Well, it's over. My first meet was yesterday. It was a both a mess and a good experience. The heat sheets were given to us the night before, but when we got to the meet the next morning, we were told that they were incorrect. Supposedly "correct" ones were passed out, which also turned out to be incorrect. Heats were often combined without any notice, and more than few swimmers missed their events. The loudspeaker system was also very poor, so it was hard to hear what was going on. In fact, I missed my heat of the 100m ***, along with everyone else in my heat!
Anyway, I was only scheduled for 2 events, so that was sort of disappointing. Luckily, I got onto a relay team for the 200 free. My first race of my first meet went poorly. My start was bad, my pullout was bad, my stroke was a mess, and my turn--which I have done perfectly hundreds of times in practice--was horrible. I still got second place (out of not many people) in my age group, but I swam it so much slower than I could have and have been. I think the problem started with the fact that I need to be focused before I try to swim fast, and I found out that I was supposed to be on the block about 30 seconds before my event started. I was really nervous anyway, but that just made it worse. I realized my mistakes as I was making them, but once I started off poorly, I couldn't seem to correct anything.
The relay was really fun, though. We came in first place in our heat, but I don't even know the overall results. It was a 4x50 free, and I swam my leg 7 seconds faster than I have done at practice. That was a great event because I found out why everyone loves relays, and I also discovered that I am much more comfortable swimming freestyle than I thought I was. I'm going to a meet in a month, and I'm definitely going to swim more freestyle events.
Oh, sorry! I was swimming a 28 second 50 yard *** in practice, and I swam a horrific 45.55 seconds in SCM, which converts to about 40 seconds in yards. Like I said though, everything that could have gone wrong in that swim went wrong, so I'm glad that I got it all out. I swam my leg of the relay in about 30 seconds. I also could have done that faster, but I screwed up the turn out of excitement, haha. I'm looking forward to the meet this weekend to see what I can do when I'm not so nervous.
You don't have to rub it in, haha. I watched the video of me swimming, and it was just hard to watch. I almost missed that heat too, and if I'm not focused, I don't swim well. I literally had to jump out of the warmup pool, run to the blocks, jump on the blocks, and go. I was doing some weird form of continuous breaststroke with my hips all low and my legs far apart. I was also looking all over the place, and I went sideways on my turn almost into the next lane. My start was also horrendous, and my breakout had my feet out of the water. Like I said, I'm glad that swim went the way it did, because everything I was worried about happening happened. I got it all out of my system so I can swim Saturday without any worries.
I was at Aquapalooza and I must say that I disagree with what has been said. Team New York Aquatics (host) did all that they could with the situation that they were given (hosting a meet at an NYC public pool) and did a great job. Granted the heat sheets did change frequently, I was there with a team of 15+ swimmers and nobody missed a race (unless it was intentional) or came close to missing a race. The only event that seemed to be combined a great deal was the 400 free and that was at the end of the meet.
As for the 50 ***, not to take anything away from a new swimmer but the only decent 50 *** swimmer that was in the entire men's field was the guy from FL who went 28 (and 1:03.0 in the 100). I have been around swimming too long to believe that anyone who has been 28 in a 50 yard *** in practice could ever go 45 in a 50 scm ***.
Before your next meet you should know the turn target on the bottom of a pool is supposed to be 5 feet from the wall.
You should also have a look at where backstroke markers are supposed to be.
Have a look at this pool plan www.virtualswim.com/pool.doc
Don't be fooled by the general info here 1650 yards, 66 lengths is not 1 mile a mile is 1760 yards. 1650 yards is very comparible to a 1500 meters.
