Well I'm sure this is more than you want to know. I always said that i was aiming for the 1984 Olympics. There were time "goals".
•"B time" was slow, if you couldn't make B times you were pretty pathetic.
•"A time" was harder, took some effort. I hit all my A times when i was like 12 or 13, my Mom took us to Swensen's Ice cream parlor, after the meets where i scored an A time, for a Hot Fudge Sundae as a reward.
•"AA times" were where you started to get good, I ended up hitting AA in everything but breaststroke.
•"AAA times" were the level you had to make for the end of season championships, and you could only compete in events where you had previously scored a AAA time. I could only participate in backstroke and freestyle sprints because those were the only ones where i qualified. Besides you didn't want to do too many events. You wanted to be at your best. This was the kind of meet where you shaved every part of your body that wasn't covered by your suit or cap. And you wore a suit 3 sizes too small.
Let me back up. During the training season you would participate in various meets. Some would be A meets (where you had to have A Time or better to qualify), some would be "open" meets where even folks who couldn't make B time could try. At those meets the coach would encourage us to enter every event, even the ones we sucked at. It didnt matter if you were somewhat fatigued, because you were working towards the end of the season.
During the season you couldn't shave, if the coach caught you shaving (yes they would run their finger up your calf to check for stubble), you had to swim in nylons for two weeks. I was in HS by this time and most non swimmers shaved their legs, so we all were freaks.
Some of us wore two or three suits during workouts. The idea was to fatigue our bodies to make us stronger by working harder than we needed to. Come the end of the season we would taper off the hard work and allow our bodies to reach their highest potential.
The meet at the end of the year (where AAA was the qualifying time) drew people from as far as WA and AZ. It was called Far Western, luckily it was based in San Jose near where we lived.
The next "time levels" were Jr National and Sr National. By the names it should be obvious that those events would draw swimmers from all over America. Senior Nationals were where the Olympians were selected. I never made it that far.
Once I turned 16 and got my driver's license, my team merged with another big team in the area. Friends on the team formed different cliques. My coach moved to a team in So Cal and I started dating. All of those factors caused me to lose interest.
There is a happy ending to the story. I did make it to the 1984 Olympics after all. In the band!