2013 Zones Championships

I am curious as a newbie masters swimmer do many people compete at zones and nationals and do they typically swim through zones or taper build and taper again. Just curious. So this may be more info than you want but I'm a data-driven kind of guy. If you look at meet in the USMS results database about 30% of USMS members compete in SOME pool-based meet during the course of the year. In our LMSC last year we looked at participation rates and they were pretty consistent with this (27% competed in meets) and if you included OW events it was almost 40% overall participation. The average number of events per person was 1.7. If you look at only nationals and zones, only about 32% of all the participants (ie, about 12% of the entire LMSC) competed in them. Keep in mind that in 2012 SCY zones and SCY nationals were both drivable meets for members of our LMSC. My feeling is that while there are certainly a number of people who compete in both zones and nationals, the majority pick one or the other, usually with more competing in zones compared to nationals if nationals requires a plane trip. In that case people would taper for whichever meet they attend. I would think that people who attend both meets would usually only taper for one meet (probably nationals) since they are typically about 3-4 weeks apart. Some people might do a drop-taper for zones and a full taper for nationals. They are somewhat different kinds of meets. Zones are usually smaller and so usually finish more quickly. But paradoxically, since you compete across age-groups (ie seeding is by time only) you sometimes may get better racing in zones than nationals. You are likely to know more people at zones than nationals and -- in our zone championships at least -- there is a full slate of relays so there is sometimes a little bit more of a team atmosphere because you probably do more relays and might have more team members attending. There are usually no qualifying standards for zones meets from what I can see. I like both types of meets. Pick either (or both), you can't go wrong.

I am curious as a newbie masters swimmer do many people compete at zones and nationals and do they typically swim through zones or taper build and taper again. Just curious. So this may be more info than you want but I'm a data-driven kind of guy. If you look at meet in the USMS results database about 30% of USMS members compete in SOME pool-based meet during the course of the year. In our LMSC last year we looked at participation rates and they were pretty consistent with this (27% competed in meets) and if you included OW events it was almost 40% overall participation. The average number of events per person was 1.7. If you look at only nationals and zones, only about 32% of all the participants (ie, about 12% of the entire LMSC) competed in them. Keep in mind that in 2012 SCY zones and SCY nationals were both drivable meets for members of our LMSC. My feeling is that while there are certainly a number of people who compete in both zones and nationals, the majority pick one or the other, usually with more competing in zones compared to nationals if nationals requires a plane trip. In that case people would taper for whichever meet they attend. I would think that people who attend both meets would usually only taper for one meet (probably nationals) since they are typically about 3-4 weeks apart. Some people might do a drop-taper for zones and a full taper for nationals. They are somewhat different kinds of meets. Zones are usually smaller and so usually finish more quickly. But paradoxically, since you compete across age-groups (ie seeding is by time only) you sometimes may get better racing in zones than nationals. You are likely to know more people at zones than nationals and -- in our zone championships at least -- there is a full slate of relays so there is sometimes a little bit more of a team atmosphere because you probably do more relays and might have more team members attending. There are usually no qualifying standards for zones meets from what I can see. I like both types of meets. Pick either (or both), you can't go wrong.