Mission Viejo had very good facilities, great weather, superb organization, and the best hosts. Overall a great meet.
However, as commented in another thread, there were lots of no shows. In four of five events I had an empty lane next to me. This is not the best racing environment, and it makes the meet last longer than necessary. I am not critical of the people that did not show up -- I was one of them on Thursday, as an emergency at work made me arrive a day late.
On deck seeding would be a simple and easy solution.
Evidently some people like to know a day or days in advance who will swim in their heat. However, the way it worked for me, I found out as I walked up to the block who would *not* be swimming. *That's* lots of opportunity to get psyched! (not)
I don't think the way this meet was seeded (check in for distance events, advanced seeding for the other events) was a very good compromise. This was my first non-deck seeded masters meet, and I did not enjoy that aspect of it.
Even thought it may cut down on the empty lanes to a degree, deck seeding is no guarantee that there will be no empty lanes.
Heck, I've seen some deck seeded 200 fly's where there's only one or two people in it.
IIRC the small % of the time savings to deck seeding heats in short events 50's and 100's was actually offset by the breaks in the timeline it would take to deck seed the events, so the result would be fewer empty lanes, longer breaks in between the events and little bit longer days.
I believe the 200's were a tossup.
Also, I think it boils down to instead of working 2-3 hours agfter the close of the day, the admin people would have to work 3-5 or so hours after the close of the meet each day.
Personally, I swim the best races when I don't worry about people next to me.
Even thought it may cut down on the empty lanes to a degree, deck seeding is no guarantee that there will be no empty lanes.
Heck, I've seen some deck seeded 200 fly's where there's only one or two people in it.
IIRC the small % of the time savings to deck seeding heats in short events 50's and 100's was actually offset by the breaks in the timeline it would take to deck seed the events, so the result would be fewer empty lanes, longer breaks in between the events and little bit longer days.
I believe the 200's were a tossup.
Also, I think it boils down to instead of working 2-3 hours agfter the close of the day, the admin people would have to work 3-5 or so hours after the close of the meet each day.
Personally, I swim the best races when I don't worry about people next to me.
