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.
We all know of amazing distance people who can swim back to back and swim well.That has nothing to do with sprinters.At our Assn. meet points for the club were important and I swam some events with little rest and did OK,but nowhere near PBs.To swim really well I need at least 60 min.between events,more if the first event is a 200 BR.If you don't,good for you.I went to a meet last year where the 100 and 200 BR had only one event between them.I asked the meet organizer about it and he apologized saying the 200 fly and 200 Br had gotten reversed on the entry form.
The timeline linked on the front page estimates that the 100 fly will start at 12:25 and 50 back will start at 1:20.
Yes, I did read that. As I said, not enough time to warm down and either put on a dry bodysuit or have your own suit dry off. I'd prefer more rest, but that's OK.
Uh muh ga!
Man up Nancy!
:violin::violin::violin:
Ever since I saw gals in my age group swim (WELL) the 1650 and 1000 back to back at Nationals when it was allowed, I stopped crying about this.
You distance swimmers are all the same. Bragging about your yardage and attempting to do insane things. :thhbbb::thhbbb::thhbbb:
I need rest between events to swim well.
If you only swim free, which is a LOT of people, you always have plenty of rest and never have to worry about juggling events, skipping an event you want to swim, attempting to plan adequate rest, or knowing you'll swim on inadequate rest. This is just not the case for strokers.
A look back at the Colonies Zone schedule shows that any person who swims ONLY one stroke (regardless of which one) has the same advantages as the person who swims only freestyle. It's you crazy people that are proficient at more than one stroke that seem to be out of luck! I will admit however, that my biggest goal in swimming is to learn to swim all four stroked proficiently. You could solve your problems by just swimming the 400 IM. It's like a sprint of each event, only all pushed together for maximum punishment!:laugh2:
Then you have the other two days to find events that aren't back to back! Come on Fort, get with it!:mooning:
Uh muh ga!
Man up Nancy!
:violin::violin::violin:
Ever since I saw gals in my age group swim (WELL) the 1650 and 1000 back to back at Nationals when it was allowed, I stopped crying about this.
You distance swimmers are all the same. Bragging about your yardage and attempting to do insane things. :thhbbb::thhbbb::thhbbb:
I need rest between events to swim well.
Bah humbug. All my world rankings are in the 50/ 100/ and 200. So I officially consider myself sprint/ middle distance.
Distance indeed! :D
I jumped in Jeff's lane during warm-up at the meet in Tempe last November. I had no idea who he was at the time, and saw him launch into backstroke, holy cow! Later, I put it together when I saw his name on the scoreboard.
Anyway I feel the Tempe meet was pretty good, I got to do all the swimming I wanted, at least one event in every stroke and IM, and could have done more (some people did both the 800 and 1500), but you have more options when you have 3 days to work with. I didn't mind, I can think of worse things than leaving Seattle in November to spend time in Arizona.
My choice of events is usually pretty simple: 1) avoid back-to-back events, 2) swim every freestyle event possible, except for 1 non-free event like 100 IM or 50 fly.
Dennis Baker had some good thoughts on this topic in our Oregon news letter a couple years back:
Greetings to all and I'm happy to be able to contribute to
my favorite group of people, the "Masters Swimmer. I will
be going over how to pick your events for Worlds or any
meet for that matter. Also, I will go over how to get ready
for the "big meet" as a masters swimmer.
The first question you have to ask yourself is what do I
want out of the meet I'm swimming in? Do you want best
times, or for the Masters Swimmer, that certain goal time?
Do you want to
train through this
meet and use it to
get in shape?
If your shooting
for those great
times I have one
thing to say,
DON'T SWIM
TOO MANY
RACES!! I feel
this is the most
important in having
a great meet.
Every year I have
so many swimmers
come to me
and they just
can't understand
why they are swimming poorly. Then I look at their event
schedule and quickly know why they aren't doing well. You
only have so much fuel in the tank for one day gang. The
response I hear most is" my events are all bunched together".
You must sacrifice some of those events and just go for
one or two a day. I know its a hard thing to do.
Also, don't enter too many relays. You must be smart about
that as well or before you know it you are swimming five
races a day. If you get involved in four or five races a day
you may never recover for the whole meet!! Many people
ask me why I only swim one or two events a day at
Masters Nationals. I can't recover fast enough to crank it
out the next day if I swim more. I also don't enjoy the trip
as much because of exhaustion. Now bear in mind that I
train 50,000 to 60,000 a week. Give yourself a chance folks
and just say NO to over racing. If your using the meet to
get in shape or as a social vacation then by all means go for
it and swim as much or whatever you want!!
No event order will ever be truly fair because we have every combination of swimmer in masters (and probably in USS, too). There are those crazy and odd people that swim back and ***. No matter what you put next to a free event it'll probably conflict for several people.
If anyone has great suggestions for a 2 day meet with all events except the 1000/1650 I'll take them.
That being said ... don't put the same distance or stroke back to back - I think that's the best anyone can do.
Dennis Baker had some good thoughts on this topic in our Oregon news letter a couple years back:
I've heard this exact same advice from another world record holder. For optimal performance, 2 events a day max and no relays.
TJ: You can't put any of the same stroke back-to-back, and none of them are. But there are 5-6 freestyle events and only 3 events if you specialize in a single stroke. Since almost no one does just one stroke at a multi-day meet, the order of events still ends up favoring the 5 pack freestylers, who will always be guaranteed rest.
Nothing will ever be perfectly fair, that's why we need to change it up!
