I'm guilty of it. I imagine we're all guilty of it: seeing a meet announcement and seeing our favorite two events back to back, or four events we want to swim on one day and then only 1 then next day. We get irritated and wonder why the meet director couldn't have designed this to better suit our needs? We moan at workout, whine on the forums, ***** on our blogs, etc. I'd like to encourage my fellow forumites to join me in taking a pledge:
I hereby pledge to:
just be grateful that there are volunteers, teams and facilities willing to host Masters meets,
recognize that no matter how hard these dedicated volunteers try, they'll never be able to create the order of events that satisfies all Masters swimmer,
recognize that, even if I can't swim those two favorite events in this meet because they are back to back (or whatever my complaint is), I've got a multi-decade Masters career ahead of me in which to swim them at different meets,
to, therefore, stop whining/moaning about the order of events, and
look at a different order of events as an opportunity to branch out and try new events!
Signed,
Patrick "Indebted to Masters Meet Directors/Officials/Volunteers" Brundage
I'd like to think I don't whine or :bitching: about this, but I don't think it is outlandish to state that perhaps my preferred events are too close together. When I blog about it, I just try to explain my thought process in picking out events. I know that the higher powers won't change the program for me, but others might gain a small piece of insight from my planning. I think we all appreciate the opportunities we have to compete, so the original pledge points seem legit.
I'm also pledging to say thank you to the timers in my lane, the officials, and the people working the scoring table. It's always great to feel appreciated and I'm going to do some serious appreciating.
I'm there with you on this. I have thanked timers and officials at all the meets I've been too, as well as most of the directors. Even the lifeguards or age groupers working as fundraisers like the recognition. :applaud:
No one in our local meets ever enters the 200 back. Otherwise a good attempt :D
That is the secret to my success in the 200 back - lack of participation :D
Yeah, I wasn't thinking of Nats. It seems like many other meets default to women first. Just saw that on the Harvard entry form.
I've yet to be in a meet where the sexes are split up for the events. I guess there's not really enough men/women in the west/northwest to make it worth splitting up the events. It'd probably make the meets 50% or more longer in time by doing so.
One day I'll venture back East and see what this is all about. :)
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Oh yeah...I almost forgot...I accept the pledge of whatever we're all pledging on. :D
That is the secret to my success in the 200 back - lack of participation :D
Me too...since my backstroke usually isn't quite my specialty...but somehow I've managed to sneak into the TTs recently. :)
And why do women always have to swim first?
I always thought there was a "ladies before gentlemen" protocol at swim meets and don't remember it any other way when I was a kid. When my daughter joined a summer league a few years ago I was shocked to see the boys events first.
Really? PV really is wimpy...we have 100 strokes for the upper age-groups. I can't remember exactly, I think only the "non-Novice" swimmers actually do them.
My daughter's summer league has 100 free for the unlimiteds, but 50s for the other strokes.
We probably have fewer swimmers, though the meets last long enough. My son requested NOT to do summer league this year because he was so frustrated with the late-night meets (which would go even later with thunderstorms). He prefers to do only USA-S swimming in the summer. That makes me a little sad, when I was a kid summer league swimming was a blast even through HS.
We have the same problem with kids doing only USA-S. They get to be about 13 and just don't want to deal with summer league any more.
So for good event order, here are the rules as I understand them from recent threads:
No two events of the same stroke back to back (e.g. 50 *** and 100 ***)
No two events of the same distance back to back (e.g. 100 back and 100 fly)
No 50's back to back with the 100 IM or 100 free
No 100's back to back with the 200 IM
No 200's back to back with the 400 IM
Distance events of 400+ should be spaced apart
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Please pick apart any problems that you see with this one-day meet schedule that I just created from scratch:
200 fly
100 back
200 ***
50 free
200 IM
50 fly
200 back
50 ***
400 IM
100 free
100 fly
50 back
100 ***
200 free
100 IM
No one in our local meets ever enters the 200 back. Otherwise a good attempt :D
Nothing would make me happier than for 1 day meets to start at 1:00 pm!
Just come to the NW!!! There's quite a few meets like that, at least in the Inland NW LMSC. We try to allow for morning travel time for people, and then 5-6 hours of meet, and then drive home in the evenings.
Nationals is a bit different, they tend to be huge, and there's usually enough heats to get plenty of rest on back to back races.
It would be nice if we could enter more than 6 individual races at Nats
why not 8 or 9
Exactly!! I would love to see our 2 day LMSC meets in the area allow more than 6 events over a 2 day meet as well. 3 a day seems like nothing when I'm so used to doing 5 events plus relays at all other 1 day meets.
I swam a meet where the 50 free and the 100 free were back to back, now that deserves some whining (; I mean who designs it like that
This is called Revenge of The Distance Swimmers. I mean, stringing together a whole 150 yards in probably under an hour, that's downright cruel. Or, is it really?
