pre-meet jitters

I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets nervous about swimming in meets. Right? :blush: I don't worry so much about how I will compare to the other swimmers. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that because I can't even come close to them. I know that I'm really only competing with myself. Do those of you who are top-notch swimmers get nervous about not winning? I just worry about not doing well. I worry about messing up and looking stupid. I worry that I will look like a fool and have to remind myself that Masters swimmers are wonderful, non-judgmental people. :D The thing that sucks is that I work my butt off (and I know I've gotten better!), but I have a tendency to get bummed as the meet gets closer because I feel like I still have SO far to go. Maybe I'm just too hard on myself. I swam on Thursday and felt LESS ready than I did two weeks ago. I don't know if my nerves just affected my swimming or what... Anyway. I often end up feeling like 'Why am I doing this?' as a meet gets closer rather than 'Let's do this!'. Today I'm getting my gear ready to go and trying to just remind myself that I'm only competing against myself and I KNOW I've improved since my last competition (last summer) - and that's the whole point, right? :agree: What do you all get nervous about before your meets?