First dual meet

Yay! By now--Saturday afternoon--everyone should have completed the first dual meet of the season and maybe even gotten home from the post meet eatery. The weather cooperated--no thunderstorms--and hopefully everyone swam fast or, barring that, at least had fun.

One meet management tip that occurred to me at our meet--I think it's a better idea for the clerk to take the relay cards when the swimmers report. Send the swimmers to the lanes and the cards to the automation table. This is not a big issue for events 3 and 4, the Open Medley, since the swimmers and timers are at the same end of the pool. But now for events 49 and 50, the swimmers are 25 meters away from the the timers, so if no one thinks to carry the cards to the other end, they get left on pool chairs or the pool deck. The automation table needs the cards to enter the swimmers' names--the timers can write their times on the lane/timer sheet for that event. Plus, sending the card directly to automation cuts down on the number of wet, chewed relay cards.

We revised the Meet Management book--the green book--to recommend this. It is an especially good practice for relay carnival.