To compete or not to compete that is the question

Wookie, I feel bad you are getting heat. I deliberately did not post your name because this was a fear I had. I think you represent a large group who don't enjoy meets and I want to understand why. Your reasons make sense and I suspect hold true for quite a few. I appreciate your directness and respect your reasons. Stewart, Thank you. There was no point in denying the comment, since my name is attached to it on your blog. Like you wanted to understand why someone doesn't like to go to meets, I ask my question to understand why you were so passionate about going, which you have answered as well. I have a ton of respect for Jeff Roddin. He is entitled to his opinion on my post. I don't believe that I was trying to discourage anyone from going to meets, if they wanted to go. If Jeff feels that my post was doing so, I respect his view.

As others said I go to meets to give me something to motivate me to workout harder.Another thing is fighting aging.If I go to a meet and swim well I feel like I have pushed back Father Time for awhile longer.I know he wins in the end,but I want to keep ahead of him for as long as possible.I get that positive feedback some in workouts,but I doubt I'd try as hard in workouts without a meet.

I'm in the UK and chairman of a club with ~120 members, of which maybe a quarter will compete once or twice a year, and about 10% will do more than that, so I recognise the issue both from a numbers perspective and from the arguments. Personally, I love to compete - but not too often, and I won't go too far to do it. I have other commitments, and I also don't want it to become boring. A lot of our guys will limit the number of meets they are prepared to do and the distance they are prepared to travel - whether it's for Nationals, Euros, Worlds doesn't make a massive difference. You can't really argue with that, as it is down to preference. There are, however, a number of issues that we do need to try to address as clubs- which have all been articulated already, such as first time misconceptions, ex-swimmers comparing their times to the past, etc. We do need to give encouragement without being pushy, because many of our members (who are most welcome) just want to stay fit. Simple messages for me: - You're not an age-grouper now and if you go to a meet, you go through your own choice. - Your first masters meet is an opportunity to reset your times, and your first meet in a new age group likewise. - Don't get hung up on how 'good' you are or used to be. Neither will improve your enjoyment of the event. - You're not going to stand out for being 'slow'. Because of time seeding and the wide age range, literally anything goes. - It's not medals that matter, nor even times, but having fun and challenging yourself to do something active. - Masters meets can be great socially, particularly going to a big meet with a big team; but at any meet if you talk to the people that you're swimming 'against' there's a good chance that you'll make new friends.

I compete in meets because I need a goal to shoot for during the season ... this is what keeps me coming back to practice and working hard. But there are many that I swim with who have a much different goal ... just doing something that keeps me going. My wife, who is a runner, ran almost 2,000 miles last year and has no desire to compete. It's taken me a while to figure that one out, but I finally understand that she does it primarily for her mental health ... it's her time to get away from it all when she's on her daily run. I am swimming in a USS meet this weekend ... the last time I swam this meet I was 19 years old. I'm petrified. I get nervous enough in Masters meets when I'm swimming against people much closer in age. Now it's me against the 13-18 year old kids in the heats. I'm actually swimming in some of the same events as the son of a guy I swam with in college. I called him and told him to let his son know not to worry as I wouldn't be tapering for this meet ... hah! He's only 20 - 25 seconds faster than me in the 200 free. I'm just hoping not to make a fool out of myself and will try to have "fun". Being the old guy in a USS meet can be part of the fun. The kids will think you are too old anyway. The worst thing that can happen is that you meet their expectations, but the likelihood is that you'll get kudos for mixing it with them.

I am like smontanaro - I am pretty shy, and I swim "unattached" as there is no swim team in my area, so for me to go to a meet means sitting around trying not to look like a sore thumb. I went to a large meet last year and signed up for the dinner/social thing, but it was a sit down dinner so not much chance to socialize. I am not complaining...it's my issue that I am shy...I am just answering the question as to why I don't go to meets.

As others said I go to meets to give me something to motivate me to workout harder.Another thing is fighting aging.If I go to a meet and swim well I feel like I have pushed back Father Time for awhile longer.I know he wins in the end,but I want to keep ahead of him for as long as possible.I get that positive feedback some in workouts,but I doubt I'd try as hard in workouts without a meet. All the individual reasons to compete or not to compete are of course correct and good reasons for each swimmer. However they don't address the very important issue of getting meet attendance up. Meet swimmers keep the organization going. There are few non meet swimmers who volunteer on any level to keep USMS going. There are some notable exceptions to this but they are few and far between. Meets that are financial losses seldom repeat the following year and often are gone for a long time. In my opinion any workout club that wants to increase it's meet attendance both at their own meet and away meets needs to get the team behind the concept and not just the coach or one or two swimmers. Team shirt, warm ups, meeting both at the pool and at local watering holes are a few of the ways to help build a sense of team. None of this will offend the non meet swimmer and may help get some folks on the fence to give it a try. Sometimes getting a swimmer to volunteer one year will motivate them to swim the following year. Relays, even fun ones also become a team building thing if you can get some guys and girls together who are competitive be it mixed or not. At past home meets we have had a local syncro club bring their kids for a demo during a break. We have had a marriage proposal on the deck during a break. And we have had the local varsity divers put on an exhibition during a break(that's why diving was invented after all to give swimmers a longer rest). Be creative and make "Masters Fun".

