by Bill Walsh

April 4, 2012

My father-in-law once wrote a book. The first change his editor made was to delete the chapter detailing, "Why I'm not qualified to write this book." While good for a laugh, I feel the same way about appearing on this website.

I'm not worthy.

Yes, I'm approaching 7000 miles swum while registered with USMS. Yes, I'll soon enter my 100th organized competition during that period. Yes, I (barely) qualified for an event at the 2006 FINA Masters World Championships, and managed an official swim during the competition. (World Championship swims slower than the qualifying time don't appear in the results.)

But I've never met a time standard for the USMS National Championships; I've never broken a single one of my National Qualifying Times (NQTs). Not in more than 20 years of training and competition. Not once.

(As odd as it may seem, it's harder to qualify for Nationals than for Worlds. At Nationals you can swim in up to three events without qualifying, plus three more events if you meet the events’ NQTs. At Worlds you have to qualify to swim—no freebies—so they've loosened their standards a little.)

When USMS first created NQTs in 1993, I was close to qualifying in the 100-meter breaststroke. But I was as fast as I could be, without returning to the two-workouts-per-day of my youth. As I met the NQT for the next older age-group, I selected an easier plan. "I'll just stay this fast for another four years," I thought, "and then I'll qualify when I age up.”

Haven't we all overheard someone say, "I'm tired of finishing out of the medals at this meet. Next year I age up, and I'll have a better crack at one." There's an entire family of competitive problems we hope to solve by staying this fast while simultaneously getting older.

For simplicity's sake, I'll use our friend the NQT to stand in for these more common, more important problems.

Planning for Future Success

Ah, the siren song of aging up. In 20-plus years of following this plan, I have yet to succeed. So far I've discovered two major hiccups. The first is widely recognized:

Staying this fast can become quite difficult.

I tend to hang tough for a few years, and then misplace a handful of seconds. If I focus and work hard, I might rediscover a few of them. But somehow I never find them all.

The second hiccup in the plan is more surprising:

The NQTs drop quicker than I can age. In general terms, holding the line isn't enough if your competitors get faster.

As USMS reaches out to new and larger audiences (a good thing!), the pool of swimmers grows. Great athletes who previously focused on other sports start competing in the pool due to cross-training desires or injury. Rule changes and new techniques are introduced. All of this puts downward pressure on the NQTs.

More importantly, the NQTs are not based on the top 10 percent of registered USMS swimmers in a given age group. They're based on either the 5th- or 10th-best performer nationally in that age group. (See the USMS website for the exact formula.) As the number of competitors grows, even if you remain (say) a 90th-percentile performer, the Top 10 are pulling away from you.

Which means staying “this fast” often isn't enough.

Making an Example of Me

Let's go back in time to 1998. That year my fastest long-course 100m breaststroke was a 1:31.45. Compare to some of 1998's long-course men's NQTs, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: 1998 NQTs for men's LC 100m breast, ages 40 to 59

My age	40-44	45-49	50-54	55-59
41	1:24.22	1:26.69	1:31.08	1:39.43

My thinking at the time: “If I could hold at 1:31.45 until I was 50 I'd be close. And at 55 – in 2012 – I'd be in, with nearly eight seconds to spare.” Right?

Well, yes and no. Let's look at what actually happened. Table 2 lists my long-course 100m breaststroke NQT for each calendar year since 1998. The years I shifted to an older age group (aged up) are in bold. How did my 14-year plan work out?

Table 2: 1998 through 2012 NQTs for men's LC 100-meter breaststroke

Year	My age	My NQT that year	Remarks
1998	41	1:24.22
1999	42	1:23.19
2000	43	1:26.14
2001	44	1:24.14
2002	45	1:27.56	vs. 1998's 1:26.69 (see Table 1)
2003	46	1:26.67
2004	47	1:26.43
2005	48	1:23.87
2006	49	----	2006 Worlds were held in the USA, so long-course USMS Nationals were canceled.
2007	50	1:31.22	vs. 1998's 1:31.08 (see Table 1)
2008	51	1:31.08
2009	52	1:27.93
2010	53	1:27.40
2011	54	1:26.31
2012	55	1:31.74	vs. 1998's 1:39.43 (see Table 1)

Between 1998 and 2011, my 1:31.45 from 1998 never met an NQT. As predicted, I nearly broke through in 2007, at age 50. I swam a 1:32.13 at the 2006 Worlds—gratifyingly close to that 1:31.45—and missed the 2007 NQT by less than a second. But I haven't swum that fast since.

That 1:31.45 does break 2012's NQT, though—but with less than 0.3 seconds to spare, rather than the anticipated eight-second margin. Even by 2006 I'd slowed enough to miss the 2012 NQT. You don't want to know how much slower I am today. (I don't either.)

The Line on the Bottom

So at age 55 I'm still without an NQT, despite 1998's aging up prediction. For many of us, the happy, sunny myth of placing higher and qualifying more easily as we age is just that: A myth. Even if you can pull it off, staying this fast while getting older often isn't enough. Sorry about that.

Might I suggest developing a secondary goal or two? For example, it's easier to improve in your weaker events. So I'm swimming a lot more fly and distance freestyle. Join every relay with an open slot, especially in your off strokes. If you're a pool rat try an open-water event. (Or vice versa.) When you swim a 3-mile ocean event you're proud just to complete it—a fast time is merely a bonus.

Still, myths die hard. Every time a new table of NQTs comes out, I scan each age group to find the youngest time I can beat. To me, those tables are filled with hope.

Which makes me absolutely, positively unqualified to appear on this website. But I'm allowed up to three articles without any NQTs. Right?

>>>Despite all evidence to the contrary, Bill Walsh still plans to break an NQT after aging up