Some meets will allow a swimmer to swim "unattached" in which case you, as the parent, will have to register the swimmer for the meet. Depending on the meet, this can be a PITA for a "regular" parent as the registration will often be required to be submitted as a hytek meet file.

We ended up doing 6 in 8 weeks between the middle of October and Christmas champs. Granted, one was a mini meet and one was a single event distance meet but we probably won’t try that again next year. Was just trying to get a QT for an upcoming big meet.

It’s possible to do just one day of a 2 or 3 day meet, people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many meets is your child able to do? More than one a month is too much and interferes with training - even for older kids.

Our club recommends at least 1 per month, but ideally 2 if available. This is for Age group swimmers and we are far from an intense team.

Does your team host all these meets and getting $ from them? Is your child skipping practices to make these meets? It isn't best practice to race so much at the expense of practice, and also at 9YO that is too much with school and hopefully other interests. Shouldn't burn the kid out.

No, we host one age group meet a year and a few mini meets. No skipping practices as the meets are Sat and Sun only. Strange questions.

Anonymous wrote:OP here - thanks so much for the advice! From what I can see on the team schedule DC's age group has one last scheduled meet in March and then everything else is 10U championships, etc. based on cuts after that. DC isn't at those kinds of times yet as of this moment (but would like to be and is practicing diligently). As a brand-new 9 right now I think DC will just have to try to keep dropping time from now until March and then wait until summer swim. Which obviously won't be the end of the world.

Do I have the general curve of the winter season correct? It's hard to figure out sometimes so I'm mainly trying to watch and learn (and count on all of you for advice!)

March is typically the end of the short course season. Most clubs have some sort of break (maybe two weeks, scheduled to include school spring break) in March/April and then back to training. Depending on the age and level of the kids, they are prepping for summer swim or long course (summer club) season. When my kids were 9-10, we had one big club meet in early May and then, if qualified, one more before school got out. There are clubs that participate in April meets and there are several on the PVS calendar, but that's not how our club scheduled the season.

In my experience, my kids generally did one meet per month October - March, no meets in April, and at least one in May. Then off to summer swim (and/or long course season depending on age/level). Long course season is a bit of a different animal because it's short and many groups accommodate summer swim team.