I am thinking of participating a swim meet, just to experience it once in my life. I had a lot of reservations about signing up for a meet. But after reading some of the threads in the forums, my fears have subsided.
1. I can't do flip turns very well. It seems I can do open turns instead.
2. I fear my goggles will pop off during my dive. Looks like I can start in the water which I am more comfortable with anyways.
But there are a few things that I'm still wondering about.
1. I'm pretty slow. I've read somewhere that most meets have a "slow heat"? What does that mean really? So you could have multiple people being #1 for the same age group? And how can you tell if a meet has several heats?
2. Why is it when I view some of the past event results, some events have rankings for the top 3 swimmers and some have only 1? I am attaching a screenshot of what I am talking about. Does that mean there was only 1 person swimming in that event?
3. How does one finish off for freestyle? Do you have to press a buzzer?
I actually did a back to back 50 and 500--I can't remember now which one came first, but I think it was the 500, which allowed me to warm up for the 50. I wasn't fast in either, but I didn't die. :)
I did a back-to-back 1500 LCM then maybe 5 min rest (at the most) before I swam the 100m. I didn't think I'd be in the fastest heat of the 1500, and expected 20+ min rest. But most of the fast people who were doing both either sandbagged or did NT.
I think that I did PB's in both events. Had a really good race for the 100.
As for a newbie doing meets... I'd see if the meet was offered in the past, or a similar meet nearby, and check through the results. If you're really concerned at being out of synch, you could always contact the meet organizer, or someone else who may be doing it.
I was once seeded in a 200 SCM free with 2 Olympians who both entered NT. I didn't show up for the meet at all (one or both were in all of my other events too). But I heard that they lapped everyone in that heat, and some twice.
I actually did a back to back 50 and 500--I can't remember now which one came first, but I think it was the 500, which allowed me to warm up for the 50. I wasn't fast in either, but I didn't die. :)
I did a back-to-back 1500 LCM then maybe 5 min rest (at the most) before I swam the 100m. I didn't think I'd be in the fastest heat of the 1500, and expected 20+ min rest. But most of the fast people who were doing both either sandbagged or did NT.
I think that I did PB's in both events. Had a really good race for the 100.
As for a newbie doing meets... I'd see if the meet was offered in the past, or a similar meet nearby, and check through the results. If you're really concerned at being out of synch, you could always contact the meet organizer, or someone else who may be doing it.
I was once seeded in a 200 SCM free with 2 Olympians who both entered NT. I didn't show up for the meet at all (one or both were in all of my other events too). But I heard that they lapped everyone in that heat, and some twice.
