Order of Events at Masters National

Listen you sprint pansies, you already get to show up a day later than us. If you don't like sitting through the distance events on the other days then just get to the pool later.

John "I hope I don't miss my 50 back again" Smith, Yes, we have had the distance events after relays at the end of the day before. However, none of the schedules that were voted on will do this before 2012. When we have done this in the past, we get complaints that sprinters have to show up too early, etc. A second impact of putting a distance race first is it allows more swimmers to take fewer vacation days and still make the meet. If you don't swim until noon on Friday, you can travel out late Thursday after work or early on Friday (depending on where you live). I think a mixed schedule would make everyone equally unhappy which is probably the best we can do. Tim L, When the meet starts with a distance race, we do offer a second warm up period in the main competition pool complete with sprint lanes for starts so you can still sleep in and warm up where you will race. As a general rule, making up the order of events for nationals is not that much fun. However, everyone is welcome to try. Come up with a proposed order of events and submit it to the championship committee for consideration. Better yet, submit it here so you can receive helpful comments from all your online friends.

As a meet director for a large annual masters meet (NE LMSC SCY Champs with 700-800 swimmers), all of the reasons listed here are very very valuable. Our meets follow the general pattern of the USMS nationals, with a 1000/1650 day, then the other three days have the distance event(s) first, followed by everything else. It's very useful for meet staff to have things start off a bit slowly. This goes for officials, the check-in table, the timing table, the announcer, the timers, etc. There aren't a whole lot of meets where teams meet at the bar in the morning _before_ the meet. We set things up so that a relay is always last, which keeps people around, and has most people on deck at the end of the day. That presents a good opportunity for teams, etc., to all head out to dinner together, etc. If we did distance events last, then you'd have meet staff and distance swimmers stuck at the pool for 2-3 more hours, and they'd miss those social opportunities. Let's face it, distance events are not terribly exciting, generally. Starting with the distance events creates a crescendo of events through the day. If you have the distance event last, then you have a session where there is high energy for a lot of the day, and then *poof*, the balloon deflates for the distance event. With distance first, it's all part of a gradual build-up. Similar to nationals, we also have a warmup session after the distance session. So if you're not swimming the distance event, then your event _is_ first, just in the second session. Your session starts around noon, that's all. Enjoy your extra sleep! And travel. Especially on Friday, it allows more people to get into town without having to get there the night before. We follow similar event order rules as the national meet... coming up with orders of events is hard: * The 1000 free and 1650 free switch order each year * The women's and men's 500 free, and the 400 IM switch days each year * The 100 IM, 200 IM, and 400 IM are each on different days (one IM event each day) * The 50 free, 100 free, and 200 free are each on different days * For the stroke events (back, ***, fly), the 50, 100 and 200 of each stroke are on different days. Also, each day has a 50 of one stroke, a 100 of another stroke, and a 200 of the third stroke. * The 50 free, 200 free relay, and 200 medley relay are on different days (so there are three different days to swim a 50 free) * The 100 free, 400 free relay, and 400 medley relay are on different days (so there are three different days to swim a 100 free) * The 200 free and 800 free relay are on different days (so there are two different days to swim a 200 free) * No stroke is done back-to-back * No distance is done back-to-back -Rick

All you sprinters are just jealous because we get our moneys worth out of our events! Exactly!!! Fort is right It gets us good people, the distance ones up early and let's the whimpy sprinters sleep in.:bolt:

Similar to nationals, we also have a warmup session after the distance session. So if you're not swimming the distance event, then your event _is_ first, just in the second session. Your session starts around noon, that's all. Enjoy your extra sleep! And travel. Especially on Friday, it allows more people to get into town without having to get there the night before. We follow similar event order rules as the national meet... coming up with orders of events is hard: * The 1000 free and 1650 free switch order each year * The women's and men's 500 free, and the 400 IM switch days each year * The 100 IM, 200 IM, and 400 IM are each on different days (one IM event each day) * The 50 free, 100 free, and 200 free are each on different days * For the stroke events (back, ***, fly), the 50, 100 and 200 of each stroke are on different days. Also, each day has a 50 of one stroke, a 100 of another stroke, and a 200 of the third stroke. * The 50 free, 200 free relay, and 200 medley relay are on different days (so there are three different days to swim a 50 free) * The 100 free, 400 free relay, and 400 medley relay are on different days (so there are three different days to swim a 100 free) * The 200 free and 800 free relay are on different days (so there are two different days to swim a 200 free) * No stroke is done back-to-back * No distance is done back-to-back -Rick That's how Oregon does it, too. I still do the entry forms. I'm working on getting Virginia and Potomac Valley Masters to adopt this order as well.

That's how Oregon does it, too. I still do the entry forms. I'm working on getting Virginia and Potomac Valley Masters to adopt this order as well. Please let this happen in PV! Or at least change the order of events for zones each year. And how about evening out the men's and women's courses when we're swimming in 2 pools? It's so unfair to the women. Because there's fewer of us USMS chicks, we finish way earlier and have much less recovery time between events than the men. So, we are forced to swim with less rest or drop an event. Zones is like a slugfest for me. I think I swam the 50 back and 2 relays in about 15 minutes on Saturday. Sheer torture. I got way more rest at the Albatross meet.

I've been working on getting the meets around here to adopt a more universal approach to order of events but so far no luck. I am more than willing to send out the order blocks I have to any meet director here who wants to see them. Hey, I'll even help write the entry form if some around here would listen but so far deaf ears.

And how about evening out the men's and women's courses when we're swimming in 2 pools? It's so unfair to the women. Because there's fewer of us USMS chicks, we finish way earlier and have much less recovery time between events than the men. That does seem like a strange way to do it. At the PNA/NW Zone Champs over the weekend men and women swam together with one course being odd heats and the other being even. At Nationals the women's and men's events are seeded separately, but they still use the odd/even format rather than having a "men's course" and a "women's course."

That does seem like a strange way to do it. At the PNA/NW Zone Champs over the weekend men and women swam together with one course being odd heats and the other being even. At Nationals the women's and men's events are seeded separately, but they still use the odd/even format rather than having a "men's course" and a "women's course." I suggested that. But for some reason I couldn't really understand amidst my exhaustion, the meet director doesn't like the odd/even format because she had some issue with it at a Nationals she attended. They could also even it out by not starting the first heat of the next women's event until the corresponding men's event had started.

I suggested that. But for some reason I couldn't really understand amidst my exhaustion, the meet director doesn't like the odd/even format because she had some issue with it at a Nationals she attended. Maybe because the two courses were not identical? The way we did it, everyone swam roughly equally in both courses, assuming they did both days. At the GMU pool, I like the shallow end better; the metal walls were slippery on the deep end. I did object to the order of events, though: 50 fly directly followed 200 back, and then 50 back directly followed 200 fly later the same day. Enough of this discrimination against buttefly/backstrokers! That's why we have breaststroke -- to give the real swimmers some rest between their events. I like Rick's reasoning a lot but don't think we have a big enough Zones meet to justify 3 days.