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.:)
Former Member
If you swim a time close to your seed time no one cares. For example warm down or warm up.
If you blow out the heat for what ever personal reason I think it cheapens your time, and is a slap in the face to your fellow competitors.
And the same thing happens when someone uses a perfectly legal black and white split request.
One thing puzzles me. Can no one swim there own race?
Beat me. But, it's not a race if you have no one to race. Then again, sandbaggers are typically afraid of racing, hence the sandbagging.
I don't claim to be an innocent in this, nor a victim. I did participate in a group sandbag last Fall so that six of us could all be in the same heat of the 1650 and we could race. We put fast times that we felt would guarantee us all be in the same heat. Maybe that was an anti-sandbag.
Listen, sandbag all you want, convince yourself and others it is awesome. Just be mindful that it impacts others, to varying degrees. I think sandbagging is poor sportsmanship, you don't. We don't agree, which is fine.
One thing puzzles me. Can no one swim their own race?
Well, sure.
But one attraction of an event like nationals is to compete against people you don't normally see in meets. Since there is an insistence that you be seeded only within your own age group for most races, that cuts down the pool of potential competitors. Sandbagging can reduce it further.
Let's not get carried away Wookie, self control is about as common as common sense.
They should put this on a big sign at the entrance to Disney, and in front of every buffet line the world over.
Being dismissive of the effects of second hand smoke and the effects of sandbagging in a masters meet are in the same category of offense? Hmm ... And are you not just as dismissive of the opposing viewpoint?
Fine, you are stuck on the analogy thing. Sandbagging is cutting in line at the supermarket. Or taking up two parking spaces in a lot. Happy?
What is the opposing viewpoint, that it isn't a big deal? I've said as much. The effect is small, but not zero. Normally I don't think much on it, but here we have a thread. If there is ever a thread about people who double-park maybe I will express my annoyance with that practice too.
One thing puzzles me. Can no one swim there own race?Yes, we can. However, I find I generally swim faster when I'm racing someone. Maybe I'm obsessively Type A, but my competitors make me better and I want to race them. If competition didn't matter and racing people didn't matter, we'd all do solo time trials. Yeah, it'd be a long and boring meet, but then we'd all have the middle lane, clean water, plenty of rest between events and no need for entry times.
One thing puzzles me. Can no one swim there own race?
:applaud: Thank You. That's why I don't get why people care so much about what others do. "X wore this suit" "A listed this as their entry time" "I am stuck in this/that lane" "B didn't show-up to the race, screwed my game plan" "G takes this supplement, F takes that supplement"
Why not just control the one person that we can control, ourselves? If a person wants to sandbag, fine by me. I don't really notice too many people anyway when I swim.
I have vowed to nix the SB strategists by SB'ing myself into a more correct heat.
Now it all becomes clear: it has evolved into a sandbagging arms race!!!
More seriously (and I'm not picking on you, Stud), doesn't all this strategizing about sandbagging make your head hurt? Why does it have to be this complicated? What on earth is so hard about entering approximately the time you expect to do? (Granted, it may be hard to predict if you haven't competed for a long time or you've been injured or whatever.)
There was a thread recently (can't easily look it up now, I'm on a portable device) about how it seems that, as we get older, conditions need to be perfect to have a good swim.
I find it is exactly the opposite, with age has come just a little bit of wisdom to realize that things are very rarely perfect and that, in fact, I have done plenty of surprisingly good swims under adverse conditions: not much rest between events, poor night's sleep, slightly sick, outside lane, pool is not world-class, etc etc.
So my advice, for what it is worth: just enter the time you expect to do -- or maybe a reasonable goal time (I like this strategy myself: seeing the time in the psych sheets gives me something to shoot for) -- and stop sweating all these maddening details. Those things hold you back only to the extent that you believe they do.
(And now I expect I might hear from all those who believe conditions are always great for me: middle lanes, always clear water, etc etc. It isn't true.)
Why not just control the one person that we can control, ourselves?
Let's not get carried away Wookie, self control is about as common as common sense.
