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I get it, I understand why. I guess I would like to see a Masters someday sometime that is prelims/finals. I can barely swim an event once in a weekend.

I can barely swim an event once in a weekend. Ditto.

It's a quirk that happens with the seed-by-age algorithm. You're in the 45-49 age group. The fastest 45-49 swimmers are in heat 12. Then heats 11 and heat 10. So the fastest 30 swimmers in the 45-49 age group fill heats 12, 11, 10. There are 34 swimmers in the event aged 45-49. So the remaining 4 swimmers get scattered. Mary Anne Savage and Susan Nolte end up in heat 7. They're the #31 and #32 seeds. Lanes 1-8 of that heat are the 50-54 year olds, and the two of them get lanes 9 and 10. So that leaves you and Anna Lea to fit in somewhere. Heat 6 starts the fastest 55-59 year olds. So the 55-59 year olds fill heat 6, and all of heat 5. No space yet. Then the 60-64 year olds fill all of heat 4. There are 11 swimmers in 60-64, so one person gets left in the cold. (Sue Cosper) So then we get back to heat #3. Lanes 1-7 are filled with the remaining 55-59 year olds (There were 27 of them, so they fill heats 6 and 5, and then the leftovers fall back to 7 lanes of heat 3.) So now we've got 3 empty lanes to fill. Lanes 8-9 get the two leftover 45-49 year olds (you and Anne Lea), and lane 10 is the one leftover 60-64 year old (Sue Cosper). What stinks for you is that the algorithm does not require that all four leftovers in your age group swim together. For details about how this works, see: www.usms.org/.../part1.pdf Specifically rule 104.5.5, which talks about seeding at national championship meets. The line A(7) specifically talks about the 'leftovers'. The rule doesn't actually require that, with 4 leftovers, they be swum at least as pairs. In a 10-lane pool, there could be 9 'leftovers' in an age group. The rules, as far as I can see, allow for those 9 leftovers to be scattered among 9 different heats, so that they would all be swimming "by themselves" with regards to age group scoring. -Rick Rick, THANK YOU for fully explaining this to me! :applaud: NOW I understand! :agree: But, it does stink... :bitching: Bobinator, I knew the pyramid theory was not correct, because I have the fastest time in my heat by 2+ seconds, but I'm placed in lane 8 out of 10! :confused: So, Rick's explanation makes total sense, even though it's a bummer for me. The closest swimmers to my time are located in lanes 4 and 5. My seed time is 10+ seconds faster than one swimmer next to me and 23+ seconds faster than the swimmer on the other side of me! :bitching: And, the swimmer next to Anna Lea is 33+ seconds slower than her!! On the positive side, I won't have any trouble finding Anna Lea, one of the swimmers on my list to meet in person! :D Anna Lea, we can console each other for being "leftovers"! :bighug: That's what I get for being a new Masters swimmer, having just one qualifying meet in since February!

I could see this being done as some kind of invitational only. Invite the top 20swimmers in each group to a meet. Have 4 or 5 events/day and T/F for each age group? Maybe this could be our SCM championship :bolt:

So I agree that the main benefit of having a trials-finals meet would be laughing at all the complaint posts and the discussion of the finer points of scratching from the finals in a 200 after qualifying in the prelims with a split-request first 100 and then 100 warmdown. And think of the sandbagging implications! Months of hilarity just waiting to be unlocked... Rather than age-group scoring in a trials-finals meet, team scoring could be used. After the first few years of healthy debate about regional vs. medium vs. small teams, I'm sure that we will all AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! :bolt:

If you are swimming 3 events in one day at Nats that can be OK given the rest between rvevts.Now make it Prelim/finals.It is now 6 events and the finals will undoubtedly have less rest.That is NOT how I want to do it!!

Both sound awful! Prelims and finals for masters?! No thanks. Ugh. That must have been thought up by a distance swimmer. Top 20 only meets? No thanks there too. That sounds like something Evil Smith/Mr. Negative would advocate. :bolt: As to the timeline, I'm thrilled my earliest event starts at 11:10.

No, they do not do cicle seed for the top heats. It's seeded slowest to fastest by heat so the first heat is the slowest 10 swimmers and the last heat is the fastest 10 swimmers. It would really be nice if they did circle seed as this is championship meet.

It's a quirk that happens with the seed-by-age algorithm. You're in the 45-49 age group. The fastest 45-49 swimmers are in heat 12. Then heats 11 and heat 10. So the fastest 30 swimmers in the 45-49 age group fill heats 12, 11, 10. There are 34 swimmers in the event aged 45-49. So the remaining 4 swimmers get scattered. Mary Anne Savage and Susan Nolte end up in heat 7. They're the #31 and #32 seeds. Lanes 1-8 of that heat are the 50-54 year olds, and the two of them get lanes 9 and 10. So that leaves you and Anna Lea to fit in somewhere. Heat 6 starts the fastest 55-59 year olds. So the 55-59 year olds fill heat 6, and all of heat 5. No space yet. Then the 60-64 year olds fill all of heat 4. There are 11 swimmers in 60-64, so one person gets left in the cold. (Sue Cosper) So then we get back to heat #3. Lanes 1-7 are filled with the remaining 55-59 year olds (There were 27 of them, so they fill heats 6 and 5, and then the leftovers fall back to 7 lanes of heat 3.) So now we've got 3 empty lanes to fill. Lanes 8-9 get the two leftover 45-49 year olds (you and Anne Lea), and lane 10 is the one leftover 60-64 year old (Sue Cosper). What stinks for you is that the algorithm does not require that all four leftovers in your age group swim together. For details about how this works, see: www.usms.org/.../part1.pdf Specifically rule 104.5.5, which talks about seeding at national championship meets. The line A(7) specifically talks about the 'leftovers'. The rule doesn't actually require that, with 4 leftovers, they be swum at least as pairs. In a 10-lane pool, there could be 9 'leftovers' in an age group. The rules, as far as I can see, allow for those 9 leftovers to be scattered among 9 different heats, so that they would all be swimming "by themselves" with regards to age group scoring. -Rick

I could see this being done as some kind of invitational only. Invite the top 20swimmers in each group to a meet. Have 4 or 5 events/day and T/F for each age group? Maybe this could be our SCM championship :bolt: sucks if you're not top 20... Let's break away into 2 groups: USMS Elite...only for those that want to compete against the best and USMS Dross for the rest of swimmers that train just as hard but aren't blessed with the genetics or experience as the top group. I'm motivated; anyone else? :eeew: