In Ireland we say gala. On American apps and a lot of meet software it is a meet. Same thing: a competition with a programme, heats, and a clock. I will say gala here, because that is what I heard from the balcony.
Families already track times — just in five places at once. A notebook, a scoreboard photo, a Meet Mobile screenshot, a WhatsApp chat, a spreadsheet nobody has opened since the Christmas gala. None of that is foolish. It just will not survive a season unless one list is in charge. I am not here to sell a colour-coded masterpiece. I am here to stop you telling a 12-year-old that 1:11.18 is worse than 1:08.42 when one swim was long course and the other was short course.
What to actually record
A time without context is a rumour. 1:08.42 means nothing until you know the event, the pool, and whether proper timing caught it. After every swim, write the same small set of facts. Skip one and you will argue about it in February.
The event is not “freestyle”. It is 100 freestyle, or 50 fly, or 200 IM — distance and stroke together. Relays can live on a second list; they should not overwrite an individual PB. Write the time to the hundredth. If the board only showed tenths, write what you saw and mark it unofficial. Do not invent the last digit to make the notebook look tidy.
| Field | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Event | PBs live on one event, not “freestyle”. | 100 freestyle |
| Time | Hundredths are how swimming keeps score. | 1:08.42 |
| Course | 25m and 50m are not the same race. | SC / 25m |
| Date and gala | You will forget which Saturday it was. | 8 Nov 2025, regional invite |
| Official or not | A phone video is not a ranking time. | Official (electronic) |
| Seed time used | Tells you if they were placed where they belong. | 1:09.10 SC |
| Notes | Illness, missed turn, first LC swim. | First 50m race of the season |
That last column saves arguments. “She went 1:11.18” sounds grim until the note says first 50-metre 100 free of the year, tired week, converted seed. The number is still the number. The story belongs next to it. Splits are optional. If chasing them means you never write the final time, skip them.
- ✓Event, including distance — not just the stroke.
- ✓Time to the hundredth, from the board or result sheet.
- ✓Course: SC 25m or LC 50m, every time.
- ✓Date, gala name, and licence level if you know it.
- ✓Official, unofficial, or converted — one word, every row.
- ✓Update the PB only if this swim is faster in the same event and course.
Write the swims before you unpack the bag. Five lines while the times are still on your phone. If you wait until Sunday night, you will remember the PB and forget the 200 backstroke that felt ordinary and was not.
Paper, spreadsheet, or app
I have used all of these. Paper is honest and slow. Screenshots vanish into Recents. Spreadsheets die when the person who built the formulas is away. Ranking sites are only as complete as the galas that got uploaded.
Meet Mobile is the live-results app many hosts publish into from Hy-Tek Meet Manager. Useful on the day. A poor archive. Results are often behind a subscription, and a gala that never got posted will not be there in March. Families screenshot the result and feel finished. Those photos are unsearchable. Why the app lags, why a Sunday Level 1 never appears, and how not to refresh into a panic: how to use Meet Mobile.
Swim Ireland publishes Hy-Tek rankings for the current season — a real official trail, for the galas that qualify. Tools in the Gophin style auto-import from national databases so you never type a time. Lovely when the database has the swim. In Ireland, a lot of early-season racing never gets that far.
| Method | Strength | Weakness | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notebook / heat sheet | Works with no signal | Gets wet or lost | The day itself |
| Scoreboard photos | Proof of the digits | No course; hard to search | Backup, not the list |
| Spreadsheet | Sortable if you maintain it | Dies when nobody updates it | A family that already lives in Sheets |
| Meet Mobile | Live heats and results | Poor archive; often a paywall | Saturday on the balcony |
| Hy-Tek / auto-import | Official trail, no typing | Misses Level 1 and un-uploaded galas | Checking published PBs |
| A dedicated swim log | PBs by event and course in one place | Only works if you open it the same day | The list you keep |
The method matters less than the rule: one list is in charge. Everything else is a source. I built Finzy so a family can keep personal bests by event and course, log the week’s workouts, and set a goal without running a spreadsheet. Use that, or a sheet, or a notes app with a strict template. Just stop letting the camera roll be the system. Who types and who glances is share one log without fights.
Short course vs long course
This is the mistake that ruins more family lists than any other. Short course metres (SCM) is a 25-metre pool. Long course metres (LCM) is a 50-metre pool. In the United States you will also see short course yards (SCY) — 25-yard pools. In Irish club swimming you can almost ignore yards. You cannot ignore 25 versus 50.
A 100 freestyle in a 25-metre pool has three turns. The same 100 in a 50-metre pool has one. Each turn is a push-off and underwater swimming faster than surface stroke. Same child, same weekend of fitness: the short-course clock is usually quicker. The long-course time is not a failure. It is a different race.
The same 100 free can look worse in a 50-metre pool
Take a swimmer whose short-course 100 free PB is 1:08.42. In January they swim long course and go 1:11.18. The family group chat says they added almost three seconds. That sentence is true and useless.
Illustrative 100 freestyle. The green bar uses a common 100 free conversion factor (long course × 0.966 ≈ short course) of the sort meet software applies for seeding — not a prediction and not a study. Your child’s gap will differ by stroke, underwaters, and the day.
