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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All great ideas!
Since you already know a meet warm up is not ideal due to the inability to recreate your workout routine, then work backwards from that, and not wonder what to do the eve of your warmup. MUST you get in certain yardage? MUST you do a certain pace set? MUST you hold certain intervals or test your speed on 25's? MUST you get in at a certain time? Are you completely inflexible with which pool to start/finish/warm up in? How about your diet? Can you drink coffee to assist with staying warm?
Where are you not willing to adjust, and what elements can you actively work on DURING THE SEASON so that you can be entirely flexible about it come race day warm up?
The last thing i'll post here is probably NOT what most masters do, but it works for me, and as Ande (sorry if it's someone else i'm not giving credit to) says, "What's good for me is only good for me" (You, him, her, but you get the idea), so with that, here's just one more idea: Train yourself to be ready with less warm up. 600 is fine for me.
I'm not very fast and a lethargic distance swimmer who needs lots of warm up. My solution: only go to regional meets and only go to Nationals when it is at Clovis North :cool:
The key is to get into a lane with people who are going to be doing the same thing as you. This is pretty easy to do if you are on a team. Just organize a warmup, and then all get in the same lane and continue to do the warmup until the lane clears out. Do not do this to be rude, but you deserve to warm up just as much as the next person.
The key is to get into a lane with people who are going to be doing the same thing as you. This is pretty easy to do if you are on a team. Just organize a warmup, and then all get in the same lane and continue to do the warmup until the lane clears out. Do not do this to be rude, but you deserve to warm up just as much as the next person.
I have a hard time warming up, but one of the things that works for me is to watch for a while and see if groups like this are forming -- they usually stop pretty much together, and you can sneak in at the tail end of it. It usually gives me a couple hundred before the lane fills up again.
Also, just take what you can get. If you have to get your yards in broken 25s, just do it.
