This was the first year that we have attended meet and it would be helpful if you share comments and thoughts with the mako administrators for planning purposes next year.
We understand that sessions may have been long especially on Saturday but from a coaches perspective this meet put the swimmers in a better position to attain some of their goals, such as JO cuts. In years past we attended the snow qualifier meet (one day), but the kids were swimming too many events with little rest and deck space and viewing were hard.
As long as the kids understand the purpose of meets at this time of year and had a plan (and stuck to that plan) entering the meet, this provided a great opportunity to do some fast racing.
A lot of our swimmers achieved a bunch of JO time cuts and we even had one achieve a TYR classic cut. Along with that we had a lot of swimmers who had the opportunity to experience what it is like to come back to finals on Saturday night and swim again and maybe even go a little faster, which most of them did. We also had a young man 👨 who grew up a lot on Saturday night. Ben who was tired 😴 and a little 😡 (almost as bad as myself), had to swim a couple of events. For the first time his result was not as fast as he may have wanted (right on his time), but he stepped and won the event against some very good competition.
The breaststroke even those of you who think your not breaststroker’s is looking amazingly better. The work with the fins is starting to pay off with that chest press forward so the hips are up and the legs can drive us forward. Even if you don’t like the stroke we need to continue to work on it for success in the IM. Your not a true swimmer without that IM.
The walls with our underwater dolphins have come so far, and it is really fun to watch you all actually off the wall with some explosions and carry that momentum into the breakout, but don’t forget it is something that you have to continue to work on every practice and every turn.
Our 200’s were pretty good but some of us still need to get over the fear of the unknown, and figure out when go time is. There is a lot of overthinking for this distance. As we have talked about in practice and Damien reinforced on Sunday is don’t talk to me about times, think of specifics that will put you in a position for success. As you have been told don’t say I’m going out in a 28, because you don’t know what that is. Specifics are things like a strong first 50 and build each 50 off of that, or strong underwater’s with good movement off the walls into a strong breakout, or maybe working my middle 100 strong and let the last 50 take care of it self. Have a plan and work the plan in practice, because remember the old saying “Even a blind squirrel 🐿 will get lucky and find acorns for the winter”, but most of the time that squirrel will starve.
That being said all 200’s are not the same, so you may need to have different plans. A 200 breaststroke can not be swam the same way as a 200 free. They are different, but the theory is the same. Four 50’s each building off the previous one and getting stronger. Be smart with the legs in the beginning so that they will be there at the end, work the dolphins off the walls to shorten the amount of time and energy you use swimming.
Swimmers who fell short of goals, don’t let that define you. You are a talented swimmer with a skill set. You had a bad swim, so what are you going to do about it, learn take the feedback and improve your situation or else we will here the same feedback after the next meet. Sports are brutal and swimming with that instant feed back “ the 🕰 clock” more so. Such is the life of a student athlete.
Nice job this weekend.
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