Seeding - Seed Time vs Actual Time

I understand that you need to swim your own race. I get that. But it is hardly a "race" when you are lapped by the swimmer in the next lane because he intentionally sandbagged his time and is seeded in the wrong heat.I get that. But, even in perfectly seeded heats, people can be legitimately faster or slower than their times or playing around with different race strategies. Further ... On 50s, let's be honest, there's really not much of a strategy or much time to contemplate what your heatmates are doing On 100s, you might have a little more time to react to another swimmer's strategy, but, by the time you do, the race is probably over I will give you that, possibly in the 200 free at Nationals, you'll have enough depth of swimmers to create heats where you can legitimately race & pace against multiple swimmers; in the IMs and the strokes, the time differentials between lane 4 and lane 8 are usually so large that each swimmer is, at best, really racing against 1 or maybe 2 swimmers ... but they are often on the other side of the pool where you can't see them anyway On 400s and above, it is exceedingly rare in Masters that you have enough time parity between multiple swimmers in the same race to really create race & pace conditions across the heat. I just think too many people are getting their swim trunks in a bunch over this issue. And, while I don't sandbag as a routine or even frequent practice, I have done it. My (probably not) last word on the subject is this: if you are truly so concerned about what the other swimmers in your heat are going to do, then you can easily find out what you should expect them to do (see times database, study past meet results, talk with other swimmers, etc.) and fully negate any supposed impact their anomalous swim will have on your mindset.

I understand that you need to swim your own race. I get that. But it is hardly a "race" when you are lapped by the swimmer in the next lane because he intentionally sandbagged his time and is seeded in the wrong heat.I get that. But, even in perfectly seeded heats, people can be legitimately faster or slower than their times or playing around with different race strategies. Further ... On 50s, let's be honest, there's really not much of a strategy or much time to contemplate what your heatmates are doing On 100s, you might have a little more time to react to another swimmer's strategy, but, by the time you do, the race is probably over I will give you that, possibly in the 200 free at Nationals, you'll have enough depth of swimmers to create heats where you can legitimately race & pace against multiple swimmers; in the IMs and the strokes, the time differentials between lane 4 and lane 8 are usually so large that each swimmer is, at best, really racing against 1 or maybe 2 swimmers ... but they are often on the other side of the pool where you can't see them anyway On 400s and above, it is exceedingly rare in Masters that you have enough time parity between multiple swimmers in the same race to really create race & pace conditions across the heat. I just think too many people are getting their swim trunks in a bunch over this issue. And, while I don't sandbag as a routine or even frequent practice, I have done it. My (probably not) last word on the subject is this: if you are truly so concerned about what the other swimmers in your heat are going to do, then you can easily find out what you should expect them to do (see times database, study past meet results, talk with other swimmers, etc.) and fully negate any supposed impact their anomalous swim will have on your mindset.