Hey folk--
Thank you for the suggestions you offered. I did, in fact, make my sub-2 min. 100 free goal. I also did a 200 freestyle--but that was done more for adding distance and working on technique than for time--didn't push to the max for most of it (except for the end... as you'll see).
Even so, I did 4:12.81 for that, beating out NARROWLY an 80 year old woman who posed a last-minute challenge (never let a swimmer's age lead you to underestimate her/him... fortunately, I have competed with this lady in the pool before and I respect her enormously... she and I are relatively evenly matched and neither of us as a result will give an inch). :duel: --but with a :)
So I broke the 2 min. barrier at last and now I'll work on the 4 min. barrier for 200. Or maybe aim for 1:50 for 100.
So this is all cool, and the rest is sheerly a tech question with TMI. ;)
How foolproof is electronic timing (where the swimmer hits a touch pad)?
I ask because when I finished the 100, I touched the pad as instructed and quickly let go so the time wouldn't restart. When I looked up at the board, I saw 1:56.?? and also saw that I'd narrowly beaten out the aforementioned woman (this I knew because I had passed her and saw her behind me when I finished). Her time showed up as 1:59 on the board. That seemed about right since we finished pretty close. My bf confirmed the time/place (in fact, when I told him that I last did the 100 free in that pool in 2:01--and without mentioning today's time--he remarked, "oh you beat your time by five seconds then.")
But later, I wanted to check my times for both events. The official told me that my 100 was 1:59 and on the print-out she showed me, that's what it said for my lane, with the faster time listed for the other woman's lane. Could both BF and I have misread my time? Or can things get crossed between the time shown on the board and the print-out? I can't imagine with all the gadgetry that human error comes into it, but I was absolutely certain I saw 1:56 when I finished.
A few years ago, something similar happened at the same pool--I was told my time in the 100 was about 2:20something, even though BF and I both saw 2:01 on the board when I finished. (And given the effort level and 100 times during workouts, the 2:01 seemed more accurate. The officials in that earlier meet insisted that the slower time was right--and the person I asked today also seemed too certain to press the issue.
In sum, I'm glad to finally break two mins. and that's more important than a couple seconds, but as this happened in a couple cases, I'm now curious whether others have had similar experiences with the touch pad timing.
Now to work on my stroke some more! I'm targeting an o.w. swim or two later in the summer--no touch pad timing there! :D
First off, congratulations on your times!!
The boards can some times be off so I'd go with the official times and not with the big board. This happened to me at my last meet. I touched and the clock kept going. The clock was malfunctioning at the time but the electronic timing was correct.
How foolproof is electronic timing (where the swimmer hits a touch pad)?
It's not anywhere close to foolproof. Especially in masters swimming, frankly. For example, in college swimming, it's very reliable, because the swimmers are (generally) experienced swimmers, and all have lots of practice finishing with the touchpads, etc. In my experience (having done electronic timing for hundreds of swim meets), we start introducing more errors with older and younger swimmers. For example, 8-year-olds don't touch the pads hard enough often, because they are so lightweight. Older swimmers also often don't finish with enough force into the touchpad.
This is why secondary and tertiary timing is important. In a meet with electronic timing, there _should_ be human timers on the pool deck as well. They _should_ have both a push-button and a stopwatch.
The push-button is the "secondary" timing. The human timer pushes the button when the swimmer finishes the race. That button is connected into the electronic timing system. The timing system compares the times on the touchpads and the times on the buttons for every race. If there is a discrepancy (typically anything more than 0.30 seconds), the time is flagged for human inspection.
Usually when a primary (touchpad) and secondary (pushbutton) discrepancy is flagged, the human operator will go to the tertiary timing (stopwatch).
The goal is to determine which times are "accurate", and which times are to be disposed of. In most cases, it involves finding two things that can confirm each other.
For example, the pad/button may be flagged, but it might be because the human timer "fell asleep" behind the blocks and forgot to push the button on time. In this case, the tertiary (stopwatch) and secondary (button) time may agree, and disagree with the primary (pad) time. But, it's a sleepy human timer, so the pad time should be used. This is usually indicated when the primary (pad) time is faster than the other times, but is still a reasonable time.
What's a reasonable time? When any doubt, other data is used to determine reasonableness. For example, the officials on deck should be recording the order of finish for each race. Which lane was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. If you have a time that does not agree with the order of finish, then that makes the time less "reasonable".
