There is a Master's meet in Atlanta this Sunday which starts at 10 AM. I haven't been to one before so I was wondering how long they last and is there a certain order to the events.
One thing that is worth pointing out... one of the major reasons that many masters meets are longer than they should be us because masters swimmers are terrible with seed times. Most masters swimmers enter meets with very rough estimate seed times, and that affects the length of the meet.
It doesn't matter which direction your seed times are bad. In a 100 freestyle... if you're last in your heat by 30 seconds, then you should have been in an earlier (slower) heat. (Unless you're in the first heat...) If you're first in your heat by 30 seconds, then you should have been in a later (faster) heat.
Many people tell me "But since I beat everyone in my heat, I didn't slow anything down!". Nonsense. You should bump up a heat (or more), so that others bump down a heat (or more) and swim with the people the same speed.
I have to do some further numerical analysis, but looking at our New England MAsters SCY champs, which has sessions as long as 9+ hours, we could have saved as much as 2 hours a day with better seed times.
-Rick
One thing that is worth pointing out... one of the major reasons that many masters meets are longer than they should be us because masters swimmers are terrible with seed times. Most masters swimmers enter meets with very rough estimate seed times, and that affects the length of the meet.
It doesn't matter which direction your seed times are bad. In a 100 freestyle... if you're last in your heat by 30 seconds, then you should have been in an earlier (slower) heat. (Unless you're in the first heat...) If you're first in your heat by 30 seconds, then you should have been in a later (faster) heat.
Many people tell me "But since I beat everyone in my heat, I didn't slow anything down!". Nonsense. You should bump up a heat (or more), so that others bump down a heat (or more) and swim with the people the same speed.
I have to do some further numerical analysis, but looking at our New England MAsters SCY champs, which has sessions as long as 9+ hours, we could have saved as much as 2 hours a day with better seed times.
-Rick
