Differences between Timed Final Meets and Prelim/Final Meets

 Working on education pieces for new swim families and just general information for current families.  It is really important to understand what is expected for meets and how much of your time will be taken for any particulate swim meet weekend.  

1. Timed Finals Meet (The Standard Format)

The Timed Finals format is straightforward and is used for almost all local, invitational, and "B/BB" level meets.

Feature	Explanation
How it Works	Every swimmer swims each of their entered events only once.
The Result	The swimmer's place in the event is determined by their time, regardless of who they swam against in their specific heat (race). All times from all heats in that event are merged, and the fastest time wins the event.
Schedule	The meet is typically a single session per day (e.g., a Saturday morning meet). Your swimmer arrives, warms up, swims their events, and then is done for the day.
Swimmer Focus	Focus is on getting a better at racing.
Common at	Dual meets, club invitationals, Novice/Rookie meets, and most events for swimmers aged 12 & Under.

 The Swimmer's Experience:

Your swimmer will be placed in a heat with other swimmers of a similar speed (based on their entry time). If there are 10 heats of the 50 Freestyle, the winner of Heat 1 is simply the fastest swimmer in that particular race, but their overall place in the event is determined only after the 10th and final heat is swum. They only need to focus on one great swim.

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2. Prelims/Finals Meet (The Championship Format)

The Prelims/Finals (or "P/F") format is designed for higher-level competitions where the goal is to determine a single, definitive winner in a head-to-head race.  It requires a significant commitment, as it is a two-session day for qualifiers.  Swimmers who qualify for for Finals are expected to compete in finals.  Even if you are not seeded in a position to make it back you should always plan on your swimmer making it back to finals.  

Feature	Preliminary Session (Morning)	Final Session (Evening)
How it Works	All entered swimmers race their event to get the fastest time possible.	The top 8, 16, or 24 fastest swimmers from the morning return to race again.
The Result	The morning times are used only to qualify for the final session.	The places (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) and medals/points are determined only by the times swum in this session.
Schedule	The day is split: Morning Session (Prelims) and Evening Session (Finals).	Qualifiers often have a long break between the two sessions.
Swimmer Focus	Morning: Swim fast enough to make the cut for finals. "Qualify!"	Evening: Swim even faster to place and win a medal. "Race!"
Common at	State/LSC Championships, Sectionals, Junior Nationals, and meets for older age groups (13 & Over).

 The Swimmer's Experience:

1. Morning Prelims: Swimmers race hard, trying to finish in the top positions (e.g., top 8 or top 16).

2. Making Finals:

   • If they finish in the top 8, they usually make the "A Final" (or Championship Final).

   • If they finish 9th through 16th, they may make the "B Final" (or Consolation Final).

3. Evening Finals: They return to the pool.

   • Swimmers in the A Final compete for 1st through 8th place.

   • Swimmers in the B Final compete for 9th through 16th place.

Why is this format used? It rewards swimmers who can perform well under pressure and race a fast time twice in one day. The Final race in the evening is the true head-to-head competition for the title.

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Summary for New Swim Families

Format	Swimmer Races	Experience
Timed Finals	Once per event.	Single, shorter session. Good for setting PBs.
Prelims/Finals	Twice per event (if they qualify).	Full-day commitment. High pressure, high reward championship racing.

FAIL BEAUTIFULLY!!!!

What does it mean to “Fail Beautifully”?  Isn’t failing bad?  How can something you think is bad be beautiful?  If I were to fail in school, I could get in trouble.  How can I fail and not get in trouble? These are all questions I get on a regular basis.

First, it is important to know that the failing I am referring to is not failing because you give up. It is not failing because you did not study for a test.  It is not failing because you did not try. Instead, I am talking about failing in spite of your best effort.  Have you ever worked so hard in a class that you struggled with only to barely earn a B or C?  You did all the homework.  You got tutoring.  You had the opportunity to drop the class, but instead you spent hours upon hours trying to grasp the concepts.  And eventually you did, but despite all the effort you still only got a B or C in the class.  Yet, that B or C was possibly the most fulfilling grade you ever received.  Why?  Because despite all the challenges and difficulties you faced you never gave up.  In fact, you likely proved to yourself what hard work looks like and you now understand what a sense of accomplishment truly mean.  And it felt good.

To “Fail Beautifully” you must take a risk. You must put yourself out there.  You must push yourself to the point of physical failure.  You make yourself vulnerable by going outside of your comfort zone.  This might mean being a little more aggressive earlier in the race than you normally would, doing a couple of extra dolphin kicks off the wall, or putting your head down into the finish before you normally would.  These are all skills we work and talk about in practice.  These are the skills we want to implement in our races. But many times swimmers are too afraid of being uncomfortable and pushing their limits that they ignore everything we do in practice.  These are the swimmers that swim the same races every meet and wonder why nothing ever changes.  However, to “Fail Beautifully” we must step outside of our comfort zone.  We must push ourselves to our limits.

My swimmers and I talk about making ourselves uncomfortable every day.  Because if you never push your self to the point where you fail (physically), you will never know your limits.  If you never know your limits, you will never grow and learn how to push those limits even further.  That is what makes failure beautiful.  The beauty is knowing you have given 100% and understand your limits and you are continuing to expand your limits.    

The idea of failing has become so stigmatized.  However, I try every day to help my swimmers understand that failing is not a bad thing.  When we fail, we learn.  When we push our body’s to their limits, we grow.  When we do this repeatedly, we become better athletes.

Who remembers Michael Jordan?  I know many of you will laugh because I asked this question, but most of my swimmers are familiar with LeBron James or Kevin Durant and there are some who had never heard for Michael Jordan. However, to me Michael Jordan is the epitome of someone who “fails beautifully.” Jordan was once quoted saying the following, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games.  26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.  I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed.”

Does anyone look at Michael Jordan as a failure?  Instead, almost 20 years later we are still referencing Jordan as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.  

The truth is, you will fail far more than you will succeed.  You will stumble along the way.  You will make mistakes.  You will choose to follow comfort instead of testing your limits.  You will win races you should have lost.  You will lose races you should have won.  Instead of looking at these situations as setbacks and true failures, find what you can learn from it.  In failure you can learn more than in success.  You can learn to be better.  You will learn humility.  You will learn resiliency.  You will learn that you are far stronger than you every imagined.  You will understand the true meaning to “fail beautifully.”

If you never take risks and constantly avoid failure you will never know your true potential.  Michael Jordan said it best, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

So I will end with this…I challenge each of you every day whether at practice, a swim meet, dryland session, school, work, whatever it may be to make yourself uncomfortable and take risks.  Do not run away from challenges, rather embrace them.  Allow yourself to fail and when you do fail, both figuratively and literally, do so with dignity and respect. Because than you will have “failed beautifully.”

What is Developing the WHOLE PERSON?

It has been over 5 years since I have added anything here.  I have been feeling inspired the last couple of weeks so I decided to try diving back into writing.  Please share with anyone you feel could get something out of this.

Coaches talk about developing not only the athlete, but the WHOLE PERSON.  Have you ever sat back and thought about what that meant?  I am going to try and explain what it means to me in 10 simple parts.

1. Time management/Punctuality – It is not just about being able to manage your time with all of your different responsibilities, it is also about being on time.  “Early is on time, and on time is late, and late is unacceptable!” -Unknown
2. Goal Oriented – Understanding how to set not just BIG long term goals, but also set short term SMALLER goals that help you continue to work towards that long term goal.  A good example is I (Coach Anthony) am trying to walk 1500 miles in the calendar year.  Each month I set a goal of what mileage I want to be at by the end of the month in order to ensure I will succeed if not supersede my goal.  
3. Responsibility – Being accountable to yourself and others.  When you say you are going to do something, follow through.
4. Teamwork – Swimming may seem like an individual sport, but it actually requires a lot of team work. This means developing friendships, mutual inspiration and admiration, and respect amongst team mates.  Great examples of teamwork would be cheering on everyone swimming in your lane as they finish a long set, providing words of encouragement throughout a long set, or challenging each other during a tough set.
5. Confidence – Having belief in yourself AND the group.  Believing in your coaches, leaders and team. 
6. Courage – The ability to “Fail Beautifully”.  During points of failure is where you can learn the most about yourself.  If you are not willing to take the risks, you will never know your true potential. Despite what you may think, no one succeeds at everything they do the first time.
7. Communication – Being able to communicate with your teammates, coaches, parents, teachers and anyone else in your life.  You need to be able to communicate your goals, schedule, and conflicts.
8. Honesty – Being 100% honest with yourself. 
9. Diligence – Being able to continue working towards long term and short term goals even when obstacles or setbacks happen.  Working towards a goal is never a straight line.  Life will get in the way.  It is how you work your way through the hard times that you will begin to thrive and grow not only as an athlete but as an individual.
10. Leadership – Not everyone is a vocal leader. I was not a vocal leader growing up.  I would lead by example, meaning I would know the whole set, know the intervals and when we were leaving and I was going to push everyone by pushing the pace every day.  Vocal leaders need to be a positive force that rallies their teammates towards their own goals.  Leaders are about the “WE” not the “ME.” As cliché as it sounds “There is no I in TEAM.”  Leaders look for the glory of the team, not just themselves.

If as coaches we are able to help hone each one of these skills and traits we will be doing a tremendous job.

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.

Dealing with Injuries!

Managing swimmers with injuries is sometimes the most difficult part of coaching. As a coach you get frustrated, are bummed because of setbacks, yet determined to make sure your swimmer heals as needed. As a swimmer (or any athlete in most cases) you are just frustrated because the healing process is never quick enough.  You feel you are going to miss out, be left behind and never recover.

I have a swimmer who recently got injured in an Advanced PE Class at her high school. How did the injury occur? Well that is the tough part. I do not know exactly how or what my swimmer was doing when the injury occurred and the truth is they are not 100% sure what they were doing either. This doesn’t surprise me because athletes are stubborn by nature.  I sure know I was when I was still swimming.  We think we are invincible and can push ourselves through anything with no repercussions. 

My swimmer did not say anything to me to start.  I noticed a few times during a tough aerobic set that this swimmer kept grabbing her shoulder.  I asked the swimmer if everything was okay and she said that her shoulder was a little sore.  As she kept swimming I started to notice the pain on her face.  So, I pulled her out of the water and started to ask more thorough questions. 

As an athlete it is very important that you are honest with yourself, your family and your coach.  The injury I mentioned above turns out it is not as serious as it could have been had, but mainly because we caught it so early.  As a coach, you need to be aware of each and every one of your athletes to the best of your ability. You need to pay attention to signs that indicate something is wrong…physically or emotionally.

As a result of my discussion with her we decided to take a couple of days of rest to see if it was just something minor. However, and the pain remained.  The swimmer was able to go to the doctor and after x-rays and an MRI they found one of her tendons was beginning to fray in the rotator cuff.  Yikes! This sounds bad, but it is not nearly as bad as it could have been. 

Based on my swimmers PT requirements and MRI results we have completely shut her down from using her arms. We decided since being out of the water is not an option for her that our focus would turn to her legs while she completed about 6 weeks of physical therapy. This allowed her to continue her cardio work and let the shoulder recover.  She is also supposed to ice and take an anti-inflammatory medication (talk about a challenge) daily to help promote the healing. 

In the long run, this has turned into a learning experience for me as a coach.  I can do everything to pay attention to all my swimmers and stay aware of everything going on in the pool, but unless they physically and obviously show signs of injury I do not know unless they tell me.  As an athlete it is important that they are aware of what their body is telling them and that they be their own advocate if something is not right.  I have mentioned the importance of communication between athlete and coach. But the truth is, a good athlete wants to push themselves no matter what.

 I read an article today about an NFL player (Russell Allen) that hid his injury that drives the point of communication home. (Here is the link to the article about Russell Allen)  There was a football player that took a hit that looked like nothing, but described it as getting his bell rung.  He hid it from the coaches and it turns out shortly after the hit he had a stroke.  He also was lucky, but his injury was much more severe.  He can no longer play football but he is alive.  Now in my case, my swimmer’s injury was nothing life threatening but it serves to make my point. 

As a coach, in a highly competitive sport, it is sometimes hard to try and not push your athlete through an injury. And many injuries athletes can push through with any side effects or repercussions. But when an injury potentially sidelines one of my swimmers I find myself  telling my swimmers, and myself, this is a marathon not a sprint.  There are going to be bumps in the road, mountains to climb, plateaus to cross, but in the end the most important things are to be happy, healthy and have no regrets!

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.

Technical Suits

Technical suits have become common place at every swim meet level in recent years.  I have seen them at local recreation meets/summer league meets all the way to the highest level of competition.  I was at a meet recently and saw $4000 worth of suits in a 10 & under heat.  Yes you read that correctly…. that is $4000 worth of suits.  That value in suits in that one heat was more than the cost of my first car and possibly more than the cost of those swimmers parent’s first cars.

So now you may be asking why I am putting so much emphasis on the topic of “tech suits.”  After the 2008 Olympics when numerous world records were broken tech suits were given all the credit and became the “must have” item almost overnight. Yes, the suits those Olympians wore gave the swimmers a lot of advantages from buoyancy to reduced drag, but they have all since been banned.  This does not mean the suits that are out there today do not give you an advantage, but they are much different than what those in 2008 were wearing.  Today’s tech suits offer compression, reduced drag, water repellency, etc.

The truth is, despite the changes in tech suites, I still have “fights” with my swimmers and parents at almost every meet about which suit they should wear.  Here is the truth about tech suits and where I pull my rationale from…First, these suits are expensive. Second, you only have a couple of swims in your suit before it has become too stretched out, loses their water repellency and compression. Third, the advantage the suit gives an average age group swimmer is minimal.  At your non-championship level meets there is no reason to wear one of these suits.  A tight textile/practice suit is perfect.  You are not rested and probably had tough practices leading up to your meet.  So why waste the few swims you have in a tech suit in your less competitive non-championship meets?

The reality is for many swimmers wearing a tech suit is just a mental game. They get in their head that they need the suit to swim fast and without it they have no chance.  It is all part of this new mentality they get by simply putting on the suit.  I am a big believer that the swimmer needs to learn to swim fast and not rely on the suit. If they are successful without the suit they will be successful with it and their swimming becomes less about what they are wearing and more about the technique they have been working on.   

From my standpoint, a tech suit should be saved for meets when you are tapering, which for my swimmers would be three meets a year.  We have a taper meet normally at the beginning of December, and then we have Championship meets in March and July/August.  These are the only meets these suits make sense.  You want it to be a “special occasion” to wear the suit.  If you wear it to every meet there is nothing special about putting it on and any mental advantage you would feel is lost as a result of the redundancy of wearing it too often. 

Picking your suit

There are several different brands and styles of the tech suit.  However, before you choose your suit you should go to FINA and make sure the suit you are looking at is approved.  The suits now have a logo that says FINA Approved and looks similar to this:

 

Having this logo is really important as there are still a lot of banned suits out there and you do not want to be the swimmer wearing a banned suit. 

Once you find approved tech suits and are narrowing down your options make sure you try them on. The biggest mistake a swimmer makes is not having a suit that fits properly. Every suit is cut differently and you need to find what works best for you and your body. You also need to make a decision if you are going to wear a Kneeskin or traditional style suit.  And boys need to consider if they want a high waist suit or not.  Lastly, when considering a suit always remember “the most expensive does not always mean it is the best suit for you.” Just because one suit costs more than the next does not mean it will help you swim faster. It simply means it is more expensive. Price should weight very little in your decision of what to buy.

As championship meets are approaching if going the route of wearing a tech suit is your plan you need to start thinking about what you want NOW. Why? Because suit retailers cannot keep tech suits (especially the most popular ones) in stock around big meets. 

And my last and most important suggestion as you start to consider what tech suit to purchase is to talk to your swimmer’s coach. You are making a pricey investment and your coach will likely have some invaluable insight of what he/she thinks will best “suit” your swimmer.

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.