6th event at SC Nats?

It's also worth reminding people just how critical timers are for a meet. They are easy to forget, but they are some of the most important staffers at a meet. Most people also have no idea how hard it is to find competent timers. For example, at our NE meet, we had somewhere around 5500 or so individual swims, not including relays. We ran two timers per lane. So that's 11,000 stopwatch times recorded. 11,000 button-pushes at the end of the race. 11,000 opportunities for a timer to miss a finish, or write down the time in the wrong lane, etc. Timers are especially important at a Masters meet, and especially in, shall I say, the "early heats", where we have a higher percentage of swimmers who are not experienced with touchpads, and frankly don't have great finishes. It's the human timers in each lane that make it all work. Out of 5500+ swims, the only way I know that the touchpad time was valid in any particular lane of any particular heat, is because I had two timers there who pushed their backup buttons, which confirmed that the touchpad time was accurate. Or confirmed that it wasn't. I'm guessing that Nationals runs heats a touch slower than at our NE meet... we ran heats with about 5-6 seconds between. So as a timer, you have to finish your stopwatch, push the backup button, record the stopwatch time on the clipboard, and reset your stopwatch and be ready for the next heat... all within 5 seconds. I encourage any of you to try doing that... for 8 continuous hours. -Rick

It's also worth reminding people just how critical timers are for a meet. They are easy to forget, but they are some of the most important staffers at a meet. Most people also have no idea how hard it is to find competent timers. For example, at our NE meet, we had somewhere around 5500 or so individual swims, not including relays. We ran two timers per lane. So that's 11,000 stopwatch times recorded. 11,000 button-pushes at the end of the race. 11,000 opportunities for a timer to miss a finish, or write down the time in the wrong lane, etc. Timers are especially important at a Masters meet, and especially in, shall I say, the "early heats", where we have a higher percentage of swimmers who are not experienced with touchpads, and frankly don't have great finishes. It's the human timers in each lane that make it all work. Out of 5500+ swims, the only way I know that the touchpad time was valid in any particular lane of any particular heat, is because I had two timers there who pushed their backup buttons, which confirmed that the touchpad time was accurate. Or confirmed that it wasn't. I'm guessing that Nationals runs heats a touch slower than at our NE meet... we ran heats with about 5-6 seconds between. So as a timer, you have to finish your stopwatch, push the backup button, record the stopwatch time on the clipboard, and reset your stopwatch and be ready for the next heat... all within 5 seconds. I encourage any of you to try doing that... for 8 continuous hours. -Rick