I've been swimming competitively since the age of 8, and I've had the same issue for nearly as long. I swim pretty fast in workouts and while training, but when I go to swim meets, my performance is pretty lackluster.
I avoided swimming in a meet until just recently, where the coach guess entry times, and thought mine would be faster than they would. The people who swim in my lane during practice all swim 5-10 seconds faster (in sprints & mid-distance) than I do in a swim meet.
This happens regardless of how in shape I am. And happens less often in distance events than sprints, which makes me wonder if I just have a switch turned off in my brain that should make me really "work it" when I'm in competition.
Any advice? :confused:
Parents
Former Member
I have the same 'difficulty' I have concluded that it is the warm up. In training, and properly warned up.I can swim - well a little bit faster. At a meet, I do a warm up, sit around for half an hour or so, and then try to swim a 100m whatever.
The reality is that five minutes (at the most) after a warm up, and sat on the side, I might as well not have bothered. The 100m swim is as if from cold. it is awful. It is deadly. It is slow.
Most masters meets are not at venues where we have a constant warm up pool, and nor can we confidently reverse calculate where we might for example go for a run to re-warm up being sure that we will be on time to swim.
I have the same 'difficulty' I have concluded that it is the warm up. In training, and properly warned up.I can swim - well a little bit faster. At a meet, I do a warm up, sit around for half an hour or so, and then try to swim a 100m whatever.
The reality is that five minutes (at the most) after a warm up, and sat on the side, I might as well not have bothered. The 100m swim is as if from cold. it is awful. It is deadly. It is slow.
Most masters meets are not at venues where we have a constant warm up pool, and nor can we confidently reverse calculate where we might for example go for a run to re-warm up being sure that we will be on time to swim.
