I took my daughter to a collegiate conference meet yesterday. I saw some things that I didn't quite understand, and my 6 year old asked me some questions I couldn't answer. I can guess at some of this, but would appreciate it if you would weigh in. Would you please help us out?
(1) I saw an incredible swimmer in the men's 100 free. His stroke count was so much lower than the other swimmers that he almost looked like he was swimming in slow motion and his kicking wasn't as frenetic as the others, yet he easily won by a body length. Was there something special to his technique? Does it have a name? He was poetry in motion.
(2) About shaving: I stayed off the recent shaving thread as it seemed to be a guys' discussion, but I am curious - does shaving off body hair (and in the case of some of these college swimmers, head hair) appreciatively cut down drag and increase speed or is it more of a psychological "feel for the water" type feeling? Or something in between or something else altogether?
(3) About suit choice: All suit types were represented: for women, tanks and fastskins: for men, tiny speedos, jammers and bottom half fastskins. If not at the elite (and I mean really elite) level, does suit choice really make a difference or is it again psychological? At this meet anyway, the majority of fastest times were swam by women in tanks and men in the tiny speedos.
(4) At the end of the morning prelims, we saw a time trial for two female swimmers in the 100 free. Was this because they had a dead tie in the prelims?
(5) In one of the races, it might have been a men's 200 ***, there were 3 heats. The first had 8 swimmers, the third had 8 swimmers, but the middle heat only had 3...any ideas?
Thanks much. It was great to be able to tell my daughter that I didn't know, but I knew who I could ask.
Barb
Thanks, Morgan. That's a really interesting thought that the fastest swimmers wouldn't bring out the big guns (fastskins) until the NCAA meet.
I think there may be somewhat of a difference as to when masters swimmers and college swimmers wear their fastskins. When you're in high school and college, you definitely don't bring them out until the big meet. With masters it seems to really differ. I notice people who train a lot and are fairly young (like Muppet) still wait to shave and taper and put on the skin until nationals. But a lot of other masters swimmers who don't swim in as many meets, wear them every meet. I guess they want to make the most of their meet and grab good times where they can. I know a couple masters swimmers who wear them every meet and they go to a lot of masters meets; they just like 'em.
I tend to wear my FS II recordbreaker to regular meets and my fairly new bodyskin to the big ones. But if I'm gunning for a particular time or can't get to many meets (like this year, it seems, boo), I will often opt for the bodyskin. (But not for IMs. I can't do breaststroke at all with that thing on.) I am a bit like Quicksilver described on Ande's blog. I don't go to that many meets and want to do well if I can, so I tend to do little tapers for most meets and then re-start my aerobic lite training. So there's not really any big "NCAAs" to save it for.
Thanks, Morgan. That's a really interesting thought that the fastest swimmers wouldn't bring out the big guns (fastskins) until the NCAA meet.
I think there may be somewhat of a difference as to when masters swimmers and college swimmers wear their fastskins. When you're in high school and college, you definitely don't bring them out until the big meet. With masters it seems to really differ. I notice people who train a lot and are fairly young (like Muppet) still wait to shave and taper and put on the skin until nationals. But a lot of other masters swimmers who don't swim in as many meets, wear them every meet. I guess they want to make the most of their meet and grab good times where they can. I know a couple masters swimmers who wear them every meet and they go to a lot of masters meets; they just like 'em.
I tend to wear my FS II recordbreaker to regular meets and my fairly new bodyskin to the big ones. But if I'm gunning for a particular time or can't get to many meets (like this year, it seems, boo), I will often opt for the bodyskin. (But not for IMs. I can't do breaststroke at all with that thing on.) I am a bit like Quicksilver described on Ande's blog. I don't go to that many meets and want to do well if I can, so I tend to do little tapers for most meets and then re-start my aerobic lite training. So there's not really any big "NCAAs" to save it for.
