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?
This is certainly an option and really only depends on your comfort level swimming with (and against) kids rather than adults. I train with a USAS team and swim USAS meets from time to time, but I prefer to swim masters meets. If there were very few masters meets in the area I would definitely swim more USAS meets.
I train with a USAS team like Kirk does, and I swim both USAS meets and masters meets. While the majority of my meets are masters meets, I do attend my fair share of USAS meets as well, though I may only hit one day of those meets, unless they're local. I travel 3 hours on average to my meets. My town is located on the border of the Inland NW, and the PNA LMSCs so I kind of have a nice shot of going either way, plus it's not far to the Portland area for other Oregon LMSC meets, and I have family in that area too. The worst part of all these meets, is the $$$$$. :) But the racing is fun, and that's why I do it.
I do enjoy training with the kids a lot. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy swimming against them. lol... I might look into doing some of the USAS meets, I think we have a couple local and a couple more that are withing a couple hours of here that the team my Masters group is with participates in. Do you have to also be a member of USAS to participate? Part of what's frustrating about meets being so far from home is the travel expenses. I guess if I have to pay more to be in the meets but save on travel money, then it might at least even out.
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.
That's a great idea. I might look into doing that next year. Maybe I can put some feelers out at the Iowa Games this summer (I met swimmers from some of the other Iowa Masters groups there last year) and see if there's enough interest. There seems to be so few locals who would be interested. Most people I come across (even a couple of my kids' coaches) have never even heard of Masters Swimming.
This is certainly an option and really only depends on your comfort level swimming with (and against) kids rather than adults. I train with a USAS team and swim USAS meets from time to time, but I prefer to swim masters meets. If there were very few masters meets in the area I would definitely swim more USAS meets.
I train with a USAS team like Kirk does, and I swim both USAS meets and masters meets. While the majority of my meets are masters meets, I do attend my fair share of USAS meets as well, though I may only hit one day of those meets, unless they're local. I travel 3 hours on average to my meets. My town is located on the border of the Inland NW, and the PNA LMSCs so I kind of have a nice shot of going either way, plus it's not far to the Portland area for other Oregon LMSC meets, and I have family in that area too. The worst part of all these meets, is the $$$$$. :) But the racing is fun, and that's why I do it.
I do enjoy training with the kids a lot. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy swimming against them. lol... I might look into doing some of the USAS meets, I think we have a couple local and a couple more that are withing a couple hours of here that the team my Masters group is with participates in. Do you have to also be a member of USAS to participate? Part of what's frustrating about meets being so far from home is the travel expenses. I guess if I have to pay more to be in the meets but save on travel money, then it might at least even out.
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.
That's a great idea. I might look into doing that next year. Maybe I can put some feelers out at the Iowa Games this summer (I met swimmers from some of the other Iowa Masters groups there last year) and see if there's enough interest. There seems to be so few locals who would be interested. Most people I come across (even a couple of my kids' coaches) have never even heard of Masters Swimming.
