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. :)
In 2013 I swam the 200, 400 and 800 long course free relays back-to-back-to-back. They don't offer those events often, so a few of us wanted to swim them all. If I recall correctly I swam anchor on the 400, then had to get right up on the blocks and lead off the 800. That was fun. :)
He's an excerpt from my blog at the time:
After that there was a short break and then we swam three relays in a row, in consecutive heats. I anchored the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay, but then had to lead-off the 800 free relay. At least there was a team 100 meters back in the 400, so I did have a solid two minutes rest before I had to do a 200! I'm somewhat amazed I was able to split a 2:16 in the 200. There was a guy two lanes over who was right with me, and I think that helped. I told myself before these relays I was just going to cruise, but somehow when the race happens the adrenaline kicks in.
This kind of thing is fun for the novelty once in a while, but not the best strategy if you are actually trying to swim as fast as possible!
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. :)
In 2013 I swam the 200, 400 and 800 long course free relays back-to-back-to-back. They don't offer those events often, so a few of us wanted to swim them all. If I recall correctly I swam anchor on the 400, then had to get right up on the blocks and lead off the 800. That was fun. :)
He's an excerpt from my blog at the time:
After that there was a short break and then we swam three relays in a row, in consecutive heats. I anchored the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay, but then had to lead-off the 800 free relay. At least there was a team 100 meters back in the 400, so I did have a solid two minutes rest before I had to do a 200! I'm somewhat amazed I was able to split a 2:16 in the 200. There was a guy two lanes over who was right with me, and I think that helped. I told myself before these relays I was just going to cruise, but somehow when the race happens the adrenaline kicks in.
This kind of thing is fun for the novelty once in a while, but not the best strategy if you are actually trying to swim as fast as possible!
