2013 Zones Championships

i plan on being the head timer of the lane you swim in Ande. don't worry, my atrophied right side will ensure slow reactions! :banana:

Arizona State plus Southwest Zone meet down near Tucson also kicks off Friday -- www.saddlebrookeswimclub.org/.../

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.

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.

The NW SCY Zone meet happened a couple weeks ago in Oregon...I was just looking at our website as I was updating it yesterday, and realized that. :) I didn't see any results or anything from it, but it'll be out soon I'm sure. www.swimoregon.org

Lance Armstrong's entered. You can bet they'll be asking about post event drug testing. :bolt:

I'll be heading to the Iowa/Breadbasket Zone meet this Saturday! It will be my first meet of the year. www.usms.org/.../event.php

You can bet they'll be asking about post event drug testing. :bolt: This article appeared this morning in one of the UK's national newspapers(it's one of the trashier newspapers): www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Lance-Armstrong-return-competitive-sport-swimmer-weekend.html Its a bit disappointing that they don't even get there facts right in the article about the meet and who Lance will be competing against, but I guess that's how they sell there newspaper.

This article appeared this morning in one of the UK's national newspapers(it's one of the trashier newspapers): www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Lance-Armstrong-return-competitive-sport-swimmer-weekend.html Its a bit disappointing that they don't even get there facts right in the article about the meet and who Lance will be competing against, but I guess that's how they sell there newspaper. The Daily Mail is pretty much the UK's version of The National Inquirer, so it's without a doubt trashy (as you said). They definitely got facts wrong, but compared to a lot of other things I've read in that rag, this article isn't that far from the truth.

the gap between my zones(south central) and Nationals seems too close to me to even do a drop taper and then a full taper for Nationals. It's a shame there is not better coordination between the Zone and National events so we could do two both, like in college with Conference and NCAAs. You think so? I thought in college there was only something like three weeks between conference meets and NCAAs. You've got five weeks between now and USMS Nationals.