On that rough factor, 1:11.18 long course sits near 1:08.76 short course — beside a 1:08.42 PB, not three seconds behind it. Converted times are estimates. Strong underwaters stretch the short-course advantage; a weak turn shrinks it. Never paste a converted number into the PB column as if it were swum. How the conversion itself works — and why it is only an estimate — is how to convert SCM to LCM. For the Irish season, two clocks, and why age-group kids often stay in 25m, read short course vs long course.
Do not keep one “best 100 free” that jumps between 25m and 50m. You will crown a short-course swim as the PB, then treat every honest long-course race as a disappointment. Two lists. Or one list with a course column you refuse to leave blank.
Official times and what rankings miss
Not every clock on a gala day is the same kind of truth. I sort times into three buckets and write the bucket on the row. The definitions live in personal best vs official time vs converted time; this page is the system for writing them down.
Official means a licensed gala, proper timing for that licence, and a result you can use the way the paperwork says — often as a seed, sometimes as a qualifying time. Unofficial is a training time trial, a hand-timed Level 1 splash, a watch on the balcony. Useful at home. Not a ranking time. Converted is maths: a guess at what a swim in one course might look like in another. It can seed a heat. It is not a PB.
A seed time is what the club enters so the host can put your swimmer in a heat with people of similar speed. Use the best official time in that event and that course. If the gala is long course and you only hold a short-course PB, the entry may travel as a conversion. Write “converted seed” in the notes so nobody later thinks 1:08.76 was swum in a 50-metre pool. The parent version of that number is what is a seed time.
Swim Ireland’s Meet Licencing Programme (updated August 2024) says Level 1 times are recorded by clubs and will not be entered onto the national database. Level 1 is the fun gala — often no electronic timing. The public Rank tab is Level 3 and higher only, for general reference. Level 2 times can reach the database after paperwork — they still may not show on that Rank tab.
That is why a parent can watch a genuine 1:14.86 at a club fundraiser, open the Hy-Tek rankings on Monday, and find nothing. The database was never shown that swim. Auto-import tools have the same hole. If you want a national qualifying time, you need the licence and the window the meet conditions ask for — qualifying vs consideration. If you want a family history, you need the Level 1 swims too.
The national list is a filter, not a diary. If you only trust the ranking page, you will lose the year your swimmer actually learned to race.
A system that survives a messy season
Irish seasons are not tidy: Level 1 in September, a 25-metre invite, a first long-course weekend, a month of adds, then a championship block. If your system only works when every Saturday is a PB, it will die in January. One list. Every race the same day. Course on every row. Update the PB only on a faster official swim in the same event and course. Leave the adds on the page.
Personal bests get rarer as you get faster. A new swimmer can drop seconds every gala. A 1:08 100-freestyler is fighting tenths. That is the sport getting honest, not a plateau you fix with a pep talk. Celebrate 1:08.42. Do not expect 1:05.00 by Halloween.
Same child, six rows, no mixed-up PB
Aoife is 12. September, Level 1 club gala, 25-metre pool, hand timed: 1:14.86. Unofficial. It will never hit the national database. It is still the first number on the page. October, Level 2 invite, electronic timing: 1:11.20 SC, official — short-course PB. November: 1:08.42 SC. New PB, and the seed for the next short-course gala.
January is long course. She goes 1:11.18 LC. The balcony groans. The list does not. That number opens the long-course column. It does not touch 1:08.42. A common conversion puts 1:11.18 LC near 1:08.76 SC — beside the PB, not behind it. February, heavy week: 1:09.95 SC, official, tired. The row stays. March: 1:08.19 SC. New short-course PB — 0.23 quicker than November, not six seconds. The early drops were the learning year. The later drops are the real ones.
They did not replace 1:08.42 with 1:11.18, hide 1:09.95, or wait for the ranking page. The list still made sense in March. If you also log training — a weekly view of what was swum, plus dryland if you do it — a mid-season add next to three hard weeks is information, not a fight in the car. I use Finzy for that: workouts, PBs by event and course, a goal on the event you care about. Free when the club uses it, or use it solo.
Common mistakes
I have made most of these. They open in November and only show in April.
Mixing courses on one “best time”. The one that makes children cry over a good swim. Two columns. Always.
Treating a screenshot as the archive. Meet Mobile and the scoreboard are sources. In ten months you need a searchable row, not a photo of a 4 in the next lane. Screenshot once, then type — the balcony how-to is how to use Meet Mobile.
Updating the PB from an unofficial swim. Write the balcony watch. Do not let it overwrite the official 1:08.42 you will need as a seed.
Trusting rankings to be the diary. Level 1 stays with the club. The Rank tab is Level 3+. If the public list is your only list, you lose the swims that built the year.
Chasing a PB every gala. Once the easy seconds are gone, most weekends are not PBs. Look at the season, the course, and the week. One Saturday is a data point.
Before you speak, check the course and the bucket. Official short-course PB versus official long-course first swim are not a verdict. “What did you think of that one?” is a better sentence than “you were 2.7 seconds slower”.
Organise the list so a tired adult can update it in the car park. If it needs a quiet Sunday and a laptop, it will lose to a wet kit bag.