I am one of the members on my team who is tasked with encouraging people to compete in our local meets and occasionally at a far away meet. In my experience, the question of why people compete or not is directly related to the question why people swim. Many people on my team swim for the social and fitness aspect. There is a smaller group who swim for the purpose of improving their performance at meets. It can be tough to get some of my teammates at meets as that is just not why they swim. On a related note, I am of the opinion that all three goals (fitness, social, competition) can be accomplished in workouts that are geared towards improvement in competition. However, some people with fitness as their primary goal often complain when sets are written with more of a competition viewpoint- say a longer rest interval or shorter repetition. If rest is longer than :10, they're not happy!

Block starts at practice probably wouldn't appeal to the non-meet swimmer. But doing a set of them can really help agility and power, and who knows, maybe provide the bone density impact bearing work that swimming generally doesn't provide. Not sure why I threw this out here, just thought I would

I just did my first ever meet. Not just masters, as in I truly didn't learn how to swim (what I did before couldn't really be called swimming, more like less likely to drown) until last year. I started out doing pretty well within the rec center and then had a buddy, member of USMS, talk to me about it. I then joined up, this is my first year. After doing several of the fitness events and loving them, I started looking at other ways to challenge myself. Fitness will always be a part of swimming. However, this is just a new facet of it. The meet this weekend helped me (and will my coach) into strategies for the next meet, and how this fits into new ways to improve. I bet a lot of people don't look at reinventing the wheel, so that you don't grow old and stale with what you used to be. I wanted to address a few of the items I pulled from posts: Encouragement and support. I got this in DROVES at the Colonies' Zone Meet this weekend. From the meet admin, down to other swimmers. Not just swimming in a pool that Lochte and Phelps were in, which was fabulous, but picking up hints/tips from people who've been there, done that, and what to look at. My Coach does stuff, but here is also a chance for a new pair of eyes to see how I am on my own. That alone was worth every penny I spent. All different ability levels. This is what I was afraid of. I said I would never enter a meet months ago. Then I read and found out, hmmm I'm not seeded against 35 second 50m free people. These people aren't looking at me like I'm loser. They gave me something for being my age and doing this for the first time, by myself, away from home. I actually said something about being put in with the slower crew, requested it. It did make me feel better mentally. I found that very helpful. As for speed, I'm racing against me. I blew my 50m fly time out the ballpark. My last 50m free timed in the only LCM pool I was in, used to, was more than 10 seconds slower than what I did at the met. My 100 free was another story, LOL. Again, I am learning how to pace myself and what I need to work on. I'll get faster, and I might get slower. However, life isn't always about speed. Social activities. They had one of these there, but going by myself, I didn't attend. I had a 1.5 to 2 hour drive home, so that made a big difference for me. If I stayed at a hotel or the like, then it would be different. Fun events. Now here is something that would fun to do. Interest in training. I find that those who are interested in a meet are more consistent in attending training. Granted I can see it both ways. Everyone seeing how you do, how you perform. The thing is, I'm not that good at all. I have done well but it was the other swimmers helping you to see how you do, how you perform, and giving you help & support. The question I have, is do you want to be the best you can be? If so, that means you blow up sometimes. Learn from the experience. Yes, its in front of people, but you know what, they have done the same thing. It's not medals that matter, nor even times, but having fun and challenging yourself to do something active. This is true. Although I have to say, my one piece of bling from this weekend will carry me though a lot. In 18 months, I've gone from someone afraid to put my face in the water to diving off a block and doing a 50m fly in front of others, in my 40's. That one medal is a symbol of the courage to conquer fears, to persevere in the face of adversity (I'm missing part of my digestive system & its sort of trashed right now, so I'm not as strong as I could be), to take a risk (coming off the block for fly I tend to hoose up) in front of others. All of which was done by myself and a bit drive from home. Lets face it - a lot of people aren't willing to get out of the boat, even if it is to walk on water.

I just did my first ever meet. Not just masters, as in I truly didn't learn how to swim (what I did before couldn't really be called swimming, more like less likely to drown) until last year. I started out doing pretty well within the rec center and then had a buddy, member of USMS, talk to me about it. I then joined up, this is my first year. After doing several of the fitness events and loving them, I started looking at other ways to challenge myself. Fitness will always be a part of swimming. However, this is just a new facet of it. The meet this weekend helped me (and will my coach) into strategies for the next meet, and how this fits into new ways to improve. I bet a lot of people don't look at reinventing the wheel, so that you don't grow old and stale with what you used to be. I wanted to address a few of the items I pulled from posts: Encouragement and support. I got this in DROVES at the Colonies' Zone Meet this weekend. From the meet admin, down to other swimmers. Not just swimming in a pool that Lochte and Phelps were in, which was fabulous, but picking up hints/tips from people who've been there, done that, and what to look at. My Coach does stuff, but here is also a chance for a new pair of eyes to see how I am on my own. That alone was worth every penny I spent. I saw you while you were swimming and a friend, who spoke to you before one of your races, told me it was your first ever meet. I thought you did great!! I'm glad you had fun at the meet. It was a goo done to start off with, too. Such an amazing pool. I hope we see you at more meets in the future.