Don't want to start a screamfest, but the controversial issue of "getting enough rest" between events led me to wonder --- how do you get an order of events that is somewhat uniformly fair?
Since I'm apparently challenging John Smith for most annoying masters swimmer, I'll just say that I have been aggravated by the order of events in most of my recent meets. As a fly-backer-er, somewhat odd, it seems that those events are always close together. I guess the fly-*** or fly-free or all free combos are much more common. I have basically given up swimming the 100 IM and haven't swum the 100 back in SCY in 2 years. My last meet, the 100 fly and 100 back were within minutes of each other, and unlike Chris Stevenson and Jeff Roddin, I admittedly didn't have the chops to do both. At my Dec. taper meet, all my best events were on Saturday. At anther meet, all the 200s were in the first half of the meet and all the sprints in the second half, annoying almost everyone and causing a lot of scratches. I have also noticed the inequity between rest for freestylers and strokers. Folks entering the 5 pack freestyle (50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 or 1650), very common set of entries, always have adequate rest because these events are always spaced out pretty well. So it's pretty easy for freestylers to think others are whiney, since they never experience the rest problem.
So how do you fix these inequities and get a fair lineup of events? At a minimum, can't meet directors change the order of events each year to attempt to provide some equity? Or have a 15 minute break scheduled somewhere? This would probably reduce whining and the apparently repugnant practice of sandbagging to get more rest. Since I only swim 5 meets a year or so, it'd be nice to attempt to swim reasonably well. Swimming more meets is just not an option. There's obviously no way to make everyone happy all the time, but it seems like the system could be improved.
As a meet director, this topic hits home! I have a group of 5 folks I ask about meet orders: sprinter, distance, flyer, backstroker and breaststroker, with some of us overlapping.
Each meet we sit down to talk about the order of events to come up with something that would work best for the 5 of us, figuring we probably account for 98% of meet participants. Every meet is going to get at least one complaint about the order, but we tried our best to make things as fair for as many as we could.
As for breaks, USMS doesn't have the USAS 4-hour rule, but we do still have time limits on occasion. For our zone meet, we moved things around to have a majority of our faster-moving events on the day we have to be out!
I've had surprisingly good results doing back-to-back events when the second event is short. So while I probably wouldn't do a 200 after a 50, doing a 50 after a 200 is something that I might find appealing when I'm filling out the entry form. I'm not a sprinter, so doing a 50 by itself is challenging since I don't get cranked up to maximum intensity quickly. But if I just did a 200 five minutes ago, I'm ready to sprint, even though I may still be a bit winded.
As a meet director, this topic hits home! I have a group of 5 folks I ask about meet orders: sprinter, distance, flyer, backstroker and breaststroker, with some of us overlapping.
As for breaks, USMS doesn't have the USAS 4-hour rule, but we do still have time limits on occasion. For our zone meet, we moved things around to have a majority of our faster-moving events on the day we have to be out!
I notice you left the 5 pack freestylers off your list. They are apparently a protected species of swimmer. :joker:
No, you can never make anyone happy and anyone who swims a variety of events will have issues from time to time.
Not much you can do if the pool is unavailable after x time. But, for example, that wasn't the case at Colonies Zones, where the women's pool was way ahead of the men's pool, further exacerbating the rest problem. There could easily have been a break half way and before relays at the end.
Dana: That is a truly bizarre order of events and I would not attend that meet either!
Dana,
it goes 100s, 200s then 50s...
Horrendous! I'd love to come up to DV to swim a meet - you guys always come down here. Seems to me like a half-hearted attempt to host an event in someone's memory.
I notice you left the 5 pack freestylers off your list. They are apparently a protected species of swimmer. :joker:
hehe, well, like I said, of the 5 of us, there's a bit of overlap. :thhbbb:
the CZ ladies could definitely have used a break in there, esp on sunday when we flew through the meet. but then you have the maleinists (opposite of feminists) who would argue for equality and a break over on the Men's side.
At least they put the mixed relays first so the women wouldn't have to wait around for the men to wrap up.
My general rule is that I try to mix it up from one year to the next in the order of events. For my meets, with 700-800 swimmers, there are always going to be people who are unhappy with the order of events. My only hope is that if you don't like this year's order, that hopefully you will like next year's order better.
