Well… I might have done something really stupid, but I broke down and registered for the Huntsman World Senior Games being held in St. George, Utah from October 6-10th (The games are more days than that, but that is the swimming portion).
I’m going to swim the 100M Breaststroke, the 200M Breaststroke, the 800M Freestyle, and the 1500M Freestyle. These are all endurance events, which has been the basis of my swim training for years.
I was looking at last years times and was thinking, “hey… I could actually place!” Nice part about getting older, the competition thins out.
The maybe “stupid” part? I have not competed in a pool event since college swimming….. when was that? Oh, 1986……. And what year is this? Oh, 2026….. that is about 40 years. I have been strictly open water since then. I really had decided I would never compete in a pool again, but there are some health concerns that I have been worried about and right now Open Water events do not make sense from a safety perspective.
I went back and looked at some of my swim stats for the last six months with regard to the events I plan on swimming and compared them to the 2025 Huntsman World Senior Games results and found
| Event | My Current Training Time | 🥇 Gold (2025) | 🥈 Silver (2025) | 🥉 Bronze (2025) | 4th Place (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1500 m Freestyle | 26:09.4 | 23:34.66 | 23:39.43 | 25:04.75 | 25:06.88 |
| 800 m Freestyle | 14:29.1 | 12:00.10 | 12:16.56 | 12:32.85 | 12:56.76 |
| 200 m Breaststroke | 3:59.5 | 3:01.02 | 3:38.74 | 3:39.92 | 4:00.27 |
| 100 m Breaststroke | 1:58.3 | 1:19.22 | 1:28.57 | 1:32.97 | 1:37.95 |
Training times are strange to compare to race results as they do not always line up. In a race event you are only swimming that event. My training times are part of a longer workout. Also, no block start for training, less adrenaline, and I have a tendency not to do flip turns in training (got to fix that). All of this has the potential to shave about 10-15 seconds off per 50 meters.
I have 11 weeks to the games. I will probably be posting more on my swimming to stay accountable to myself and show progress.
