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!
Good luck in your meet tomorrow. I think the most important thing to do is just to relax. You have nothing to lose, right? If you over think it, you'll psych yourself out. I've learned that many times over.
In the warm up definitely spend as much time as you can afford practicing your block starts if you feel inexperienced. Again, don't over think it or get frustrated that you don't have enough time.
I'm not experienced at coaching so I may not be great at explaining the dive. As you know you want a shallow dive. One way of achieving this is trying to dive as far out as possible. You want to imagine that you're going to enter the water as far out towards the flags as possible. When jumping you want to be jumping out horizontally OUT towards the flags- not up and not down.
I assume you're doing the track start. So on the block put one leg on the front of the block and one towards the back. On the block start make sure your back is straight, not arched. Your arms should be straight as well. Lean back slightly to achieve some tension When the signal goes, push as hard off the blocks, simultaneously using your legs and arms. You should extend your body outwards Your head should be tucked with your arms squeezing inwards towards your head. Your legs should be very straight. Keep them tight so they do not bend when you hit the water. Entry should occur first with your hands. Your drive should shallow, because your going to have to commence kicking and when you hit the surface (or just before) start swimming.
Back in high school my coach decided to have one of our freshman divers swim a 50 free in a meet. She had never been in a race before. The horn sounded, she dove in, and dove straight to the bottom of the pool. I didn't know she was in the race (I was watching as this was the 2 heat) and thought someone was drowning. She swam back up to the surface, almost horizontally, and swam the rest of the race. Amazingly, she ended up coming in second to last!
It sounds like you have a good mindset. Just don't over think it. If you don't get the results you expected, there's always next time. That's what swimming is about.
Good Luck!
Thanks guys. 27.75 50 free, 35. something 50 fly (time for me to more seriously work on fly), 1:05.something 100 free, 1:23.something IM. I left little time between 100Free and IM, learned my lesson, lol. My starts and turns need a lot of work, but glad I took the first step. Here are the links (I'll post IM later). I was advised to pace myself on the 100 free first 50, I think I may have over paced myself because I had a fair amount left in the tank at the end.
50 free
First Meet, 50 free Mar 4 2012 - YouTube
50 fly
www.youtube.com/watch
100 free
www.youtube.com/watch
100 free relay, for some comic relief (goggles in mouth)
www.youtube.com/watch
He did great!! I managed to catch his 50 free and 100 IM while I was there just to cheer.
Thanks Allison. Get that shoulder better so we can cheer each other on.
