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?
Fortunately I live in an area where the meets are plentiful (Southern Calif. Los Angeles/Orange County), however, not all meets are built the same. I want to do more than just meets so I truly enjoy doing Postal Swims. With the Postal Swims you can do the "Meet" at your own local pool without having to travel a great distance. Plus, or rather all, the Postal Meets will send you ribbons, medals, trophys, certificates, or t-shirts (for a fee). They are great I highly recommend them. In your area contact the Minnesota Masters about their Postal Pentathlon series in December.
Last year I created my own meet to raise funds for the United Way. It was the 1st Annual Half Marathon Swim at the Los Angels Swim Stadium. It was great fun and I had a nice sunny day to do it.
There are a lot of fun workouts you can do too along the way. Do a little searching on the internet you will find you can compete at your local pool. Purchase a good stopwatch that can record times to the .001's.
Swim With Mike
www.swimwithmike.org/.../
Just putting this out there... Milwaukee is only about 5-5.5 hours drive from Des Moines, and WI masters has several meets in the Milwaukee or Madison (actually an hour closer to you) areas. Yes, it's a bit of a drive, but if you make a weekend of it... Also, I'm sure you'll find meets in the Chicago area too, which should be about the same distance from you. If your zone doesn't have the meets come on over to ours!
Thanks! And an added bonus, one of my good friends (who I met while she was attending Drake here in my neighborhood) lives in the Milwaukee area! That would save on hotel costs. :)
Fortunately I live in an area where there are meets are plentiful (Southern Calif. Los Angeles/Orange County), however, not all meets are built the same. I want to do more than just meets so I truly enjoy doing Postal Swims. With the Postal Swims you can do the "Meet" at your own local pool without having to travel a great distance. Plus, or rather all, the Postal Meets will send you ribbons, medals, trophys, certificates, or t-shirts (for a fee). They are great I highly recommend them. In your area contact the Minnesota Masters about their Postal Pentathlon series in December.
Last year I created my own meet to raise funds for the United Way. It was the 1st Annual Half Marathon Swim at the Los Angels Swim Stadium. It was great fun and I had a nice sunny day to do it.
There are a lot of fun workouts you can do too along the way. Do a little searching on the internet you will find you can compete at your local pool. Purchase a good stopwatch that can record times to the .001's.
Swim With Mike
www.swimwithmike.org/.../
That's a great idea. I've done postal running events before too. This is my second year doing the Go the Distance event. I'm not sure how well I'd do with postal events... are most of them long distance events? I'm not a distance swimmer at all.
I'm waiting for my first opportunity to swim 25 events, they don't seem to be too popular due to the increased equipment requirement. My next chance will be this year in Oct at the Dixie Zone SCM Championships (Rowdy Gaines Classic). A 6 hour drive
I am from Maine but am in Oregon for grad school. New England has so many more meets than Oregon does! I didn't realize how spoiled I was (even if a number of them were the silly Sprint Meet variety).
Anyway, you can swim out of your zone. I am registered with MESC but swam at a masters meet in Oregon about a month ago.
I really hate driving more than an hour to race but it looks like I am going to have to :-( I am fortunate that I get some random stuff like alumni meets and an intramural meet, so that's 2 extra opportunities a year.
I am from Maine but am in Oregon for grad school. New England has so many more meets than Oregon does! I didn't realize how spoiled I was (even if a number of them were the silly Sprint Meet variety).
Anyway, you can swim out of your zone. I am registered with MESC but swam at a masters meet in Oregon about a month ago.
I really hate driving more than an hour to race but it looks like I am going to have to :-( I am fortunate that I get some random stuff like alumni meets and an intramural meet, so that's 2 extra opportunities a year.
Welcome to Oregon.It seems like we don't have as many meets as we used to,but between OR and WA there are usually some good meets.The Assn Meet is frequently in Corvalis(maybe next year I hope). The Zone meet near Portland should be OK(here is the OMS calender if you don't have it www.swimoregon.org/calendar.php.)This years Assn Meet is in Bend(not my favorite venue) but the weekend before that is the PNA SCY meet at Federal Way.If you can get up there for that, it is a very fast pool.I may be at the Portland meet and definitely will be at Bend,so if we are at the same meet say "Hi".
Welcome to Oregon.It seems like we don't have as many meets as we used to,but between OR and WA there are usually some good meets.The Assn Meet is frequently in Corvalis(maybe next year I hope). The Zone meet near Portland should be OK(here is the OMS calender if you don't have it www.swimoregon.org/calendar.php.)This years Assn Meet is in Bend(not my favorite venue) but the weekend before that is the PNA SCY meet at Federal Way.If you can get up there for that, it is a very fast pool.I may be at the Portland meet and definitely will be at Bend,so if we are at the same meet say "Hi".
Hi!
Thanks for the welcome. Can you give me a link to the PNA SCY meet you mentioned?
I usually do 2-3 local meets per year, and for the past 2 years I've done the New England Masters SCM meet in Boston. My coaches usually put on a few good meets a year and encourage everyone from our team to participate. There typically are other meets in our LMSC, but I haven't done any for a long time.
Some swimmers complain that we don't have enough meets, but I'd guess there's about 10-12 masters meets in AZ every year. That certainly seems like more than enough for me. Other than going to the Boston meet, I typically don't have to drive more than 20 min to a meet.
