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Here you will find the best tips and tricks about our wonderful sport of swimming! 

  • How to Mark Your Swimmer for the Meet
  • How to Read a Heat Sheet
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How to Mark Your Swimmer for the Meet

You must write your child’s Last Name their back right shoulder. You must write their age on their back left shoulder. If we have manual timing sheets, their last name helps the timers verify they are recording the time for the correct swimmer. Use a Sharpie to write everything and do not use sunscreen after (sharpie will come off).

Suggestion: You should mark your swimmer to reflect which event, heat, lane, and relay they are racing. This is used to help remind the swimmer of their events. Use the Heat Sheet to find and highlight your child's events.

Mark the arm as illustrated below in the picture in the order of Event/Heat/Lane. Write on clean, dry skin with no sunscreen.

(E = event, H = heat, L = lane)

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How to Read a Heat Sheet

What is a Heat Sheet? What does it say?

The Heat Sheet is a program that shows all the participating swimmers and what events they will participate in as well as the heat number and lane number. The announcer will say the event and heat number. Clerk of Course is used for ages 8 and under. They gather the swimmers, by age and gender, and escort them to their appropriate lanes.

NOTE: Changes to the Heat Sheet could be made the day of the meet based on swimmers who don't arrive on time or do not attend. We could also "combine" races to speed up the meet. For example, if we have 3 girls swimming Fly in the 15-17 age group and 3 boys -- we may combine them into one

For anyone 9 and up, please pay attention, or have your swimmer pay attention, when it gets close to the time of your swimmer's event. Also -- please be flexible as some kids change their mind the day of the race for what they 'feel' like swimming and our coach works very hard to make sure they only have swimmers in races they feel confident about.

Heat Sheet Key- 

  • Heat Number (A): In each of the events, there are HEATS. Each heat may have 1-8 swimmers - depending on the size of the pool and the amount of swimmers in the age group/gender.
  • Event Number (B): Number of events may vary meet to meet depending on the team we are swimming against. We swim the Individual Medley, Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly, and Freestyle Relay.
  • Lane Number (C): This will tell you which lane your swimmer is scheduled to be in.
  • Seed Time: Once a swimmer participates legally in an event, they will have a "seed time" in that event for the next meet. Swimmers are placed in heats and relays according to their seed times. It's the swimmer's fastest time prior to this meet (if they have a previous time). Time trials is when we get the “seed time” for the younger swimmers. Older swimmers will use their time from the previous season.
  • Heat Winner: First child to touch the wall. Sometimes they will win a prize like a duck or beads!
  • Ribbons: Ribbons are distributed per event so if an event has multiple heats, each swimmer will get a ribbon relative to the overall event.
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