From the thread on tapering:
For the last few weeks, I experiment with a meet warm-up.
I've never raced that much, and haven't been to a meet in a couple years except to watch, however, the thing that always bothered me most about meets was actually trying to warm up. I found it virtually impossible to do anything useful in a lane with 13 people, five of whom are chatting at the walls, and the other seven of whom were (trying to) do something much different than I was or doing it at a much different pace. I frequently would give up after a few minutes and just get out.
Skip
From the thread on tapering:
I've never raced that much, and haven't been to a meet in a couple years except to watch, however, the thing that always bothered me most about meets was actually trying to warm up. I found it virtually impossible to do anything useful in a lane with 13 people, five of whom are chatting at the walls, and the other seven of whom were (trying to) do something much different than I was or doing it at a much different pace. I frequently would give up after a few minutes and just get out.
Skip
Definitely aggravating. Sometimes you can't do anything about it.
1. The pool is usually less crowded very early or very late.
2. If they have pace lanes (not sure how common this is at USMS meets), just do your warmup entirely in groups of 50's.
3. If in the normal lanes, I might go extra slow at times to try and create an open pocket in front of me where I can then build/sprint if only for a short distance.
From the thread on tapering:
I've never raced that much, and haven't been to a meet in a couple years except to watch, however, the thing that always bothered me most about meets was actually trying to warm up. I found it virtually impossible to do anything useful in a lane with 13 people, five of whom are chatting at the walls, and the other seven of whom were (trying to) do something much different than I was or doing it at a much different pace. I frequently would give up after a few minutes and just get out.
Skip
Definitely aggravating. Sometimes you can't do anything about it.
1. The pool is usually less crowded very early or very late.
2. If they have pace lanes (not sure how common this is at USMS meets), just do your warmup entirely in groups of 50's.
3. If in the normal lanes, I might go extra slow at times to try and create an open pocket in front of me where I can then build/sprint if only for a short distance.
