Sandbagging? TP + Banana Thread

Sandbaggers at practice bother me the most. I can't stand when people are lazy and loaf through a set then finish the practice with avengence and do the last set at warp speed. At meets it's different. I don't like being in a heat with someone that has totally sandbagged their time. BUT, to be honest, I really do race my own race and if towards the end there is someone ahead of me, I do my best to beat them. Since I mostly sprint, (okay or only sprint) I don't have time to breathe let alone look around and see where my competition is. I hated it when I would swim a farther event and hear the gun when I had a 100 or more to go. If you genuinely do not know your time, you can always either guess, based off of a practice time or NT yourself. I see several top swimmers NT themselves at big meets and that drives me nuts too, because then they are in the first heat. The flip side is, you don't know why people do the things they do. Sometimes they have to leave early so they put a slower time so they can actually get the swim in. Sometimes they just drop huge time. Practice sandbaggers are the worst though ...

I'm happy to have someone faster than me in my heat...if I'm leading I am not swimming as fast as I could--I'll almost guarantee it. I would think that the only time you would be leading is if you're in a heat by yourself. :thhbbb:

One aspect of sandbagging that I've noticed in the only Masters meets in which I've participated, Canadian local meets in Ottawa, is what I call show-off-ism. You can even tell from the body language of some swimmers (no disrespect to any particular group but I noticed that most of these sandbaggers fall in the mid-20's to mid-40's Men's groups) that they have deliberately added some 7 to 10 seconds to their 50 Free LCM, so that they can out-touch everyone else in their lane (Oops! I meant "heat") by a good margin and thus impress the gallery. Now, IMHO, any gallery that is impressed by a 30-year old guy beating his 60+, 70+ and 80+ opponents -in the same heat- by ten or twenty meters, has no idea what Masters Swimming is about and how "points" or "wins" are scored (and is not worth impressing). Cheers

I agree with a lot of what Fortress said here. On the West Coast, specifically the northern area, I never went to a meet that did not have all the slower heats first then followed by the faster heats and we all could count on this thus making entries a lot more decisive by the swimmers ahead of time. I was accused of sandbagging the 50 back often and I never intentionally did this, but like Fort said about injuries/illness, for 3 years I had shoulder injuries and just did not know how well I would do, but then I have never been bothered by what others said about me. I also was accused of this for the 800m free at 1995 LCM Nationals because my time dropped 2 minutes. But I had never even timed an 800 before that meet; I only worked on 400s and estimated; happily I estimated wrong. My ex-sister-in-law was a sprinter in fly and free and in workouts she always had to beat everyone. She had to win at everything she ever did or got really PO'd, so in workouts when someone would beat her, she'd just get out and say she was sick :(. She only lasted in masters about 2 years and I found that unfortunate; the girl could really sprint; she was her own worst enemy.:shakeshead:

I'm happy to have someone faster than me in my heat...if I'm leading I am not swimming as fast as I could--I'll almost guarantee it.

I would think that the only time you would be leading is if you're in a heat by yourself. :thhbbb: Really now! Don't think I didn't notice your goading sig either!

I, believe even if you did not swim at a meet , you should have some idea what you do in pratice. And use that as a guide line when entering times for a meet. Dom A in AZ. :dunno: :wiggle:

I, believe even if you did not swim at a meet , you should have some idea what you do in pratice. And use that as a guide line when entering times for a meet. Dom A in AZ. :dunno: :wiggle: Not that you pointed that at me Dom but since I mentioned it before. I'll clarify my times have a basis on something. My guidance for my times is as follows: 25 Fly at around 18-20 seconds so I put 40 for a 50Y My IM practices at around 1:25-1:30 turns and mistiming them add variance. The Free I have no clue because I don't swim it for meets. Well I can do a 50 in 33 seconds so using 3:00 for 200FR is not too far out because I can no way do 200 at my 50 pace. By the time the 3:00 Free rolls around, I'm sure those swimming it will probably not be worried. It's not like I'm going to place! Rich

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. I dislike practice sandbaggers as well. I don't do it, when I actually get to my masters practices. In fact, I always start out a descending set too fast and have to force myself to slow down and restart. Age group sandbagging is unforgiveable. But they are only hurting themselves. As they age up, if they don't work hard, they'll be dusted by others that do. Except by the genetically gifted freaks of nature, I guess. I'll just announce right now that I'm sandbagging my next meet. It's in less than 3 weeks and I've barely been in the water the last two weeks and my shoulder/trap hurts. :frustrated: It seems highly unlikely I'll be anywhere near my best times. Just going to swim 3 measly events and hop in the water. Don't give me any crap about it Muppet and Mollie. :thhbbb: 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. It may just reflect the fact that we're always dealing with the vagaries and trials of middle age or just interested in swimming our own race. At least that's my current working theory. However, it is not nice to overly sandbag and drown others. Frankly, I never know what to do when I look at a meet sheet. Inexperience, I'm sure. Every meet is still somewhat of an adventure ... so are flip turns ...

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