How do you recover after a meet?

But the reason I say it is misleading is that "yardage" alone is a poor metric of training volume anyway. They physical, mental and emotional toll of a meet is (or should be) greater than practices of the same length. This prompted me to review my yardage swam from my last meet @ Auburn. I averaged 3250 yards a day which is about 46% less than what I swim @ practice. Another interesting point that's worth sharing is that in my practices with USS, I can be swimming entire sets with girls who in meets swim :51 in the 100 fr; 1:51 in the 200 fr; :55 in the 100 fly; 5:00 in the 500 FR; etc. You can be sure that the boys are much faster than that and they may be in my lane as well. So. . . for me, going to the Auburn meet and most masters meets is a nice break as I was in heats with people my speed - :58s and slower in the last heat of 100 fly and so on. So for me, I'd have to say the emotional toll in practices prepare me for fun meets. This also applied when I would race the boys in masters practices - often racing the big boys was/ is much more difficult than racing *most* of the gals in a masters meet. And this reminds me - I'm off to my one on one speed session today coached by an ex-UGA standout and USS coach of the year. He *kills* me. I'd say this weekly practice is more challenging than a meet b/c I want to please him (hard to do - don't think I ever have) and I'm racing the clock which is much more brutal than any competitor. Well. . . upon second thought, racing the girls who hit :51 in the 100 frees are worse to deal with!

But the reason I say it is misleading is that "yardage" alone is a poor metric of training volume anyway. They physical, mental and emotional toll of a meet is (or should be) greater than practices of the same length. This prompted me to review my yardage swam from my last meet @ Auburn. I averaged 3250 yards a day which is about 46% less than what I swim @ practice. Another interesting point that's worth sharing is that in my practices with USS, I can be swimming entire sets with girls who in meets swim :51 in the 100 fr; 1:51 in the 200 fr; :55 in the 100 fly; 5:00 in the 500 FR; etc. You can be sure that the boys are much faster than that and they may be in my lane as well. So. . . for me, going to the Auburn meet and most masters meets is a nice break as I was in heats with people my speed - :58s and slower in the last heat of 100 fly and so on. So for me, I'd have to say the emotional toll in practices prepare me for fun meets. This also applied when I would race the boys in masters practices - often racing the big boys was/ is much more difficult than racing *most* of the gals in a masters meet. And this reminds me - I'm off to my one on one speed session today coached by an ex-UGA standout and USS coach of the year. He *kills* me. I'd say this weekly practice is more challenging than a meet b/c I want to please him (hard to do - don't think I ever have) and I'm racing the clock which is much more brutal than any competitor. Well. . . upon second thought, racing the girls who hit :51 in the 100 frees are worse to deal with!