How to Prepare for a Swim Meet: The Meet is Finally Here!

If you haven't gone to a swim meet, then you have missed out on a lot of fun. They are very chaotic though. Especially the championship meets, but there a lot of fun!

The swim meet is normally a whole weekend long. Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday there is all age groups swimming, but on Saturday and Sunday, they split the day into two sessions. The first session is normally the 9-10 age group, and the 11-12 age group. The afternoon is normally 8 & under, 13-14, and 15 & over. Sometimes they just have 13 & over or Open instead of 13-14 and 15 & over. If anyone younger than 13 (which if there is Open then the 13 usually swims with them) wants to swim in the Open session than there own age group session, then they can, because its Open, but usually Open is just for 13 & over, or 15 & over. They split up the age groups so the eight years old are not swimming with like the fifteen year old. The sport is co-et, but in the meet there is a different event for the men and the women. Usually the women's events are before, but then after one event the men's are right after for that age group. So it's not like all the women swim first and then the men, it's every other. So when you first get to the swim meet you have to positively check your self in, which means to highlight your name on a list to show that you are here. Then you have to warm-up before you actually swim your races. There is more than one warm up session and they normally last around 30-45 minutes. Then after every warm-up session everone does two starts off the starting blocks. They do that so everone can get a feeling of what the pool and blocks are like. When warm-ups are done then the meet starts and you swim your races. You want to make sure that you are up and behind the blocks a few heats before your race so you are ready to go. A heat is a race in each event because they can't fit everyone who is swimming in that event in the six or eight laned pool at one time. In a meet you need to be drinking water and eating healthy foods. You could be eating a power bar, a bagel, fruit, crackers, and other simple foods like that. You also want to STAY HYDRATED!!!!

That is pretty much the whole meet. So go swim a swim meet and remember what I told you about the meet!