I have a question. How much time do you guys stay under water? I really hope I'm not the only one who can barely stay for 30 secs..

So do I - except for one college class (basic aquatics - learning a bunch of different strokes), I haven't done any swimming since 2004. I really should start again, but, for me, there's a few problems with that. First is making sure the water's warm - I absolutely CANNOT get in a pool if the water's cold (unless I jump right in, which ties in to problem #2.) Second is making sure it's deep enough. The pool I have at home is only 4 feet deep, and I'm 5'7".
 
Ah finally a swimming thread!

I have been swimming since i was 6 (currently 18) My times are in short course:
100 free- 46.8 woot!
100 back- 50.2 double-woot! (nationals cut! :pimp:)
200 back- 1:53
100 fly- 51.4

thats about all i swim
 
For lifeguard training I had to be able to swim a 300m, and it nearly killed me. Mind you, I'm a very athletic and competitive person and am in really fit shape. So swimming was somewhat intimidating.
when i first started lifeguarding six years ago we had to swim 500m, which just recently got bumped down to 300m. but now we have to swim the width of the pool holding a 15lb brick. after that i'd much rather just do 500m.

my town sucks for swimming, the only 'real' swim team we've had was a city pool thing, where a bunch of swimmers from each pool around the city would compete against each other. unfortunately it only lasted two summers. the best i was ever able to do was a 50 freestyle in :34. this was back when i was 15 and i'm 21 now. i'm not in nearly as good as shape now, especially since i've started drinking and smoking. last time i tried sprinting a 50 free it took :44. ugh. as much as i want to get back into swimming, i'm really not down for paying the ~$30 monthly fee for the Y or Athletic Club.

but i'm still in good enough shape to make $7.50/hour sitting on my ass watching people swim. and save them if need be, i guess.
 
$7.50? You're getting the SHAFT man. Even the starting guards at my rec get $7.75...are you a first year guard or sub?

The real money for lifeguarding is private parties though. Travel to all the pools in your area and put up a piece of paper saying you can do private parties. You can get upwards of $20/hr fairly easily. Also, depending on how outgoing and good with the kids you are, you can get tips from individual sets of parents in addition to the wages. Plus, sometimes you get free food on top of all that. The first party I ever got came out to $140 for 4 hours, so since then I just get somebody to sub for me at the rec if I get a call about a private party.

Fuck me though I only have 24 days to find a book with the current shit in it and get a recert.
 
My mom's making a flier for four friends and myself called "Four Bods and a Broad" so we can lifeguard private pools and parties over the summer.

I'm making $8.57 an hour as a first year lifeguard.
 

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