So, now that we are on the countdown to May 09 - who is coming and what do you plan to swim?
This will be my first US Master's National meet, and it happens to be happening in my back yard (at least very close to where I grew up and swam USA club). Over is San Luis Obispo now, but it's a short hop, skip, and jump over the foothills to Clovis!
I'm sure nobody cares, but I'm hoping to go to Clovis. If I make it, it will be the first nationals meet that I have attended since getting back into swimming a year ago. The primary reason I plan to attend this meet over the ones this year in Austin and Portland is that I can drive to Clovis (though it will be a long drive...).
It didn't look to me as if there is any significant west coast bias in terms of where meets are held. But if there is, it sort of makes sense since the west coast is where the majority of USMS swimmers are located. Size alone isn't necessarily a fair justification for a bias, but it does mean that there are likely to be more large teams on the west coast capable of "hosting" one of these massive swim meets. (Unlike USA-S meets, which have parent volunteers, I'm guessing most volunteers for one of these large USMS meets have to be spouses of swimmers and the "fitness"/ noncompetitive swimmer members of a large team--I'd guess you would need a large team to find sufficient volunteers from those groups.) Also, it's probably easier to have the requisite facilities when everything can be outdoors.
Maybe USMS should try relaxing the facility requirements? I remember plenty of USA-S meets where all the swimmers sat in a gymnasium that was a ways away from the pool deck. Can we do the same thing? I think the most important thing is to have sufficient warm-up/warm-down space. Everything else we should find ways around..
I will note that the Pacific Masters LCM championship meet has been held in a pool that wouldn't even come close to qualifying for the nationals standard for the simple fact that it doesn't have a warm-down pool. Seven of the eight lanes of the pool are used for competition with the eighth lane used for warm-ups/warm-downs with absolutely no buffer. I agree that is way less than ideal but if we can live with that, why have so many requirements for nationals meet? (Having said that, I do think it's very important for the nationals meet to have a facility with a separate warm-up/warm-down pool--I'm just saying that we should be as flexible as possible after that.)
I'm sure nobody cares, but I'm hoping to go to Clovis. If I make it, it will be the first nationals meet that I have attended since getting back into swimming a year ago. The primary reason I plan to attend this meet over the ones this year in Austin and Portland is that I can drive to Clovis (though it will be a long drive...).
It didn't look to me as if there is any significant west coast bias in terms of where meets are held. But if there is, it sort of makes sense since the west coast is where the majority of USMS swimmers are located. Size alone isn't necessarily a fair justification for a bias, but it does mean that there are likely to be more large teams on the west coast capable of "hosting" one of these massive swim meets. (Unlike USA-S meets, which have parent volunteers, I'm guessing most volunteers for one of these large USMS meets have to be spouses of swimmers and the "fitness"/ noncompetitive swimmer members of a large team--I'd guess you would need a large team to find sufficient volunteers from those groups.) Also, it's probably easier to have the requisite facilities when everything can be outdoors.
Maybe USMS should try relaxing the facility requirements? I remember plenty of USA-S meets where all the swimmers sat in a gymnasium that was a ways away from the pool deck. Can we do the same thing? I think the most important thing is to have sufficient warm-up/warm-down space. Everything else we should find ways around..
I will note that the Pacific Masters LCM championship meet has been held in a pool that wouldn't even come close to qualifying for the nationals standard for the simple fact that it doesn't have a warm-down pool. Seven of the eight lanes of the pool are used for competition with the eighth lane used for warm-ups/warm-downs with absolutely no buffer. I agree that is way less than ideal but if we can live with that, why have so many requirements for nationals meet? (Having said that, I do think it's very important for the nationals meet to have a facility with a separate warm-up/warm-down pool--I'm just saying that we should be as flexible as possible after that.)
