I posted my resolutions for 2008 on the TI Discussion Forum on the evening of December 31. One of them is the most audacious/ambitious swim goal I’ve ever set. It would still be timely to set resolutions of your own. If you’re comfortable with making them public, why not post your own on the Forum. Find this thread on the “Links and References” conference.

From: Terry Laughlin
Date: 7:26 PM Monday, December 31, 2007

For 2008, I resolve to:
- Do my best to swim every day.
- Practice mindful swimming at least 400 hours.
- Swim with an ever-present intention to set a national Masters record in the 400 Individual Medley (IM) at some future date. I’m nearly 57 now and am prepared to continue in pursuit of that goal for 30 years if necessary…while considering the possibility I might do it in as few as 8 years.

To provide some context for this goal, my current best time as a Masters swimmer is 5:44.58, which I recorded in Feb 2007. Here are the 400-yard IM records for each age group from my current one to 90-plus:

55-59 Jim McConica 4:36.95
60-64 Ed Cazalet 5:02.36
65-69 Tom Landis 5:19.23
70-74 Burwell Jones 5:34.47
75-79 Frank Piemme 6:16.17
80-84 Frank Piemme 6:52.79
85-89 Walt Pfeiffer 8:45.11
90-94 Walt Pfeiffer 10:10.57

My goal this year will be to "break" the USMS 65-69 record for 400 IM. Not easy as I’ll need to improve my current best time by over 25 seconds (or 6+ seconds per 100) to do so. If I can somehow maintain that level for another eight years – and the current 65-69 record remains unimproved – I’ll have a shot to break the record at age 65. More likely I won’t be able to stay on that level and/or the current record will get even faster. But if I can squeeze out a few more years of small improvement, then minimize my loss of speed, by improving all my strokes in small ways every year, perhaps by age 75, my chances will improve.

I've chosen this goal for several reasons:

1) Setting a goal of breaking a USMS Long Distance record, as I did two years ago, has been one of the most transforming and inspiring things I've ever done for my swimming.

2) The Individual Medley is the best measure of being well-rounded in swimming. I've never shown any particular distinction in the “other” strokes. So this goal will concentrate my attention like nothing I've ever done before.

3) As I age, I expect it will be beneficial to increase the variety in my training - better for stimulating continued neuromuscular adaptation, and better for avoiding overuse injury. My intention is to get "better every year" at all-strokes swimming.

4) Open water racing will remain my highest priority, and during the four-month open water season, I swim 95% freestyle. I’m convinced that training as an IM specialist (i.e. specialist at everything) during the eight months of the year that I swim primarily in the pool will do more to improve my freestyle than if I practiced primarily freestyle year-round.

5) FUN! I've mixed the other strokes into my training more and more the last two years - initially because I was planning and producing our "different strokes" DVDs. As I did, I found I enjoyed IM training even more than freestyle training.