Okay I hear you all so lets give this a try
Practices this week: We have all our normal practices this week and the Senior prep group should be using double suits and or leggings as we get ready for the swim and rock meet.
SWIM AND ROCK MEET: 🎧November 17-19. This is a trial and final meet on Friday and Saturday. This means for the 11 and overs they bring the top swimmers back at nigh, so be sure you check in the morning before you leave to see if you are swimming in finals. If you fail to show up you are out for the rest of the meet.
POSITIVE CHECK IN: ✏️After you check in for the event you have to show, if not you are scratched from your next event.
MARLIN INVITE WRAP UP: 🏊🏽This past weekend we had a number of swimmers from our groups travel to the University of Maryland for a weekend of swimming. There were a lot of good swims throughout the weekend and feed back was given to all of you. Take that feedback to practice, and make the corrections to your events to help move forward. Some observations through the weekend that we can all work on;
- Warm Ups:⏱ Be on time. When your late it’s unfair to everyone to hope in a land when we are half way through warm ups.
- Finishes: Still have some breathing into the wall in fly and free. Let’s work on correcting this! Some finishes in breast and fly are short. Lets set up that finish and be strong and long into the wall. Our “BIG BOY/GIRL” backstroke finishes have really improved. Keep up the good work.
- Turns: Our walls our getting better, but there is a lot of work to do in this area
- Breast Stroke: We are starting are pull outs a little early. Hold your streamlines for good 3 seconds than begin that pull out especially in those longer events.
- Backstroke: Hold onto those streamlines and use that dolphin kick especially on the last turn on the way home.
- Free: first pull is with deep arm(nearest to the bottom), breathe on the 2nd pull to keep your momentum.
WEEKLY TOPIC: “GOOD👌🏽 versus GREAT🙌🏽"
I was thinking about these two words over the weekend as I watched some of you during your races and have not gotten these words out of my head all weekend so let’s look at them and see how they relate to your swimming. The first thing I would like to point out is that these two words have as much to do about practice as they do when your racing. As I watched the races especially the longer ones I notice that a lot of our swimmers swam next to the swimmers in other lanes, and this thought occurred to me; they are swimming because they are comfortable where they are. I talked to a couple of you about this and my suspicion was right. Since you felt good and your competition was right with you, you decided that you were having a good race. Swimming is filled with incredibly talented swimmers who never have that GREAT race. They show up, do what they do, and if it doesn’t work out, they blame it on everything else because they believe by having talent and showing up for practice/meets should be good enough. If you want to have a shot at that GREAT race, you can’t be content with “pretty good.” You need to find an extra gear and that requires a little ❤️.
It’s always easy to come up with excuses when things don’t work out, for example I took that last breath into the finish which cost me the race and a JO cut because I was tired. It becomes a lot harder when you look into a 🔍at your practice habits and are honest. Ok I breathe into the wall everyday at practice and I don’t kick off my walls, so how do I expect to do it at meets. Having a great race means dealing with reality, facing your demons and making the choice of doing things CORRECTLY during the entire practice, even if it is uncomfortable. It’s time that you make the choice that your not competing with anyone else, ever again. They’re going to have to compete with YOU on your level. You may not win all the time but, this I do know it will be more fun and interesting 😊
See you at the pool. Mike