Many swimmers I have talked to over the years have said that they would like to race some nonstandard event. Frequently mentioned examples are: a 75 butterfly, a 3-stroke IM, a 25 SDK, or a distance stroke event. Suppose you could enter some nonstandard events at a SCY meet, what would you pick? Perhaps a 2x400 breaststroke family relay? (Count me out on that one, but it does sound cool.) I thought about posting a poll, but it would be difficult to list all of the possibilities and I might miss some good idea, so I'm just inviting free-form response. Second question: would you travel to Philadelphia to swim it?
Look at the attached link for Masters Swimming Australia, you will see that the Aussies have records for everything from 25 meters up to 1500 meters in EVERY stroke. Love those Aussies!!!:applaud:
www.portal.aussi.org.au/.../ranking.php
Of course you always have the people (cough cough Fortress cough) who complain about their lane assignments under this type of seeding system.
I didn't say a peep at LCM Zones! :angel: But sometimes in SCM or SCY, me (5'4") and Wolfy (6'4") aren't very compatible side by side. I don't need to be bounced around that much.
I like Chris' choices. Since SDK is practically the 5th stroke now, an SDK race would be de rigeur in a nonstandard meet. I also like the idea of equipment races or all-one-stroke relays or any order IM.
Why do we never see these events offered?
My next meet, however, we are racing those dastardly 25s that Mike Heather hates. :bliss:
Of course you always have the people (cough cough Fortress cough) who complain about their lane assignments under this type of seeding system.
Don't you mean under any seeding system? :)
I would like to see a relay where all four members swim at the same time. Your team is done when the last person touches the wall. So for example, the race could be 500 yards. Strategy, drafting, and team unity would be key.
I of course would want to be the one who drafts for the first 450 yards.
In an 8 lane pool, you would have 32 people in the water at the same time. Awesome.
How about a 500/500/1650/1000 relay in the middle of a meet. It would give the sprinters adequate rest and they would complain less.
Then they would complain about how long you are causing the meet to drag on as well.
Sprinter=whinners
Middistance/strokes= peaceful, loving, folk that enjoy life
Distance= makes the rest of us want :bed:
This is a great idea! It's very similar to the team pursuit event in speed skating (maybe cycling, too?). If you wanted to make it similar to the skating event you'd have only two teams in the water at the same time and they'd start from opposite ends of the pool. It's single elimination, so times are really irrelevant.
We sometimes did this at the end of a training session way back when. I was often the lone female swimmer bringing up the end of the lane of 4 or 5 guys. We'd all set off on 5 sec intervals with the intention to catch the person in front of you.
And what normally happened was the middling swimmers got caught leaving me and the first guy in the lane trying to catch each other (with me eventually failing). Looking back I wonder why I just didn't give up earlier!
But it would be fun to put one swimmer from each of 5 or 6 teams in a lane and see what happens.