Split times can be used. For example, in your 100 freestyle... if your split at the 100 mark was 1:00.00, and your finish time was 1:56.00, then that's reasonable. It means you brought it home quickly, but still reasonable. If the split was 1:00 and finish time of 1:40, or 3:00, then those finish times are not reasonable based on the split time. (However, nothing is ever certain... it's possible you stopped on the wall at the 150 and took off your goggles, etc., without being disqualified. That would make the 3:00 time more reasonable. It happens!)
In a perfect world, each of these levels will have redundancy, except the primary (pad) times. For example, in a perfect world, you'll have two or three human timers behind the lane. So you'll get two or three secondary (button) times, and two or three tertiary (stopwatch) times. With more human timers, it's easier to determine if one of them was "sleepy" at the finish.
Also, in a perfect world, you will have two officials getting order of finish. They are human, and not perfect. If two officials agree on the order of finish, that gives higher confidence in the order. Also, some officials are diligent about marking finishes that are close. For example, they'll note that they saw order of finish of 4-6-5-3-7, but lanes 5 and 6 were very close for 2nd and 3rd, close enough that if the timing system said "tie" or "lane 5 then 6", they would not argue. This is all additional data to be considered.
All this is to say that electronic timing is very much _not_ foolproof. In fact, the most important piece of the electronic timing setup are the human timers who are behind the lanes. We don't call them "backup timers", because they're not backup. They are a critical to every aspect of electronic timing. If I don't have human(s) behind every lane, I have no idea if I can trust my touchpads or not.
-Rick
Regarding how your time is different than what you thought....
Do you have a coach? Talk to your coach and encourage your coach to semi-formally ask the meet director for a double-check of the times in your heat, since you think there was a discrepancy. Meet staff is more likely to more seriously entertain an inquiry from a coach. (Mostly because lots and lots and lots of swimmers thought they were faster, frankly.) But even if you don't have a coach, inquire yourself. Explain what you thought you saw, and ask how/why the time was changed. Ask if the button times and/or stopwatch times were recorded, and if they agree.
-Rick
Thanks for the clarifications regarding the timing. While a couple seconds for me isn't as crucial for me at a Senior Games meet as it might be for someone, for instance, trying to qualify for nationals or some such, I would love to know what I really did/didn't do. I was so excited when I finished and saw the 1:56 (and relieved also that ALL the times were under 2, which meant I was certainly under 2 no matter what) that I kind of got attached to it. :)
What seems to have happened is that when I first saw the two times, lane 4 showed 1:59 and lane 5 (mine) showed 1:56, but later I was told it was the reverse--yet I'm certain I finished ahead of the person in lane 4. No big deal really, except as noted I just want to see exactly where I actually am.
The 2 min. barrier was largely psychological--knowing I can beat it makes me more confident that I can do so again. Just one of those things!
Great , keep it up ! you need to push the face of the pad , NOT the top of it.
Thanks! I hope to keep at it!
As for the touch pad, I'm pretty sure I touched it right. When I touched it, I heard a little beep or some indication that it had recorded my touch, and I was careful not to touch it again (that happened in a 50 free once, but they corrected it). I notice today in the track events of the Senior Games they had my place wrong in a racewalk event, but someone nearby said, "no, she finished ahead of ," so they made the correction. The track events, though, I did (somewhat unwisely) on a sore foot, more for the social aspect than strictly competing, so place wasn't too important.
As for the touch pad, I'm pretty sure I touched it right. When I touched it, I heard a little beep or some indication that it had recorded my touch, and I was careful not to touch it again (that happened in a 50 free once, but they corrected it).
Couple of notes.... It's very unlikely that any beep you heard was from hitting the touchpad. The only beeps that are made are made at the timing system console where the timing operator is sitting. Unless you were in a lane adjacent to the timing area, it's almost impossible that you would have heard that beep.
Also, don't worry about hitting the pad twice. Once you hit the pad, it automatically turns itself off for a period of time, usually about 15 seconds. At the finish, the touchpad turns off until the start of the next race. (And usually, the pads are disabled automatically for a period of time after the start of the next race. Many meets do the "fly over starting", where the next heat starts while the last heat is still in the water. With the delayed pad activation, you can get out of the water, hit the pad all your want, and it won't register.)
-Rick
