Tomorrow morning is my very first swim meet. I'm very nervous but it was time for me to finally see what I could do in competition versus practice. There are so many things that can go wrong like forgetting to exhale well under water, running out of steam during my 100 free, forgetting stoke mechanics, diving too deep, etc. I don't care how i do compared to others, I'm competing with myself. I always imagined my race times would be faster than my practice times and I know i will be very disappointed if that's not the case. Any words of advice on how to mentally approach this wold be greatly appreciated. Like you wet the bed in your first meet but it got better in subsequent meets:D.
One other question; how do I control the depth of my dive on entry. I rarely every get to practice dives because our pool doesn't allow dives off the blocks unless with the team/coach. So I can only practice it off the pool edge (my masters team doesn't do much start practice). Should I arch my back on head and trunk entry or angle my hands up? If I dive too deep (I hardly have a superb dolphin kick to compensate), I'm toast. It's pretty much hit or miss with me now.
Thanks.
Tomorrow should be a fun and memorable day for you.
My advise:
1) Don't overthink things, or get overwhelmed. Just do the steps that you need to do to race. Focus on one thing at a time, something like this: Get a good warmup. Keep track of the meet timeline. Get to the staging area on time for your race. Store your towel, flip-flops and whatever where you will find them easily after your race. Get to the blocks on time. Get your goggles on when the heet before yours is in the water. Get up on the starting blocks when called/whistled. When the horn blares, you will know what to do! Focusing on each small step helps keep the nerves in check and makes sure you don't miss someting critical.
2) About starts. I gather that you have done at least a few starts before and are confident you can do them without knocking yourself on the bottom of the pool. Assuming this is true and that you can do a reasonable start from the deck in practice, you should be able to do a good-enough start for your first meet. I would suggest that you try a few in warmup and play with it little until you get something that feels "ok." Don't do a whole bunch of starts as you will just make your legs tired. You can't learn a great start in one meet warmup. The objective here it to get the race started safely, legally and efficiently, with that order of priorities. Remember, it is legal to start from the deck and nobody will laugh at you or think lesser of you if you choose to do so for safety.
Good luck and have fun!
Tomorrow should be a fun and memorable day for you.
My advise:
1) Don't overthink things, or get overwhelmed. Just do the steps that you need to do to race. Focus on one thing at a time, something like this: Get a good warmup. Keep track of the meet timeline. Get to the staging area on time for your race. Store your towel, flip-flops and whatever where you will find them easily after your race. Get to the blocks on time. Get your goggles on when the heet before yours is in the water. Get up on the starting blocks when called/whistled. When the horn blares, you will know what to do! Focusing on each small step helps keep the nerves in check and makes sure you don't miss someting critical.
2) About starts. I gather that you have done at least a few starts before and are confident you can do them without knocking yourself on the bottom of the pool. Assuming this is true and that you can do a reasonable start from the deck in practice, you should be able to do a good-enough start for your first meet. I would suggest that you try a few in warmup and play with it little until you get something that feels "ok." Don't do a whole bunch of starts as you will just make your legs tired. You can't learn a great start in one meet warmup. The objective here it to get the race started safely, legally and efficiently, with that order of priorities. Remember, it is legal to start from the deck and nobody will laugh at you or think lesser of you if you choose to do so for safety.
Good luck and have fun!
