Livingston Waves

There are two different kinds of swim meets that we have, Dual/Tri meets, and Invitationals. 

Dual Meets/ Tri Meets

• Hosted usually on weekday evenings
• Typically start at about 5:00PM
• Last 3-4 hours
• Directly competing against another team.
• No entry fee for each event/relay.

Invitationals

• Hosted on Saturdays
• Typically begin at 9:00 AM
• All day event, lasts until 3:00PM-4:00PM
• Individual events cost $3.50 each
• Relays cost $6.00($1.50/ per swimmer)

Swim meets are run using a Meet Program, also known as a heat sheet. While the specific events change slightly for each event (Distance/strokes), the typically follow the same order. The program will show what events are being swam that day, in what order, and when your swimmer needs to be at the block ready to swim. As in the picture below, the heat sheet is organized by event number, heat number, and lane. 

Swim Definitions

• Event: The specific stroke, distance, and age group that will be swam
  • ie) Girls 11-14 50 Yard Freestyle
• Heat: Since there are often more swimmers that want to swim an event than can fit in the pool at one time, we split an event into heats. These are just repeated opportunities for them to swim. It is very important that your swimmer arrives to their event at the right heat.
• Lane Number: Each pool has a certain amount of lanes, and are labeled slightly differently at every pool. Typically, the number is on the block/ cement, or a cone is used.
• Seed Time: The time your swimmer has historically swam the event.

Many families choose to mark their swimmers using a sharpie to make it easier to keep track of their events. We use the heat sheet to find events, and write them on their wrist/thigh as in the grid below.