How many events per day at a meet?

Leslie, that 200 Fly was at the end of the Long Distance Pentathlon last year and I got LAPPED by Rob Copeland. He asked me if I wanted to be in the first heat and I said no, I needed the 4 minutes of rest that heat provided! I survived! Donna

But, Donna, you're a distance swimmer and I'm a whimpy sprinter. The words "distance pentathlon" scare me. And I'm quite sure the last year of life has taken a lot out of me. But I do have a teammate who a few years back swam the 200 meter fly dolphin-diving the whole way to score points for the team so that we could win a long course national championship in the medium sized club category. Now that's a class act!

I guess that's the question: Is the meet an unrested training meet or one in which you want to do eye-popping PBs. If it's the latter, I can't seem to do more than 3 even if I warm down. Peter, what about seed times? Must we always enter at our fastest times or can we be creative?

Remember the days back when we all were kids, and used to bust out an insane amount of races at those summer league meets? My league let us do 3 of 4 strokes, one IM and one relay - all in meets that lasted 2.5 hours. And what did we do afterwards but eat pizza, then play sharks&minnows for 3 hours.

I remember those days, fondly. That's what my daughter seems to do effortlessly now. But I'm too old for that.... Hey, Jeff, who do you swim for? I live right outside DC too.

Lindsay: Are seed times really a "hornet's nest?!" Leslie

Leslie, I think you're already on the right track. It totally depends on what you want to get out of the meet - really fast times or some quality work. If it's a meet where you have shaved and tapered, I don't like to do more than 3 events per day plus relays (usually 2). Of course the shave-and-taper meet around here is Illinois States which is a very well attended meet so you get PLENTY of rest... although you're dead by your last event on the last day. In-season meets, I sometimes do up to 5 events because: a. I'm a crappy practice sprinter. Not through lack of trying... I just can't seem to muster the inner-go-fastness at practice I can get at a meet. Even a 'tired' meet race is going to faster than a practice sprint. And that converts into faster times at shave-and-taper meets. b. Our pools have no blocks. Thus, more events = more starts. c. I like to swim events at in-season meets where I have no expectations, like 200/400 IM, butterfly, backstroke. For seed times, I try to make my best guess at what I'll actually go in the race at that particular meet. Sometimes this method works, sometimes I'm way off. But it's always an in-good-faith guess. Last year was tough because I was coming back from a couple years off and a baby and my in-season times were SLOW. So my State and Nationals times looked really padded because by some miracle I dropped a lot of time when I tapered (much more than usual.) Guess I was just really really pooped!:)

You asked, "Are seed times really a hornet's nest?" YES! Sometimes people knowingly heavily pad their times, sometimes people put down ridiculously fast times just to get in the fastest heat (this seems to be more of a guy thing... I can't imagine wanting to be in a faster heat than I belong), sometimes the times are just flat out goofy. And other people (not me, but I know some) get really riled when swimmers enter with incorrect, either fast or slow, seed times.

I think 5 is a good number of events. We have to travel to meets out of state. With the investment of time, energy and money to go to a swim meet 3 events is not enough. We are completely exhausted at the end of the day and end of the meet, but its a good feeling.

Yikes, I would never do that either. And who wants to drown in someone else's wake? It's curious though. I have seen a world record holder consistently seed themselves way, way slower than they actually swim. It didn't particularly get me riled up. I just assumed she wanted a wake free swim or didn't want to swim with 25 year olds....