I am competing in my first swim meet in a long time and was looking for advice for warm up at the meet as I haven't ever competed without a team and a coach. I have been swimming 2800-3200 yards per 1 hour workout and will be completing the 50 fly, 50 back, 50 ***, 50 free, 100 ***, and 100 IM at the meet. Suggestions?
Most people don't warm up enough, including me. In practice, I find I don't swim well until I've been 800-1000 so I try to do that much for warm-up. This is a typical meet warm-up for me:
*300 free; start easy, gradually increase pace
*300 mixing back, ***, free; include some drills
*4 x 50 on an interval. I find this is very important to get my heartrate up a little. It's hard to hold an exact interval because of the number of swimmers so be ready to adjust. I'll aim for 1:00 interval, but depending on traffic, may leave at 1:10 or :55.
*100-200 checking pace. If it's a distance day, I'll try 100 to see if I can hit my desired pace. If I have 200s that day, I'll try some 50s at race pace.
*Starts in the sprint lanes.
