Having just finished another summer league season of interminably long meets, 4-5 hours each, twice a week (and that's with no rain delays), I was wondering if anyone had good ideas for reducing the time it takes to run a meet. Some ideas I've had are:
1 - only announce event, heat and then full description of that event for the first heat. Subsequently, only announce heats.
2 - have kids on blocks when previous heat finishes
3 - drink more to make it less painful
We had one starter at an away meet who would spend 30-45 seconds after each heat talking to folks before she would get the kids on the blocks. I almost lost it.
In all honestly, any tips would be greatly appreciated.
As anyone who's been reading along knows, meet efficiency is a bit of a pet project for me.
There are really just three basic factors that affect meet length:
* Number of entries
* Time between heats
* Efficiency of each heat
If you only have 1 person in a meet, it's a fast meet! So obviously, if you reduce the number of "splashes", you'll get a faster meet.
The time between heats is critical. For most efficiency, you need to do fly-over starts. If you do that, the most important thing is to have a referee and a starter who can keep things moving. You also need a competent timing person (on the timing console) to keep up properly. At our masters championships, once we get going, we can get things going at around 5-7 seconds between heats. Remember that it takes about a full two seconds between "take your mark" and the starting signal. If you run 60 heats in a session, then every second between heats costs you a full minute on the session. 10 extra seconds is 10 minutes.
But you can only run your heats so fast... you need to make sure each heat is efficient. That means people need to be seeded properly. That means (a) good seed times and (b) no empty lanes.
-Rick
How'd your Fins do, Muppet?
Cripe! I had to look it up - didn't make it out to any meets this year.
Division D. T-2 in head to head, 5th at relays, 3rd at Divisionals, 3rd finish. And for all that, they move down to the top of Division F next year. Ouch.
My first team coaching, I coached the minis, who are now all 11-12/13-14s, and they went from Div M&N when I was there to Division I for next year.
But, then, it would pretty much turn into a year round (A) kids meet and a summer (B) kids meet, which would probably drive away the year rounders who are also practicing and competing with their club teams.
As a non-year round swimmer, I see no problem with this ;):thhbbb:. Besides, these summer meets are supposed to be fun.
Geek, if you want to check out the Montgomery County Swim League, hit up www.mcsl.org. No starting blocks. Automatic (touchpads) timing for allstars and long course only. Relay Carnival. Its all a good time! GO ROCK CREEK FINS!
We're just a tad smaller than Fort's league (16 -A through O- divisions, 6 per). I could be wrong, but they may be more than one county... Fort???
As a non-year round swimmer, I see no problem with this ;):thhbbb:. Besides, these summer meets are supposed to be fun.
Geek, if you want to check out the Montgomery County Swim League, hit up www.mcsl.org. No starting blocks. Automatic (touchpads) timing for allstars and long course only. Relay Carnival. Its all a good time! GO ROCK CREEK FINS!
We're just a tad smaller than Fort's league (16 -A through O- divisions, 6 per). I could be wrong, but they may be more than one county... Fort???
We're definitely more than Fairfax County at well over 100 teams. Although I think there are probably ten teams in my town. Some in the non-nvsl country club (Colonial League) league too, which is not as competitive as the nvsl. We are at www.nvsl.nvblu.com. Quite a few T16 kids defending their home town swim team. Very tough competition by All Stars. Most of our kids, except for the older ones, still go to at least some of the summer league practices and don't just show up for the meets. Unless you're a member of Ray Benecki's group at The Fish. Then no go. Just train.
Other things to consider for shortening meet time. At our A meets, we have only medley relays except for the mixed age free relay, a popular event where the fastest boy or girl in his/her age group from 10 & under to 15-18 swims together. To compensate for the lack of time in the water at A meets for developmental and other swimmers, we also do, for example, relay and other meets. We have a town IM meet and July 4 relay meet that kids participate in, as well as divisional and all star relay meets. We also have an intra-squad boys vs girls meets -- they compete based on who (boys or girls) have the most PBs. 6 & unders are key as they usually improve. Girls won this year. :cheerleader:
