The anti-sandbag law:
"if a swimmer enters an event with a time significantly slower or faster than that swimmer's recorded time in the past two years, the meet director may, after a discussion with the swimmer, change the seeded time to a realistic time" (104.5.5.A(10)).
Concerning my Auburn nationals entry, I confess, when faced with a 7 hour 2 stop flight and 3:45 nonstop at an earlier time, I did what any warm-blooded middle-aged American swimmer with low self-esteem would do--sandbag my entry so I could catch the earlier flight, thus diminishing the possible time spent sitting next to a 400 pound Alabama slammer with sleep apnea wearing nothing but overalls and body odor. Of course, I was caught in my bold fabrication and my time was "fixed."
USMS seems to have an identity problem. Are we hard core with rigid qualifying times? It would seem not as 2 of my not-so-speedy family members were allowed to swim four events last year in Puerto Rico. If we are not hard core, why does anybody care that I sandbag? More to the point, why can one person enter a crappy time and another cannot? Just wondering.:)
So I couldn't let That Guy's efforts stand without an effort to try taking him down. Like him, I chose a taper meet (NE LMSC SCM champs last December) and a non-taper meet (the VMST David Gregg meet last February). I had those entry times and results readily available in my blog.
For the taper meet, I averaged a 1.23% difference. Good for an A+ on Rick's scale but not good enough to take down that guy, darn him! (I was undone by a particularly stinky 50 fly, 0.7 sec off my seed time that was good for 2.79%, bloating my average.)
For the non-taper meet, I averaged 1.33% difference, finally taking down that guy. That deserves the banana celebration: :banana:. I had the advantage, though, that I did the same exact events I had done a year ago; I simply entered the times from 2010 in the 2011 meet.
Well done! You bring up a good point that an inconsequential difference in a 50 can be a large % difference. I didn't race any 50's in my two recent meets. My 100 SCM *** was 8.48% faster than my seed time. A big enough difference that even while I was realizing that I had just made a breakthrough in my breaststroke, I was also thinking that I must look like a real jerk. No fistpumps or anything like that, I just stared at the scoreboard and the unexpected number it was displaying.
So I couldn't let That Guy's efforts stand without an effort to try taking him down. Like him, I chose a taper meet (NE LMSC SCM champs last December) and a non-taper meet (the VMST David Gregg meet last February). I had those entry times and results readily available in my blog.
For the taper meet, I averaged a 1.23% difference. Good for an A+ on Rick's scale but not good enough to take down that guy, darn him! (I was undone by a particularly stinky 50 fly, 0.7 sec off my seed time that was good for 2.79%, bloating my average.)
For the non-taper meet, I averaged 1.33% difference, finally taking down that guy. That deserves the banana celebration: :banana:. I had the advantage, though, that I did the same exact events I had done a year ago; I simply entered the times from 2010 in the 2011 meet.
Well done! You bring up a good point that an inconsequential difference in a 50 can be a large % difference. I didn't race any 50's in my two recent meets. My 100 SCM *** was 8.48% faster than my seed time. A big enough difference that even while I was realizing that I had just made a breakthrough in my breaststroke, I was also thinking that I must look like a real jerk. No fistpumps or anything like that, I just stared at the scoreboard and the unexpected number it was displaying.
