How old are some of you people? I'm going to be 63 old grandmother. Either I'm extremely slow and old or just slow!!!!! I'm embarrassed to say my 1600M best compared to you guys. I wanted to do an OW swim this summer. I might have to do some soul searching frist. I don't want to win just not be humiliated.

I'm less than half your age, and I swam competitively when I was younger. I know a lot of others here swam competitively as well. Some have even competitively swam at the college level, and so you shouldn't feel bad that your times don't compare. I like to play basketball, and in a pickup game last night, we had a 6'10" former Big 10 university player show up. Much to my relief, he played on my team, but the opponents (the tallest of whom was 6'4") were just being dominated. Nobody really thought of themselves as a bad basketball player. Just comparatively speaking, they were on a different level. This is the approach you should take with swimming and with the OW swim you want to do. You likely won't be on the same level as former competitive swimmers if you aren't one. My recommendation is to focus on your personal best times, and look to improve those. As you improve, you'll gain the confidence you need to succeed in your OW swim.