2013 Zones Championships

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. Is that the paper that opens like a book with a scantily clad woman inside? tee hee hee! I think it's funny how (the online version at least!) cuts and pastes the old heat sheet and circles his name in red. I agree there are clearly unfactual or unchecked assertions made, but it is remarkable accurate for non-swimmers reporting on a a swimming issue. Also, IT IS ABSOLUTELY THRILLING TO HEAR "MASTERS SOUTH CENTRAL ZONE CHAMPIONSHIPS" over and over in the news! And the reporter said it really slow on our local TV last night, like they had no idea what they were saying and were reading it real careful like so as not to mess it up!

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 think some of that depends on the region. If you live in an area where there are lots of meet so to choose from, you might be more selective. I, personally, did my very first meet ever last summer at Summer Nationals. I would have loved to do at least one meet before that to kind of warm up, but there simply were none to be had around here. This spring, I really wanted to go to Spring Nationals. But we just can't afford it. I am, however, doing our zone meet as it's only an hour from home. Then I have a SCM meet in two weeks that's about 2 hours from home. Pickings are slim around here, so I grab whatever I can. :) As far as tapering, I did taper for tomorrow's meet (zones). I will probably work a little harder this next week and then cut back just a little bit before the next meet. But I'm not planning on pushing super hard or anything leading up to it.

Is that the paper that opens like a book with a scantily clad woman inside? tee hee hee! No the paper you are thinking about is the Sun. Ironically they have an article today about his withdrawal with comments from Sharon Davies, a silver medalist from the 1980 Moscow games. www.thesun.co.uk/.../Lance-Armstrong-swim-bid-return-sinks-as-Sharron-Davies-joins-his-critics.html It's hard as a former Brit to take any pride in the quality of British newspapers!

So this may be more info than you want but I'm a data-driven kind of guy. There is nothing wrong with data and your explanation was very good, thank you. I was surprised how many of my masters team mates are religious about training but don't compete in any competitions. 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. Obviously taper duration will vary from person to person and the events they focus on, but 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.

Pacific Masters is updating results of their meet throughout the day on Swimphone. South Central Zone: nothing anywhere. It appears they are using the HyTek meet manager and the meet is under the auspicies of Texas Aquatics, but nothing is available that I can find. The MeetMobile app has the South Central Zones but you have to search under "Masters Southern Zones".

Pacific Masters is updating results of their meet throughout the day on Swimphone. South Central Zone: nothing anywhere. It appears they are using the HyTek meet manager and the meet is under the auspicies of Texas Aquatics, but nothing is available that I can find.

The MeetMobile app has the South Central Zones but you have to search under "Masters Southern Zones". Does that mean I can only see it on my phone? I'll wait.

There are live results through the Longhorn Aquatics page. Under the Meets tab the real-time results link will pull them up. You mean the page that has the March 7-9 meet? www.utexas.edu/.../

I'm not sure what you mean but I looked at the results from today earlier on the afternoon Weird. I tried what is probably the same thing you did but only got a US Swimming meet from last month. My interest in this meet is trivial, but I want to find something when I look for it. Can you post a link to results that you viewed?

The link above is working for me, and appears to be current (the Saturday results are posted, the Sunday results still pending)