Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

I think sandbagging is very prevalent and many masters swimmers do it. I think it is more prevalent in the 40+ age groups myself. But maybe there's no evil intent.. Frankly, I never know what to do when I look at a meet sheet. Inexperience, I'm sure. There is one aspect of sandbagging that I like, the look on the face of "some" sandbaggers at the end of heir heat when the result is not what they expected or hoped for... Allow me to place this in a personal context: I only swim at one event per year here in Ottawa, the annual February Winterlude LCM (because I like the 50m pools and immensely dislike the 25m courses due to my ability to ONLY do the old back-somersault freestyle turn IF I arrive at the wall on my right arm. Why I can't do the modern flip turns -on either arm- is another story, related to my 45 years of smoking and borderline emphysema). Last July (2006) I hurt my Rotator Cuff (no cause or trigger that I could point my finger at; I just woke up one morning), with ONLY (I found out later) the Teres Minor working. The other four were all painful as Heck. My Summer was therefore devoted to sun-tanning. Fall and Winter saw me doing some gym (completely unbalanced) weight work (plus Physio -electric mini-shocks and manipulation- and therapy massage where I learned the names of Supraspinatus (the worst one off), Infraspinatus, Subscapularis and the other Teres). I only re-started getting into the water near the end of December and was able to "swim" without pain only in February. Last year's 50m Free saw me doing :36.13 so I thought I'd be lucky if I managed to "do" the 50 free at all and thus posted a seed time of :42.00 Comes the day of the race (the 24th) I find myself in Lane 4 flanked by a 39-y/o (:44.00) and a 43-y/o (:43.00) The 39-y/o (in lane3) had a decent look about him (i.e., not posturing) but the 43 y/o one (in lane 5) had a body language that said, "Look at me! I'm sumphin' spahshal." He was looking around (and over) me at the other "youngster" and I could see him thinking, "There's a guy posting a 44.00 and he will probably do a mid-30. That's the guy I have to beat and he's younger too, at 39." Looking at me he -probably- thought, "OK, that's an old geezer. He's posted a 42.00. Yeah! Right! He wishes." All this leads to the moment where Lane 5 touched at :35.15 and lane 4 (me) touched at :35.16. The look on the guy's face (as he looked at the time-board, then at me, then doing a double-take) was MasterCard-like, "priceless", when he realized that the difference between us was 0.01 seconds (and 21 years). This only added to my pleasure at having swum at all (and having done almost one second better than last year in spite of my forced ''sabbatical''). I just had to tell it and hoped I did not come out sounding bombastic. Cheers

I think sandbagging is very prevalent and many masters swimmers do it. I think it is more prevalent in the 40+ age groups myself. But maybe there's no evil intent.. Frankly, I never know what to do when I look at a meet sheet. Inexperience, I'm sure. There is one aspect of sandbagging that I like, the look on the face of "some" sandbaggers at the end of heir heat when the result is not what they expected or hoped for... Allow me to place this in a personal context: I only swim at one event per year here in Ottawa, the annual February Winterlude LCM (because I like the 50m pools and immensely dislike the 25m courses due to my ability to ONLY do the old back-somersault freestyle turn IF I arrive at the wall on my right arm. Why I can't do the modern flip turns -on either arm- is another story, related to my 45 years of smoking and borderline emphysema). Last July (2006) I hurt my Rotator Cuff (no cause or trigger that I could point my finger at; I just woke up one morning), with ONLY (I found out later) the Teres Minor working. The other four were all painful as Heck. My Summer was therefore devoted to sun-tanning. Fall and Winter saw me doing some gym (completely unbalanced) weight work (plus Physio -electric mini-shocks and manipulation- and therapy massage where I learned the names of Supraspinatus (the worst one off), Infraspinatus, Subscapularis and the other Teres). I only re-started getting into the water near the end of December and was able to "swim" without pain only in February. Last year's 50m Free saw me doing :36.13 so I thought I'd be lucky if I managed to "do" the 50 free at all and thus posted a seed time of :42.00 Comes the day of the race (the 24th) I find myself in Lane 4 flanked by a 39-y/o (:44.00) and a 43-y/o (:43.00) The 39-y/o (in lane3) had a decent look about him (i.e., not posturing) but the 43 y/o one (in lane 5) had a body language that said, "Look at me! I'm sumphin' spahshal." He was looking around (and over) me at the other "youngster" and I could see him thinking, "There's a guy posting a 44.00 and he will probably do a mid-30. That's the guy I have to beat and he's younger too, at 39." Looking at me he -probably- thought, "OK, that's an old geezer. He's posted a 42.00. Yeah! Right! He wishes." All this leads to the moment where Lane 5 touched at :35.15 and lane 4 (me) touched at :35.16. The look on the guy's face (as he looked at the time-board, then at me, then doing a double-take) was MasterCard-like, "priceless", when he realized that the difference between us was 0.01 seconds (and 21 years). This only added to my pleasure at having swum at all (and having done almost one second better than last year in spite of my forced ''sabbatical''). I just had to tell it and hoped I did not come out sounding bombastic. Cheers