Here's a scenario that happens at every swim meet: a parent is sitting in the bleachers, flipping frantically through a stack of printed pages, trying to figure out if that was their kid's event that was just called. They're scanning tiny rows of text, running their finger down columns of names, and by the time they find the entry, the heat is already in the water.
Don't be that parent. Highlight your heat sheet.
The Problem with Raw Heat Sheets
Heat sheets are functional documents, not user-friendly ones. They're designed to pack as much information as possible onto each page, which means small fonts, tight spacing, and no visual distinction between your swimmer and the 300 other kids listed.
A typical club meet heat sheet runs 30-50 pages. Your swimmer might be in 4-6 events scattered throughout the document. Their name appears once per event, in the same size and weight as every other name on the page. If you're tracking two or three kids, you might have 10-15 entries to find across all those pages.
Without highlighting, you're doing a real-time search-and-rescue mission for your kid's name every time an event is announced. It's stressful, and you're going to miss something.
The Manual Approach
The classic method works and costs you nothing but time and a highlighter. Here's how experienced swim parents do it:
Step 1: Find Every Entry
Go through the heat sheet page by page and find every instance of your swimmer's name. Yes, every single one. Don't assume you know which events they're in — check the actual sheet, because coaches sometimes add or change events after the initial signup.
Step 2: Highlight
Run your highlighter across the entire row for each of your swimmer's entries. Make it bright and unmissable. When you're flipping through pages at the meet, that stripe of yellow (or pink, or green) should jump off the page.
Step 3: Use a System for Multiple Swimmers
If you've got more than one kid swimming, use different colors. One kid gets yellow, the other gets blue. If you're tracking teammates' events for carpool or cheering purposes, give them a third color.
Step 4: Mark the Events
Beyond highlighting the name row, circle or star the event number at the top of each section where your swimmer appears. This way, when event 24 is called on the loudspeaker, you can quickly flip to the page with the circled 24 and know exactly what's happening.
Step 5: Add Notes
Some parents jot extra info in the margins:
- Warmup times for each session
- Approximate start times for key events (if the meet provides a timeline)
- Which events are back-to-back (so you know your swimmer won't have a break)
- Relay information
Why Manual Highlighting Falls Short
The manual method is fine. Parents have been doing it for decades and it works. But it's not without problems:
- It takes time. Depending on the size of the meet and how many swimmers you're tracking, you're spending 10-15 minutes going page by page. That's 10-15 minutes you could spend setting up your chairs or getting your swimmer ready.
- You'll miss entries. It happens. You're scanning quickly, the name is on a page you didn't expect, or you get distracted halfway through. Now your swimmer's 100 back is coming up and you had no idea.
- It doesn't help with planning. Even after you've highlighted everything, you still don't have a clear picture of the day. When is event 24 relative to event 18? How much time does your swimmer have between races? You're estimating, not planning.
- Multi-swimmer families have it worst. Two kids at the same meet means double the searching, and the real question — do they have overlapping events? — is nearly impossible to answer from a highlighted printout.
The SwimDeets Approach
We built SwimDeets because we were tired of doing this by hand every weekend.
Here's how it works: you upload the heat sheet PDF (the same one the team emails you before the meet), select the swimmers or teams you want to track, and SwimDeets generates a color-coded PDF with all their entries highlighted. Different swimmers get different colors, so multi-kid families can see everything at a glance.
It also builds a timeline — a simple, ordered list of your swimmer's events with event numbers, strokes, heats, and lanes. You can see the gaps between events, which is helpful for planning when to eat, when to warm up, and when you can actually relax for a few minutes.
The whole process takes about a minute. Upload, select, download.
We didn't build it to replace the heat sheet — it's the same document, just easier to read. You can print the color-coded version, pull it up on your phone, or both.
Tips for Either Method
Whether you're going manual or using SwimDeets, here are a few things that'll make your meet day smoother:
- Print a copy even if you have it on your phone. Phones die, glare makes screens hard to read poolside, and a printed sheet is faster to flip through.
- Bring a pen to the meet. Heats sometimes get re-seeded after scratches, or you'll want to write down your swimmer's times as they race.
- Share with grandparents and family. If relatives are coming to watch, give them a highlighted copy or share the SwimDeets PDF. They'll actually be able to follow along instead of constantly asking "is this one ours?"
- Check for schedule changes at the meet. Sometimes events are moved, combined, or removed. Listen for announcements and check the timing table if something seems off.
It's a Small Thing That Makes a Big Difference
Highlighting your heat sheet won't make your kid swim faster. But it'll make your day dramatically less stressful. You'll know when to watch, when to cheer, and when you can safely stand in the concession line without missing anything.
However you choose to do it — Sharpie and highlighter or SwimDeets — just don't show up with a raw, unmarked heat sheet. Future you will be grateful.