Behind the Scenes of a College Swimming Meet
Helena Roblas, D1 swimmer, shares her experience at a college meet and the thrills of traveling with the team for competition
Ever wondered what it’s like to compete at a college swimming meet? Keystone Sports ambassador Helena Robla takes you behind the scenes of a travel meet as a D1 swimmer. Helena got a swimming scholarship in the United States and now is competing at the highest level while studying a college degree. Dive in and discover everything about swimming meets!
A big part of being a college athlete is competing, and a lot of times that means traveling to different universities. Although we spend most of the time either at the pool or at the hotel, travel meets are still a lot of fun to go to with your team.
Some travel meets can be just one day long, but sometimes we will travel for an entire week. This is what our longest travel meet looked like.
Getting Ready for a College Travel Meet
I finished packing my bags Tuesday afternoon and headed to the pool Wednesday morning with everything ready for the rest of the week. Wednesday morning started with a short wake-up swim at 6:00 a.m. We got breakfast before getting on the bus to leave for Grand Junction, Colorado around 8:00 a.m.
It’s about a seven-hour drive, so most of us bring pillows and blankets, so we can take naps throughout the ride. We spend most of the ride sleeping, listening to music, watching TV -sometimes we’ll even bring movies to watch together-, doing homework, or just chatting. We also love making TikToks and travel vlogs on the bus!
Arriving and Diving in
We got to the hotel at 3:45 p.m., left our suitcases in our rooms, and grabbed our stuff for the first session of the meet. This meet was structured like a typical championship meet, so it started on Wednesday and finished on Saturday.
We got to the pool at 4:30 p.m. for warmups, and the meet started at 6:00 p.m. This first session was pretty short, so we were back at the hotel by 8:00 p.m. to all have dinner together.
The Routine at a College Swimming Meet
The rest of the days at a championship meet are prelims in the morning and finals in the afternoon, as well as relays.
On Thursday, I swam the 500 and an exhibition 50 freestyle in the morning. I made an A final for the 500. At these types of meets you can only swim a certain amount of “scoring events”, and, if you swim more than that, the events are considered exhibition, which means you cannot swim it in the scoring A or B finals.
Between the morning and afternoon sessions, we go back to the hotel for lunch. We usually get our lunches catered to at the hotel. Before we travel, we fill out our food orders for the week, and once the food gets to the hotel, we can each grab our lunch. Some athletes have families that come to watch them compete, so they usually stay in the lobby and have lunch with them. The rest of us usually go head to our rooms and hang out together.
In these types of meets, we have plenty of time between the morning and the afternoon sessions –for this meet we would be back at the hotel at 12:30 p.m. and wouldn’t leave again till 3:15. I like to take a nap at this time or work on some homework if I’m really busy with school work. Luckily for this week, I wasn’t, so I had extra time to relax!
After finals, we go back to the hotel for team dinner. I love this time because we are all together and everyone is always chatting and joking around, even with the coaches. Once we’re all done with dinner, we have a little meeting and go through our performance as a team for the day and talk about what the next day is going to look like.
After dinner we all go back to our rooms; my roommate and I like to stretch for a bit before bed and we usually watch some TV together if it’s not too late. In the morning, we wake up around an hour before we have to leave for the pool, so we can eat breakfast and get ready for the next session.
Cheering, Racing, and Bonding
During the meet sessions, we get to plan out our schedule mostly on our own. We each know when we’re swimming, so you can plan your dryland and swimming warmup accordingly, as well as when you’re going to put your techsuit on, head over to the competition pool, cool down, etc. We’re all kind of doing our own thing, but, if we’re not swimming or getting ready to swim, everyone is always in our team area cheering for our teammates who are racing.
Wrapping Up and Heading Home
Since Saturday afternoon was the last session, we packed all our bags before leaving the hotel, so we could head home straight from the pool. For dinner that day we had pizzas catered to the pool. We were all so tired from the long week that we mostly slept for the rest of the bus ride home. By 2 a.m. Sunday we were all back in our dorms and apartments.
Travel meets are about so much more than just swimming. They’re an opportunity to grow closer as a team, push yourself to new limits, and make memories that last a lifetime. Whether cheering on my teammates from the bulkhead or celebrating a personal best, these moments will remind you why you love being a student-athlete.
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