Eek!!

Originally posted by Seagurl51 The meet is a week from today!! I am a ball on nerves at this point! I'm still really excited but now I'm starting to worry about pointless little things. How do you relax before a meet? Anything that anyone can offer would be uber helpful!! Thanks soo much!! ~Kyra I've never been able to relax before a meet. In fact, by the time the meet starts, I've already had a workout just from the tension. I also don't sleep all that well the night before a morning meet. Nor does the tension go away as soon as I hit the water. At my last meet, I was in 3 heats, and the tension really didn't start to subside until partway through my 2nd heat. It didn't totally go away until after my 3rd heat. The only thing I've found that helps is being in lots of meets. The more meets you have been in, and (more importantly) the more meets you have been in recently, the less tension you are likely to feel. The fastest 50y freestyle time I've ever done in competition was done in a situation where I had two meets only a few weeks apart and did 50y freestyle in both of them. And it was in the second meet that I did my best time. The reason was that I was more relaxed.

My first master's meet (just this past January) I was so nervous before my first event (the 200 free) I wanted to scratch. I was still nervous on the blocks but as soon as I was actually swimming I was fine. My nerves decreased with every event. This past meet I was much less nervous until I had to swim the 200 IM (which again I thought about scratching - not seriously but I was freaked out) I knew once I got through the fly I'd be OK on the back die a little on the *** and be ok on the free. I had a coach once tell me that if you weren't nervous it meant that you didn't care. Nerves give you adrenaline and energy. Remember it's OK to make mistakes, have bad races, even DQ. All of those things happen at EVERY level. People DQ at the Olympics, and even Michael Phelps and Jenny Thompson have had bad races. Just have fun. As long as you have fun everything else will work out!

Oh and to go further along on the DQ thing - Ian Thorpe DQued in his premier race (the 400 free) at Aussie trials, Amanda Beard DQued in a IM race at a World Cup Meet, James Hickman DQued at World Cup this past weekend ... it happens to the best of us. And you learn from it. Usually once you DQ once it'll never happen again at least in that event. (I always feel better when I hear that the really good people mess up too!) GOOD LUCK!

Newmastersswimmer~ Did you know that you don't have to qualify to swim at nationals? You can swim in up to 3 events without meeting the NQT for them.

HOORAY FOR KYRA! We knew you could do it, chick! Congrats! Steph

Congrats on your first swim meet going so swimmingly Seagurl!! I am having my first meet on April 9th and 10th ....and then (hopefully if I qualify that is??) I will be rushing my times in from this meet to enter SCY Nationals just before the deadline (April 14th).....It will be my first swim meet in 18 years.....After reading some of the posts here I am feeling more than a little nervous about it to say the least! I know I'm not yet in the type of shape I want to be in for this meet (or for nationals for that matter)....I will have to really step it up from here on out to try and muster myself into some kind of acceptable shape before the big meet (the big unknown that is!!) Wish me luck, newmastersswimmer

Newmastersswimmer, you will do awesome that at your meet! I am planning on going to a meet on the 8th and 9th so we can be nervous together. Good Luck!! ~Kyra

Did you know that you don't have to qualify to swim at nationals? You can swim in up to 3 events without meeting the NQT for them. originally posted by h2oru Yaeh...but I want to swim 5 or 6 events if I go (might as well since it is a long drive to Ft. Lauderdale)......Also I want to enter my events with entry times that are as fast as possible..... in the hopes that I might get seeded in one of the faster heats (if not the fastest heat?) in as many of the events as I can (wishful thinking perhaps??).....I think you have to put the date of the meet where you made the times that you enter for each event you enter at Nationals?....(meaning that you're not suppose to just make up times that you think you're capable of swimming??)....Of course I'm not 100% sure about this....I am just going by what I read on the entry forms themselves. newmastersswimmer p.s....Thanks for the vote of confidence Seagurl!!...Good luck to you also on April 9th and 10th!!

Well I did it! I went to my first swim meet and didn't die or get DQ'd. Actually, I did really well....a lot better than I had expected to do. I broke my personal best times in all my events, and ended up placing 1st in two of them and 2nd and 3rd in the other two (in my heats)!! I was shocked!! I was sooo nervous that first race, but you all were right. Once I hit the water, I couldn't help but smile! Thank you sooo much to everyone who offered words of advice and encouragement. You made this experience much less frightening for me. I have definately caught the competition bug and can't wait for my next meet!!!! Hope to see you all at a meet somewhere down the line!!! ~Kyra p.s. Can someone who went tell me what happened with the lady and the world record? I was warming down and all I heard from my friend was something about someone had just broke a world record. Also, good swims knelson and Rebecca!!! Congrats!!!

Congrats on the meet! Sounds like it went great for you. I found your name on the heat sheet a couple times and was going to try to watch you swim, then the meet got going and I was watching my teammates, etc. and never did see you. Sorry about that! Where were you sitting? I was down by the hot tub. Now you have to swim at the meet in Federal Way, WA in April. It's an awesome pool. If you swim there I won't flake out and miss you again, I promise! :)