My masters group is not coached. Only about 10% of what I've learned about starts, strokes and turns was learned from other swimmers and the rest I learned online. I'll be on vacation next month and will swim with a coached masters swim team. I don't know what to expect! I've emailed the coach and he knows my ability level; I think I've bothered him enough.
I know they're all different, but tell me what yours is like!
For my first masters practice, I was expecting the sets to be written on the board. But nope, our coach yells it out to us. He has to repeat several times because people are just chatting away and not paying attention. 90% of the time, someone on my lane has to "translate" it to me. If there are interval sets, he would assign different intervals to the different lanes. Sometimes he will swim with us. Freaks me out all the time when he pops up in my lane to tell me what I need to work on. Oh, and mine starts at 6 am, but really we warm up for 30 min on our own and then the coach will start talking at 6.30 am.
Have fun!!
Thank you for your reply. I'm expecting to have a good workout and learn a lot. I am really hoping he'll "tell me what I need to work on"! I've made videos of myself and compared them with online instructional videos so I've been the only one telling me "what to do" lol. Like I said, our group isn't coached and so only 4 of us (out of like, 60) have gone out of town for a meet. Do many in your group swim in meets?
Thanks for the replies so far! What's the most number of swimmers in a lane, usually? I'm not used to sharing a lane, but I can do it. Circle swim, right? How will I know if I'm in a fast lane or not?
It's not often that we have more than 2 per lane, but it happens. The lane with three should all be of equivalent speed. Then there is seldom a conflict on the turns. If I'm forced to circle swim, being the slowest, I need to stop every few laps to let another pass. When you know the other swimmer is going to be passing soon, you stop at the wall and move to the left, let them kick off the right side and head up the lane left. Then you follow until the next time.
I've only been to 2 swim meets. Both times, I saw the same 4-5 guys that are on the fast lane (I think we have 30). For the first meet, I was the only female and the only one from the slow lanes. On my 2nd meet, there was a mixed relay, so I managed to convince 3 other ladies around my lane to come join. We had 2 mixed relay teams. The coach also showed up, and before the event, he would tell us the "strategy". I thought you just dive in and swim as fast as possible. He would tell us how many times to breathe, when to warm up/cool down.
One guy, he was a collegiate swimmer. I think he's the fastest guy in the team. He shows up in all the meets. The folks in my lane have gone to one meet at some point, but then they haven't gone back since. We have 1-2 folks that are serious marathon swimmers, and 1 serious triathlete (she is trying to be pro). So they do alot of open water events.
In my group, the coach writes workouts on a white board, w a few different intervals or distances adapted to the different lanes. I'm in the slower lanes. Some pretty fast swimmers, including a college kid in the fast lanes, but the coach is great about giving feedback wherever we are speedwise. He also holds open water swims. They're less structured: he sets up buoys for a 200 yd course which we can swim around as few or as many times as we want in the given time frame of an hour and a half--although he does give some feedback, especially to the newcomers. It's a nice setup, offering open water practice but also a break from the more intense pool workouts.
The coach encourages us all to try swim meets and/or open water races, and, in fact, puts on a series of 6 800m open water swims through spring and summer, so those who might find the longer distance swims intimidating can start gently. (Of late, the river current has been not so gentle, so there's that. Still, good opportunity to sample something low key.
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yes, its circle swim. Depending on the time of the year, I've had 2 per lane to 6 per lane. We are in a 25y pool, you start feeling the pressure with 6 in a lane. In our class, the slower lanes are on the outside lanes (left and right side) and it gets faster and faster as you go in. So the middle lane is the fastest. When we have visitors, they pretty much try out some lanes during the warm up. If you think someone is too close behind you or tapping your toes, as Jack said, just get to the wall and move to the corner to let them pass. It's totally fine to switch lanes, just do it in a safe manner.
I too am trying to learn fly. At that time when I told my coach, not many people showed up for practice so I had a lane where he gave me some drills on how to start learning how to do fly. But since then, we haven't had an empty lane so I didn't have much time to learn it. I don't think its out of place to ask, but like in my case, there's just no opportunity to do it.
Ok, great! What about learning a stroke? I'd love some help with fly. Is it out of place to ask for help with that?
It probably depends on how many people are at practice and if s/he can spare the time/space. It doesn't hurt to ask, but look what's around you.
