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.
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For big meets meets that I have tapered for, I will sometimes research other nearby pools and use them for my main warmup and warmdown, and just do a little pre-event warmup at the main pool. This works especially well at a big multi-day meet like nationals, where the importance of swimming in the competition pool to notice markings and such is less after the first day, and where the time-line often means that a later warmup will work better for those not swimming the first event. You can often find pools with lapswim hours where you get your own lane within 10-20 minutes of the competition site. It's worth investigating, although not something I would go to the trouble of doing for smaller in-season competitions.
For big meets meets that I have tapered for, I will sometimes research other nearby pools and use them for my main warmup and warmdown, and just do a little pre-event warmup at the main pool. This works especially well at a big multi-day meet like nationals, where the importance of swimming in the competition pool to notice markings and such is less after the first day, and where the time-line often means that a later warmup will work better for those not swimming the first event. You can often find pools with lapswim hours where you get your own lane within 10-20 minutes of the competition site. It's worth investigating, although not something I would go to the trouble of doing for smaller in-season competitions.
