How many swimmers go to Nationals who *don't* meet the NQTs?

Kirstin, I can only offer my own perspective on this, but it sounds like you & I share some similar concerns. After 16 years out of the pool, I swam Masters meets in the Spring and Summer of 2013 weighing more than 335 lbs. Setting aside the anxiety and humiliation associated with looking like that (in a swimsuit, no less!), I -- like you -- was really worried about single-handedly adding time to meets and generally annoying people by my presence ("what is THAT guy doing here??"). What I found was a community of adult athletes who honor the USMS principle of inclusion and aren't interested in judging others on deck. Like you, when it came time to consider whether to swim USMS Nationals at Santa Clara, I still had some misgivings about showing up to a meet for which I had not qualified and potentially slowing down a meet that needs to run on a tight time schedule. I weigh 217 lbs. today, but I'm still several months and dozens of lbs. away from being competitive in my age group. An added complication is that I was only available for Thursday and Friday, so I would be swimming not my second and third-best events, but my fifth and sixth-best events, leaving even bigger gaps between my seed times and the seed times of the second-slowest swimmers in my age group for those events. I signed up anyway, hoping that the organizers and swimmers at USMS Nationals would accept me the way other meet organizers and swimmers have over the past year. To my horror, I found that there were only 11 swimmers in my age group in the 200 Back, meaning that if a single swimmer scratched, I would personally hold up the meet for more than 30 seconds (or even more if I didn't hit my taper). When the heat sheets were released, I was relieved to find that they put me in a heat with other slower seeds from other age groups, although I will still hold the meet up a bit even if I swim well. I think jroddin and others would say that my concerns (and your concerns) aren't warranted, and that no one cares about an extra 30 seconds, or minute, or whatever, as long as you enter the meet with legitimate seed times (which I always do). I'll let you know if I'm met with any snickering, eye rolling or general annoyance at USMS Nationals, but my strong hunch is that I won't be; this is just a really great community. Edit: To be clear, when I say that the original poster and I share similar concerns, I'm speaking only to the etiquette of holding up heats as a slower swimmer. The weight stuff is just specific to me.

Kirstin, I can only offer my own perspective on this, but it sounds like you & I share some similar concerns. After 16 years out of the pool, I swam Masters meets in the Spring and Summer of 2013 weighing more than 335 lbs. Setting aside the anxiety and humiliation associated with looking like that (in a swimsuit, no less!), I -- like you -- was really worried about single-handedly adding time to meets and generally annoying people by my presence ("what is THAT guy doing here??"). What I found was a community of adult athletes who honor the USMS principle of inclusion and aren't interested in judging others on deck. Like you, when it came time to consider whether to swim USMS Nationals at Santa Clara, I still had some misgivings about showing up to a meet for which I had not qualified and potentially slowing down a meet that needs to run on a tight time schedule. I weigh 217 lbs. today, but I'm still several months and dozens of lbs. away from being competitive in my age group. An added complication is that I was only available for Thursday and Friday, so I would be swimming not my second and third-best events, but my fifth and sixth-best events, leaving even bigger gaps between my seed times and the seed times of the second-slowest swimmers in my age group for those events. I signed up anyway, hoping that the organizers and swimmers at USMS Nationals would accept me the way other meet organizers and swimmers have over the past year. To my horror, I found that there were only 11 swimmers in my age group in the 200 Back, meaning that if a single swimmer scratched, I would personally hold up the meet for more than 30 seconds (or even more if I didn't hit my taper). When the heat sheets were released, I was relieved to find that they put me in a heat with other slower seeds from other age groups, although I will still hold the meet up a bit even if I swim well. I think jroddin and others would say that my concerns (and your concerns) aren't warranted, and that no one cares about an extra 30 seconds, or minute, or whatever, as long as you enter the meet with legitimate seed times (which I always do). I'll let you know if I'm met with any snickering, eye rolling or general annoyance at USMS Nationals, but my strong hunch is that I won't be; this is just a really great community. Edit: To be clear, when I say that the original poster and I share similar concerns, I'm speaking only to the etiquette of holding up heats as a slower swimmer. The weight stuff is just specific to me.