If you like swimming in new pools on your vacations or while on business trips or in preparation for competitions in distance lands, you undoubtedly pack your swimsuit, goggles, and swim cap in your travel bags.

For the more seriously minded swimmer (whether a competitive swimmer, collegiate swimmer, masters swimmer, lap swimmer, or an open water swimmer training in a pool), you may also pack a kickboard, hand paddles, pull buoy, parachute, ear drops, and Garmin or Apple Watch.

For the most seriously minded swimmer, SwimNerd’s little personal pace clocks are easily packable and very convenient. Place the tiny clock right next to your lane to workout at a certain pace or on different intervals.

The Swimnerd Personal Pace Clock is Bluetooth enabled and connects to the Swimnerd App which allows you to control your pace clock from your phone. You can program custom intervals like 13 minute 20 second 1000m sets or 10 x 100 @ 1:17. The pace clock can count upwards or downwards – and count your sets or swims.

While the 6-inch long (15.2 cm), 1-inch high (2.54 cm) pace clock to too small to see across a 50-meter pool or in the middle of a bright sunny day, it is waterproof and can last up to 5 hours on the brightest setting and up to 9 hours on the lowest setting.

For more information on the SwimNerd Personal Pace Clock, visit here.

Good for All Generations

Suzanne Heim, an dual inductee in the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame (Class of 2007) and the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (Class of 2024), tells of the differences between her fellow Baby Boomer swimmers (ages 60+) who she trained with and competed against back in the 1970’s and 1980’s and the young Gen Z swimmers who she coaches nowadays.

Gen Z swimmers were born between 1996 and 2010, and are currently between middle-school and high-school. The youngest of this generation will turn 18 in 2028. Whereas, the Baby Boomers were born from 1946 to 1964, making the youngest turning 60 this year.

Pace Clocks

Old-school Baby Boomer swimmers grew up using an analog pace clock during pool practices. They calculated their pace, intervals, and times based on the rotating second hand of the clock.

Sets such as 10 x 100 @ 1:15 were easy to calculate. The lead swimmer would start “on the top” or the 0-second mark and the other swimmers would generally follow 5 or 10 seconds behind (unless there was an occasional bagger / slacker who would irritatingly push off the wall 2-3 seconds behind in order to catch a draft off the lead swimmer).

The coach would direct the swimmers to start “on the top” (0-second mark) or “on the bottom” (30-second mark), or occasionally “on the side” (either the 15-second or 45-second mark) or other number (e.g., “go on the 20”). Old-school swimmers were easily able to calculate their send-off times, their pace, the number of swims completed, the number of swims remaining, and the set interval. No problem.

Occasionally, a long set like 100 x 100 would cause a few swimmers to ask their teammates (but never their coach!), “How many more left?” But, in general, mostly everyone on the swim team knew well how to calculate off of a pace clock.

But with the digitization of wrist watches, pace clocks, and many public and school clocks in general, the younger generations seem to have lost that ability to easily use an old-school analog pace clock.

Heim recalls, “I had an age-group team training for a swim meet, but the digital clock broke so we had to use the lap swim old school analog pace clock.  I just naturally told them to leave ‘on the top’. There was a momentary look of terror on their faces until one swimmer said, ‘I got this!’ Much to the relief of the other swimmers, the lone swimmer came to the help of her teammates.

The team did not know how to read the analog clock. They were frozen with ignorance.

It only took a moment for me to prompt them and they quickly figured it out.   We all laughed about it afterwards.  So I now realize that I can’t say ‘Leave on the top’ when we have digital clock because the younger swimmer don’t know what that means – I have to say, ‘Leave on the 0 (zero)‘”

Small Hand versus Big Hand of a Clock – What Time Is It?

The same phenomena occurs with many young Gen Z’ers who do not know how to read a public clock on a wall or a building. Ask many of them while pointing up at the clock, “What time is it?” – especially a clock with Roman numerals, and they will resort to grabbing their smartphone, looking at the digital readout in order to give a reply.

Cursive

It is not only hands of a analog clock that can give some Gen Z’ers headaches.

It is also handwriting.

Heim explains, “I worked as the Educational Psychologist at Juvenile Hall for the last few years of my career.  I would observe students and write my notes in cursive sitting right next to the student as I was observing.  Students could not read what I was writing – as they did not know cursive handwriting.”  

All Is Not Lost

But ask Gen Z’ers to write code, use AI, create a database, quickly use an app, optimize a digital photograph, create a video with music and special effects, or program anything – and they are miles ahead of the Baby Boomers.

Back In The Day

Old-school masters swimmers think back upon their swimming careers and can remember the following:

• doing a pool workout without goggles
• finishing a workout and seeing rainbow rings around all the lights
• using only rectangular-shaped hand paddles were used
• using only one type of white pull buoys was used
• using handheld stop watches that require winding with a button at the top
• training in workouts without a pace clock
• owning a Belgrad suit
• owning double-lined swimsuits with plunging necklines
• sending a snail mail letter at the local post office in order to register for a swim or communicate with an escort pilot
• when old-fashioned 20th century survey tools were used to mark open water courses
• only using fins and snorkels in the ocean and not in a swimming pool
• entering the annual Manhattan Island Marathon Swim without writing an essay
• mailing in your entry forms to swim meets or open water races
• receiving Popsicle sticks as you crossed the finish line at open water races
• not warming down after a race
• hydrating during workouts
• thinking naked swimming meant skinny dipping
• not imagining what vog is or knowing what yackers or GPS or trisuits or swickies are
• thinking that zip lining was something you did in the forest or jungle on a vacation
• thought swimcest was rare and illegal
• not knowing what transponder, jammers, brown fat or gel packs are 22. not walking around or hydrating with a water bottle hought swimcest was rare and swickies were non-existent
• remembering when no college swimming scholarships existed for women 24. using an EXER-GENIE® for dryland training 25. swimming between lane lanes that were simply ropes with an occasional buoy to keep the ropes afloat
• training without backstroke flags and starting blocks were not angled towards the pool
• swimming 3000 meters and thinking that was a long, tough practice
• swimming in 33.3-yard or 55-yard pools
• diving onto the water, not into the water (see open water swimming race director Sandy Neilson’s dive at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games below)
• sitting on wooden blocks in order to keep them from moving when a teammate did a racing start
• pulling with a kickboard held between your legs
• pulling with 1/2 kickboards with a rubber band around it
• wearing multiple suits in order to purposefully creating additional drag in workouts
• wearing thick white rubber swim caps even if you were a girl with short hair
• eating jello powder and honey at swim meets
• wearing wool suits and thinking the nylon swimsuits with a double panel in the front and a skirt were a big improvement
• wearing your mother’s old nylons and t-shirts for additional drag
• using lemon to treat green hair from the accumulated result of pool chlorine
• buying Jello squares that were sold at the snack bar during swim meets 41. training with up to 20 swimmers per lane
• swimming without lane ropes and not thinking anything was abnormal
• using think black rubber band around your ankles for pulling
• training without a swim cap
• racing without a swim cap…or goggles
• identifying blonde swimmers by their green-tinted hair
• owning a pair of clear goggles because no colored goggles were sold
• calling open water swims in Australia “Swim-Thru’s”
• calling open water swims either long distance swims or rough water swims
• learning to swim in a bay, river, sea or ocean
• swimming 800m or 1500m freestyle events around midnight because it was the last event on the program
• eating white bread or donuts for carbo-loading
• eating jellybeans or chocolate bars for instant energy in between heats and finals

And if you are really, really old, you can share the same recollection as International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame chairperson Ned Denison, “…knowing that there was a fallout shelter downstairs from the pool.”

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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