Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

In a nutshell it means that you "pad" your time. I think that everyone has done that at some point. For example if you swim the 100 free in 1:30 and you enter a time of 1:54 and when you swim the race you do a 1:28 that would be an example of a "sandbagged" time....the reason that people don't like it is that if you actually enter your best time or an honest time and another person doesn't and you end up swimming next to that person it can really be annoying.:(

It's not sandbagging if you don't really know how you'll do because it's one of your first meets or first time ever swimming the event. It's quite fine to take a guesstimate. There is also no obligation to always enter yourself at your best time. You may have not been training well or have been injured or ill. I always take those factors into consideration when filling out an entry form. Last meet, my shoulder needed a bandaid, so I entered a somewhat slow time for the 50 fly and then did better than I thought. Teammate ragged on me for sandbagging. It didn't really help me any because I landed in lane 1. Also, I'm not sure I completely agree with Tracey. The order of events at a meet can be tricky. My next meet all the sprints are at the end. :dunno: Other meets, I see all the back/free events (like at nationals) are all back to back, which is a major bummer for long axis swimmers. So you may need to make a little adjustment. But generally swimming in a heat with no competition at all isn't that great. And if you are seeded very slowly, you could be drowning someone in your wake -- not fun for that person either. I struggle over my entry times every time I fill out a meet form. Especially when I did my first SCM or LCM meets. I think you're just supposed to use a fair guesstimate of how you'll swim given all present circumstances. I think this question has come up before, if anyone wanted to search for it. Some people really despise sandbagging from what I recall.

Most people that do it, do it to try and gain an advantage in several events. If I put a slow time in for my 100 Free - I will be in one of the first heats of the 100 Free, then I put a fast time in the next event - say the 200IM, now I have more recuperation time in between events. Some people (myself included) think it is a kind of cheap way to cheat and get an advantage over their competitors.

Hmm I guess I unintentionally sandbagged a bit for my entries in the New England Masters. Not my *** times; those were my last results But my IM 100, 50 Free and 200 Free I simply have no clue how I will go so I had to guesstimate. I put 1:30 for the IM I thing that's fair estimate for me... The 50 Fly I put :40 and the FR 200 I put 3:00 :dunno: I took the opposite view and thought it better to book a slow heat rather than put in a time too fast and deprive someone else the chance of a real race. I guess I'll have a chance to figure out better times for Zones in practice...with luck.

I've also heard the word "sandbagging" in reference to when a person deliberately loafs part of a set and then on the last one or two repititions they all of sudden drop tons of time and try and beat everyone....sometimes it can be drafting off of the lane leaders for most of a set then all of a sudden they get a burst of speed on one of the last repititions and pass the leaders and smoke everyone in the lane by a considerable distance. The fact that you overheard people talking about it at a meet might mean that the term was used in the context that the other posters here mentioned.....but they could have also been talking about a teammate who sandbags at practice a lot as well? I think in the context I am using the word it is much more annoying to other swimmers though....but that is my opinion....of course I would never sandbag in either context....right!...LOL!!:rofl: ....(I am The Sir Draftsalot!!) Jim

Wow, what a great thread. I've heard/used sandbagging in the same 2 contexts (meets and workouts). However, sometimes I have a hard time judging how much I really have in me. Today, our main set was 10x100 best average, I averaged about 1:08, but cut it down to a 1:04 for the last. Some people said I sandbagged. Sometimes I just have a hard time getting into a set...the other day we did a set of 200s, then 100s, and I just never got into the 200s, but was catching people on the 100s. Before my first meet, I asked a coach to time me for a 50 free. He gave me seed times for all the free events, and was only off by a second or 2 for all.

I agree with FlyQueen... Practice sandbaggers are the WORST! I swim with several. One guy has been thrown out of every practice lane at least once because he drives everyone nuts with his "sleep through the first few reps, race through the last few" (when the rest of us are tiring) antics. It really bothers me when the age-groupers do it though. I swim with the kids to work drills & speed that I don't get at masters practice, so I expect not to lead the lane with age-groupers. Seeing them loaf a practice breaks my heart. These kids kick my but in meets, but in practice they trow me to the front of the lane and draft, draft, draft. I also agree with what Fort said about entering times based on overall fitness level and training just before the meet. I regularly back off my best times when entering an early/mid-season meet. Some team mates tease me about this, but I argue that I very rarely win my heat, which tells me that other people are fudging their times as well.

Hi, Rich. NO I was not pointing at you. But I must say I looked at your,quote:help: :agree: it was pretty cool. DOM. in AZ.

You can do a few things to help "ballpark" your meet times. * Ask your coach * Do a "Race Pace" set in practice where you break your race into segments and give yourself exactly 10 seconds rest between doing each leg all out. Then just add up the swimming time discarding the rest periods. Eg: for a 200, do 4 x 50's 10 seconds rest as fast as you can. * Figure that if the hardest you went in practice was about 97% effort, do some math on the times. If you go a 1:25 100 free in practice (97%), that's 85 seconds = 1.03 * racetime. Your racetime would be 85/1.03 = 82.5, or about 1:21.5. If you are a practice sandbagger, 97% maybe is too high. Your mileage may vary. Just try to get yourself in the correct heat so both you and the rest of your heat have a good competition. Anything inventive done for other reasons is probably not good sportsmanship.

You can do a few things to help "ballpark" your meet times. * Ask your coach Just try to get yourself in the correct heat so both you and the rest of your heat have a good competition. Anything inventive done for other reasons is probably not good sportsmanship. Funny story about my coach's input. He wanted to collect the entry forms for a local meet, and I'd filled out mine with my estimated time for the 50 free (the one event where I figured I wouldn't get lapped, as it was LCM). Based on how I'd done w/ 50s and wanting also to be conservative due to its being my first masters' swim meet, I guessed about 55. My coach, unknown to me, changed the seed time to 48. I only found this out when I got to the meet and while thinking "what a rascal!" I also was kind of flattered by his estimate of my ability. Unfortunately, the problem was that I'd been used to SCY, and as a total swim meet newbie, I had never been in a long course pool. It showed. Got in, kept swimming, swimming, swimming... seemed like forever (given my time, it was close to forever, but I digress). Around 3/4 of the way along, I had to put my head up to look, wondering where the end of the pool had gone. The long course pool was pretty disorienting, and my time was quite slow. Part of me was thinking about the coach, "I'll get him!" But even despite my slow, dead last performance, I still thought it was pretty cool that he saw speed I didn't. I figured even if I couldn't deliver that day, perhaps the time he'd guessed was something waiting in the wings for the right time. So although I wanted to do a small amount of sandbagging (in moderation, you understand), my coach made me an unwitting "anti-sandbagger." Never mind... I was able to capitalize on another long-course rule: that I was the age I'd be on the last day of the year. Thus, I aged up prematurely, and as there was no one else in the women's 55-59 a.g. besides me, I won my age division, regardless of what I was doing with sand. ;)