If you're a fly/back/im person, here's what you would have experienced at our NE SCY meet this year:
Friday:
W 100 fly (ran 11:46 - 11:59am)
(at least 45 minutes rest)
W 100 IM (ran 12:44 - 1:10pm)
(at least 30 minutes rest)
W 200 back (ran 1:40 - 2:11pm)
(at least 38 minutes rest)
W 400 medley relay
Saturday:
W 200 IM (ran 1:13pm - 2:01pm)
(2+ hours rest)
W 50 back (ran 4:12 - 4:30pm)
(at least 19 minutes rest)
W 200 fly (ran 4:49 - 5:10pm)
Sunday:
W 400 IM (ran 9:00 - 9:53am)
(3+ hours rest)
W 100 back (ran 12:57 - 1:19pm)
(at least 31 minutes rest)
W 200 medley relay (ran 1:50 - 2:04pm)
(at least 34 minutes rest)
W 50 fly (ran 2:38pm - 2:51pm)
Thing is... if you're comparing the rest obtained between the 5-pack of freestyle events to your events for fly, back and IM, you're comparing the rest pattern of 5 freestyle events to that of 9 stroke/IM events. There's just only so much rest you can get between 9 events.
If you look at the stoke order of our three days:
Friday: ***, fly, back
Saturday: ***, back, fly
Sunday: back, fly, ***
... we try to mix up the order. The only order that happens twice is back then fly, which happens on two days.
We're certainly not biased against anyone. Heck, our meet is one of the only meets around where we don't put a cap on distance event times. We had one swimmer complete the 1650 in I think 63 minutes this year (he was seeded at 68 minutes). Just like every other swimmer in the meet, we didn't start the next heat until his heat was finished, and he got splits on the touchpad and on the scoreboard for the entire race. That's frankly a lot of "wasted" lane space for a big meet. But we allow it, so that even our most senior distance swimmers can complete their race. (We did, however, allow the other swimmers to get out of their lane. :) )
-Rick
Don't want to start a screamfest, but the controversial issue of "getting enough rest" between events led me to wonder --- how do you get an order of events that is somewhat uniformly fair?
Since I'm apparently challenging John Smith for most annoying masters swimmer, I'll just say that I have been aggravated by the order of events in most of my recent meets. As a fly-backer-er, somewhat odd, it seems that those events are always close together. I guess the fly-*** or fly-free or all free combos are much more common. I have basically given up swimming the 100 IM and haven't swum the 100 back in SCY in 2 years. My last meet, the 100 fly and 100 back were within minutes of each other
It does sometimes seem that the fly-back combination occurs together too much. At zones, I had enough time (maybe 30 min) between 100 fly & back but the 200/50 combination occured back-to-back TWICE in one day: first 200 back/50 fly and then 200 fly/50 back. Oh, and no women's heats between events. Unlike That Guy, I need more than 5 minutes after a 200 before I'm ready to swim a 50.
As long as the event order is changed between years and doesn't always discriminate against the same stroke combinations, I can live with it. Plenty of good events to go around.
If it makes you feel any better, Fort, fly-free is not a much more felicitous combination: the 50 fly and 200 free have a strange love for one another that is just not right, and the other distances end up back-to-back often too. I don't even know how many times I see the 100 free and 100 fly all nestled up as well (because really, who would think the same person would swim both?).
Oh well.
As a fly-backer-er, somewhat odd, it seems that those events are always close together. I guess the fly-*** or fly-free or all free combos are much more common. I have basically given up swimming the 100 IM and haven't swum the 100 back in SCY in 2 years. My last meet, the 100 fly and 100 back were within minutes of each other, and unlike Chris Stevenson and Jeff Roddin, I admittedly didn't have the chops to do both. At my Dec. taper meet, all my best events were on Saturday. At anther meet, all the 200s were in the first half of the meet and all the sprints in the second half, annoying almost everyone and causing a lot of scratches. I have also noticed the inequity between rest for freestylers and strokers. Folks entering the 5 pack freestyle (50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 or 1650), very common set of entries, always have adequate rest because these events are always spaced out pretty well. So it's pretty easy for freestylers to think others are whiney, since they never experience the rest problem.
I find fly-backers to be a much more common griffin than those "5-packers".
Just my :2cents:
Some of the guiding principles that I remember (correctly or incorrectly) are:
Don't put two events of the same stroke back to back (excluding the distance day in a 4-day format).
Don't put two events of the same distance back to back.
In a 4 day meet format with one day being the distance day, make sure there is at least one event of each stroke on each non-distance day (excluding IM's for LC meets where there are only 2 IM's).
The principles that I try to follow also include:
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)
(Edit to note: This is for a 4-day meet, with one day being 1000/1650 free only.)
-Rick
