Last year (summer) I participated in my first two swim meets (ever!). I went to Summer Nationals in Omaha and also swam in the Iowa Games, here in Iowa. I really enjoyed both. The latter was much more laid back and super fun and made me want to do more meets! The problem is, we don't have many around here.
Iowa is part of the breadbasket zone. There are a handful of meets in MN, KS, MO, etc... and the zone meet (lucky for me) is just east of Des Moines (where I live). But I find that most of the meets I'm able to find that are within 4hrs drive of me are in the Great Lakes zone. Does anyone have to swim out of their zone in order to attend more meets? With 5 kids (who are also all swimmers) and only one vehicle, it's quite challenging to have to travel to get to meets. Is it weird to attend more meets in another zone (I'm assuming it's not against the rules?)?
Just random questions as I'm still quite new to all of this. I'm excited to be a Masters member and really enjoy competing, but it's a lot of work in my particular area. My local Masters group decided last year to go summer only, leaving me only about 6-7wks of swimming with a Masters group. The rest of the year I'm on my own. Luckily my kids' coach is nice enough to let me join their practices and I've been swimming with them for their whole fall/winter season - they're not a USA team though but just a local age group team.
Anyway... What do you all do? How far do you travel to compete? Do you drive a bit farther to get to Masters meet? or if there aren't any, do you just swim the USAS meets?
In western New England, there are not a lot of opportunities nearby for competition. Add in work and family commitments, and the window is narrowed further. I will travel up to 5 hours (Portland, ME) for a meet, only due to my best friends living in the city and offering a great weekend away to meet up with my swimming buddies there. Most meets are 2-3 hours away (Boston), so that is standard travel time for me.
I have been successful so far in creating meets closer to home: this will be the second year that I will be "director" for a recognized meet in my hometown pool (can't get closer than that!), and I have worked with some coaches in this neck of the woods to create a Western New England meet in a few weeks at a pool about 90 minutes away. Another great local thing that I put on twice a year is a squad meet; entry fee is a donation to the local food shelf (our team gets active in the community this way) and we swim 25's, 50's and 100's in what equates to a great lactate workout! In December we even took on the local age group team and had a nearby team join us. A fun way to change up practice and get some experience with racing for folks that have never competed before.
I asked around to folks within the forums when setting up the recognized meet last year and had great feedback. I can help you if that is something that you might want to do. Hint: I have the local age group (USAS) team run the meet and our entry fees serve as a fundraiser for them, so the biggest pain I had was measuring the darn pool so that times count for USMS (even that was not a big deal, and now I don't have to worry about it again, especially if any Men's Health reporters come up for a splash!)
:wiggle:
In western New England, there are not a lot of opportunities nearby for competition. Add in work and family commitments, and the window is narrowed further. I will travel up to 5 hours (Portland, ME) for a meet, only due to my best friends living in the city and offering a great weekend away to meet up with my swimming buddies there. Most meets are 2-3 hours away (Boston), so that is standard travel time for me.
I have been successful so far in creating meets closer to home: this will be the second year that I will be "director" for a recognized meet in my hometown pool (can't get closer than that!), and I have worked with some coaches in this neck of the woods to create a Western New England meet in a few weeks at a pool about 90 minutes away. Another great local thing that I put on twice a year is a squad meet; entry fee is a donation to the local food shelf (our team gets active in the community this way) and we swim 25's, 50's and 100's in what equates to a great lactate workout! In December we even took on the local age group team and had a nearby team join us. A fun way to change up practice and get some experience with racing for folks that have never competed before.
I asked around to folks within the forums when setting up the recognized meet last year and had great feedback. I can help you if that is something that you might want to do. Hint: I have the local age group (USAS) team run the meet and our entry fees serve as a fundraiser for them, so the biggest pain I had was measuring the darn pool so that times count for USMS (even that was not a big deal, and now I don't have to worry about it again, especially if any Men's Health reporters come up for a splash!)
:wiggle:
