Entering a USA-S meet?

The USMS database can't extract Prelim times out of the Hytek results file - it only sees Finals or Timed Finals swims (hence my Finals time is posted even though my Prelim swim was slightly faster). Chris Stevenson sent me the SDIF spec so I can manually edit the results file to put your times in there, but it is not straighforward and I haven't had time this week to tinker. Below is the spec in case you want to build the results file. It is interesting reading material :confused:: www.usms.org/.../sdifv3f.txt I'm just kidding about asking you to do it. I can work on it and it is indeed on my to-do list. What format do the results need to be in to be easily ingestible by USMS?

When you swim in one of the USAS meets, what's the usual reaction from the other swimmers? Their parents? Are they generally welcoming? Also, does the "senior" category constitute "open" or is there an age limit?

When you swim in one of the USAS meets, what's the usual reaction from the other swimmers? Their parents? Are they generally welcoming? Also, does the "senior" category constitute "open" or is there an age limit?I've only swum 2 USAS meets as a Masters swimmer and they were both hosted by my kids' club team. These were both LCM meets with a 15&Over section and, aside from me, included lots of college kids and even a number of post-college guys in their mid to late 20s. One of them included some other Masters' swimmers. The kids seem to pay no attention to me. The parents, many whom I know, are very encouraging. I'm sure in their minds they think I'm crazy, but to my face, they are supportive!

Chris, I'm hoping you or someone else who knows, can answer this, this is my meet entry www.pvswim.org/.../10-64ma1.htm It says the pool has not met USA-S standards for pool measurement for their rule Dimensional Tolerance: Against the required length, a tolerance of plus (+) 0.03 meters (1 and 3/16ths of an inch) in a vertical plane extending 0.3 meters (12 inches) above and 0.8 meters (2 feet, 7 and 1/2 inches) below the surface of the water at all points of both end walls. Should I even bother to ask for USMS measuring or just use this as a warm up for my USMS LCM meet coming up? The entry info says that it hasn't been certified. I don't know whether this is because the pool is too short, or if they just haven't bothered. Jeff Roddin (the PV Top Ten Recorder) might know: you could ask him. You could also contact the meed director for more info.

When you swim in one of the USAS meets, what's the usual reaction from the other swimmers? Their parents? Are they generally welcoming? Also, does the "senior" category constitute "open" or is there an age limit? I've been in 3 USA-S meets. In 2 of them I was the only person above the age of 18. I got some looks from people not on my team. But I also had a few adults give me an "atta-girl". Some meets are 15-18 and some are 15 and up. I can only do the 15 and up ones. Senior is 15 and up so we would qualify :)

The looks get even better when you start beating the 15+ "youngsters" Yeah, but, as a guy, the jesting/teasing is pretty loud when you get beat by a 13/14 year old girl!

Senior is 15 and up so we would qualify :) I think senior is technically anyone who can make the qualifying standard. There isn't a minimum age.

The entry info says that it hasn't been certified. I don't know whether this is because the pool is too short, or if they just haven't bothered. Jeff Roddin (the PV Top Ten Recorder) might know: you could ask him. You could also contact the meed director for more info. I don't know if the pool is short or not but I bet Chris is correct: they simply haven't measured it. USA-S only requires a pool measurement if a record is set (NAG, for instance). And they probably figure NAG records won't be set in this particular meet so they haven't bothered to get the pool certified. For USMS, however, the pool must be certified for the times to be eligible for Top Ten consideration. But keep in mind you can ask to have the times submitted to USMS Event Rankings since those times are not tied in to the Top Ten rankings. It's a little bit of work to extract the times from a USA-S meet to import into our database but it can be done. That's why you have to be nice to your local Top Ten recorder. But in this case you're not turning your times in for TT so I suppose any USMS administrator with access to Event Rankings can do the work for you. Which means you should be nice to all of those people :D

Thanks everybody. I'm actually entering a USA-S Invitational in CT in a couple of weeks. I had hoped to go to their USMS LCM champs but we have a run one day and a graduation party the next. I contacted the entry person for the invit. and they were REALLY nice and told me that I just squeaked in (as they were getting full) the 3 events I wanted to swim on Sat. = ) The only other USA meet I did was in 2001 in San Ramon, CA, and I got lots of strange looks as I had my one-year old in a stroller with me. It was funny because at the time the database could not accomodate anyone over age 28, so I was listed as being 28 even though I was 31. Plus, I got to race right next to one of my students! I really can't remember who won, she probably did, but it was fun to smack-talk her before, telling her, "if you beat me I'll give you an F!" :agree:

You definately get strange looks as a masters level swimmer entering a USA-S meet :) The looks get even better when you start beating the 15+ "youngsters" :eek::bow: