How to Race!

Now that we know how swim meets are run and who everyone is on deck, let's talk about how to actually do a race! As we said before, host swim teams make some money from their swim meets, and the money they make is based on how many races they can fit into the day. So, they are heavily incentivized to run a fast swim meet where heats are taking off back-to-back-to-back. This means that you don't have very much time if your race is about to go off. Let's make sure you know where to be and what to do so that you don't miss your race.

Remember that the races during the day are given an event number, and most swim meets run in order from 1 to however many events there are. So, the first thing to keep track of is what event is happening right now. This is usually listed on the scoreboard. You can also see what heat they are on and you can ask your coach, the heat cheat or meet mobile how many heats are in that event. This gives you an idea of how close we are to your race.

When we are about 5 minutes before your race starts, it will be time for you to go up behind the blocks and find your lane and get in line for your race. I wish I could tell you exactly how many heats should be in front of you before you go up, but this is very dependent on what race is being swum. For instance, if the event is the 50 freestyle, you may have to go up 10 heats before it is your turn since each race only takes 30 seconds. But if you are racing the mile, you probably don't need to go up until the very heat in front of you is already in the water since it will take them about 15 to 20 minutes to finish their race.

Before you make your way behind the blocks, we highly encourage swimmers to talk to their coach and get an idea of what they are looking for you to do during your race. Different coaches have different goals throughout the season and swim meets are a huge opportunity for you to practice different race strategies, techniques and whatever else your coach thinks will benefit you. If you are not mentally engaged in the swim meet, you won't maximally benefit from it. Be very aware that your competitors are training for the big end of season championship, and they are using every racing opportunity as a learning experience. You should be too.

Behind the blocks, you should mentally be preparing for the race. Your coach will teach you how to do this so we will not go over those details here. But in general, playing some music is helpful, staying limber and moving around keeps your body warm, and removing distractions such as talking with friends is important. While we want swim meets to be fun and for you to make friends, it is important to take a few minutes before each race to refocus your attention on what is coming next. After the race, we can go back to having fun.

When the heat in front of you is in the water, this is the time to get your goggles on and double check that your cap is fitted right. A lot of times, this is when swimmers suddenly break their goggles or their cap. Depending on the race, you may have enough time to go back and get a spare, but sometimes you will just have to tough it out and do the race as is. If this happens, see if your coach can help but otherwise don't lose focus on what you are here for. For generations, swimmers raced without goggles or swim caps and they survived just fine!

When the swimmers in the water are entering the final five yards of the race and are about to end, you will hear the starter whistle three times. Do not get on the blocks at this time! You need to wait for the long fourth whistle before you can get on the blocks.

It varies from swim meet to swim meet, but most swim meets perform something called a flyover start. This means that the swimmers who just got done with their race will not get out of the water but will stay on the wall and wait. You will then have to dive over them to start your race. At that time, they will get out of the water. Some smaller swim

meets that have more time on their hands will have the swimmers exit the water, or if it is a backstroke race which starts in the water the swimmers will exit the water too. But just so you are aware, it is very common for swimmers to dive over each other to start their race.

After the fourth long whistle, you will get on the blocks. Once on the blocks, get in the ready position. When the starter says take your mark, they will expect all the swimmers in the heat to be ready and motionless before the race starts. If there is any motion by any swimmer in the heat, the starter will call the swimmers to relax and they will attempt the “take your mark” again. Try not to be that swimmer.

When you hear the buzzer and see the strobe light go off, it's on! Focus on the race, focus on what your coach asked you to do and try to beat the person next to you!

Most of the time, races go well and there is nothing to worry about. But on occasion, something goes wrong at the start and you might hear a lot of beeping and whistling from the starter. If a swimmer were to false start, aka jump the gun, the meet referee allows the race to continue as normal and that swimmer will be disqualified by the officials. But sometimes if the fault is too egregious, the starter will try to stop the race and bring everyone back to the blocks to try again. This is very rare and there is really no good way to tell you what to do if that happens. Most swimmers don't hear this happening and continue on with the race, and that is totally okay. No one will fault you for racing first and asking questions later.

At the end of the race, stay on the wall and in the water until everybody is finished with their race. If the swim meet is performing flyover starts, you will need to stay in the water until the next heat dives over you and starts their race. Then it's time to get out of the water. When you are out, we highly encourage swimmers to go directly to their coach and debrief what happened in the race. You can look at the clock to see how you performed and you can ask the timers for an unofficial time. But realize that glitches happen and the official times will not be posted until later. So the number you see or hear may not be your final race time.

I got disqualified…now what? Most swimmers will not know that they got disqualified until they talk to their coach after the meet. Of course, backstrokers can see the officials and know that when an official raises their hand during a race, that means someone got disqualified. It is very important for you to know that you will have no idea who got disqualified or why they got disqualified. Do not, for any reason, under any circumstance stop your race or cut back on your effort because you think you were the one disqualified. Even if you were disqualified and your time will not count, there's a lot to learn from every race and you can only learn that if you put in the maximum effort.

There is an entire rule book which dictates what is legal and illegal during all the types of strokes, starts and turns. We will not go through all those details, but you can look through those on your own. What you should know is that officials follow a strict methodology for how someone is disqualified, and oftentimes more than one official is required to see the offense in order for you to be disqualified. So even if one hand goes up, that does not necessarily mean that you are disqualified. Even if the officials do disqualify you, there are mechanisms for coaches to challenge those calls. So, the race is not over until the fat lady sings, and you should perform every race as if you're trying to win.

If you do end up truly disqualified, traditionally this qualifies the swimmer to go to Dairy Queen and get some ice cream for their DQ. Get it? DQ, aka Dairy Queen? Okay, maybe not. Disqualifications are a very good learning opportunity, especially for our very younger swimmers who may not know all the rules. So, make sure you talk to your coach and understand why you got disqualified and what you should do to avoid it for the next time.

Okay, let's pause and summarize how to do a race:

1.     Pay attention as the swim meet is running so that you know when your event is coming.

2.     Talk to your coach before you go to the blocks.

3.     Go to the blocks about 5 minutes before your race is going to start.

4.     When behind the blocks, focus on the race.

5.     When the heat in front of you is in the water, put your goggles on and double check your cap.

6.     When the heat in front of you finishes their race, you will hear three whistles, but wait for the fourth long whistle before you get on the blocks.

7.     When on the blocks, be in the ready position.

8.     The starter will say “take your mark”, then they will hit the button and you will hear a loud buzzer and see a strobe light go off.

9.     Race like your life depends on it!

10.  Ignore everything else, including officials and their silly hand waving.

11.  Finish the race and stay on the wall until it is your time to get out of the water.

12.  Go to your coach and debrief the race.

What should you do if you are not racing for a while?

Ideally, you would be involved in each of your teammate’s races like you were watching your favorite team in the Super Bowl. Cheering, chanting, banners, body paint… the whole works. But realistically, most swim meets are at least four hours long PER SESSION for 2-3 days and you may have hours between your races. Staying that hyped for that long is a bit of a stretch (unless it’s an end of season championship meet, then you should really be involved the whole time).

During all this down time, catch up on homework, read a book, hang out with friends, stay warm, stay hydrated, snack but don’t overeat (more in the Recovery chapter) and overall create a team culture everyone else wants to be on! When other swimmers, coaches and parents see one of your swimmers race, act and cheer, they should know which team that person belongs to. It should be obvious. They should want to be part of your team!

Keep your team's area cleaned up throughout the meet and especially at the end of each session. Most host teams get to pick and choose who they invite, and if you leave a mess at their pool, they may not invite you back. They may even not come to your swim meets. Just like being at a friend's house, leave it in better shape than you found it.

Before leaving the session, check in with your coach to make sure you are not on a relay for which you need to stick around until the end. Speaking of relays, we need to clear up some rules to avoid the drama…

A relay is when a group of four swimmers from the same team race together. It is usually very high energy as everyone on the pool deck is cheering for their team. Many times, a team will have multiple relay groups and these are ordered from fastest to slowest and labeled A, B, C… and so on.

Swimming on a relay is a PRIVILEGE! It’s not a right, not an entitlement, you don’t deserve it. It’s a gift. Another opportunity to race and learn. A lot of swimmers (and parents) make a fuss over being on the “A” relay. We have seen a lot of swimmers lose their cool over not being on the fastest relay for the team or not being included on a relay at all. Relay spots are limited. Relay spots on the A relay are very limited. Coaches often have to make a choice about who gets to swim and what relay they swim on. They may also have to rearrange the relay swimmers during the meet to put together the fastest relay. Maybe you got bumped from the A relay because this meet just wasn’t going your way. Don’t take it personally, don’t make a fuss, don’t go crying and complaining to your momma. This is the real world, performance matters and when it comes to relays, coaches have to do what is best for the whole team, not just the individual swimmer. That means putting together the fastest relay possible. If your time has come to sacrifice your spot for the team, be happy to play that part and give someone else the opportunity to shine. If this meet is going well for you and you are

 chosen to be on a relay at all, put in the full effort! Your time may not count, but your team still needs you to do your best. If you hold back trying to save your energy for your individual races, your team and coaches will know, and it could cost you relay spots in the future at bigger swim meets because the coach knows you won't perform as well as your peers. Don’t be that selfish swimmer. Not cool.

I once had a group of girls that when they were put on a B relay, they made it their goal to beat the A relay and guess what? They finally did it! Both relays went 1^st and 2^nd at state while the C relay got top eight. Twelve kids got to go home with a medal! You never know what will happen. Take a relay spot, any relay spot, and swim with it!

Let's take a second to talk about the difference between an in-season swim meet versus an end of season championship meet. Obviously, they occur at different times during the season. Many swimmers tend to blow off in-season swim meets and put in subpar effort. This is a big mistake for two reasons. One, these swim meets are just as much about training and improving your swimming machine as it is about getting a good time. Second, there are some things that you can only learn in the racing environment of a swim meet. If you want to find the weaknesses that you need to work on, you need to push your body to the limit during these races so that you and your coach can nail down what to work on in the future. This will in turn make you faster at the end of the swim meet when you are fully tapered.

When you are younger, it is possible and probably expected that you go a best time almost every single time you race throughout the season. As you get older, past about 12 or 13 years old, it will become very unlikely that you will get a best time during an in-season swim meet. This is because your body is so good at training now that it requires much longer to fully recover for you to swim a best time. That is why championship meets exist where you will spend some time at the end of the season doing lighter workouts and resting more often in order to maximize your ability to swim fast. This is called taper.

It can be a very disturbing transition from dropping time every single time you race to dropping time only a few times a year. Many swimmers often struggle with this transition and quit the sport entirely because they feel like they are wasting their time. This is a huge mistake!

There's nothing in this life worth having that does not require hard work, sacrifice and perseverance. If all you want is something that is easy to come by, then it will not be valuable or worth your time. Dropping time when you are a fast, semi-adult swimmer becomes much much more meaningful because of the hard work and training that is required to achieve it. The trick to staying in the game mentally is to focus on the process instead of the result. There are a lot of things that can improve during the season besides improving your best time: number of dolphin kicks of each wall, tempo, distance per stroke, race strategy, splitting the race properly, training harder and doing more yards…The number of things that you can improve on throughout the season are endless. Focus on these pieces of the puzzle, and at the end of the swim meet these will show up in your final time! There are endless motivational posters and YouTube videos that talk about focusing on the process instead of the result and we won't add to it here. However, we do talk more in depth about this topic with our other guides which are geared for your coach, so make sure to talk to them about this process.

Another big difference between in-season and championship meets are the suites swimmers wear. In swimming, we have special racing suits called tech suites. These are usually tighter and have a hydrophobic surface to help you slip through the water faster than a normal suit. The downside is they are expensive and they don’t last very long. If you are young and still improving every meet, don’t waste your parents’ money on these suites. Don’t be jealous someone else is getting one and you aren’t. The time will come when you will need one, just be patient.

One final tip about who you are racing against: Instead of looking at your opponents as swimmers who want to take you down, see them as competitors who push you to be your best. They help you become a better swimmer. In a very real way, your rivals are helping you achieve more of yourself. That isn’t something an enemy or nemesis does,

it’s something we expect out of our teammates and coaches. So, ditch the attitude and ego when racing a rival and see them for what they are: another assistant in your journey to achieve more.

Swimmer's Starter Guide book here!