TAKEAWAYS FROM IMX

This past weekend 12 of our Mako swimmers spent the weekend at UMD with swimmers from all over the North East.  This meet is a true test of where the swimmers rank in the country.  Swimmers were required to swim the full complement of events, over the three days.  All the 11 and over athletes began the meet early Friday afternoon with the 500 free. Saturday events were the 200 fly, 200 breaststroke, and the 200 IM for the 13 and over swimmers. The events that day for the 12 and under’s were the 100 fly and the 100 breast. The 10 and under’s also swam the 200 free to start the afternoon.  
We returned Sunday morning to swim the 200 back and 400 IM for the 13 and over age group.  The 12 and under’s arrived in the afternoon to finish their meet with the 100 backstroke and the 200 IM.

Your teammates represented the Mako swim team well with their efforts over the three days.  Not only did they swim well, but they were on time for warmup, and proceeded to go through their warmup with a real focus on what they needed to do.  They were really good about getting to the blocks on time and staying focused throughout the meet.  They gave each other great support and encouragement throughout the meet.  All of you were great and made my job pretty easy throughout the weekend.  If any one should go to the doghouse it was probably myself.  I had not missed any swims until Sunday afternoon when we had three of our girls in the same heat.  After they finished I was on my way to the team area to get them to warm down before we talked because Lyla was in the next heat.  Bottom line I’m old and probably needed a nap by then because before I realized it  she was in the water for her 200 IM and when I got back she was getting ready to go into her breaststroke.  Sorry Lyla but you dropped 4 seconds so I am going to guess you were good.

We had 63 swims over the weekend and walked away with 58 personal best, not a bad effort at all. Several of the Mako swimmers would go on and win their heats throughout the weekend and when that happens you’re putting yourself in a good position to be successful.  We do have to give a shout out for Claire Dobrydney who swam all the way to the podium for an 8th place finish for 11 year olds. 

 It will be interesting to see where Claire and all our swimmers place nation wide when score our posted.

We hope you all understand now how important that fifth stroke is.  Coach Paul took a lot of time not only to watch the underwater but also to time them.  Might be something for your buckets.
The way you transition into your strokes in the IM was fun to watch.  It really showed that you were focused and understood the plan in approaching the event.  

It was very evident that we are starting to understand and are grasping that races have to start strong and that you have it within you to still finish the race.  A few of those events were we were off our times was because we were too timid on that first 25.  Coach Paul and I talked about this and we both agreed that after you explode off the blocks you need to stay with the field for that first 25.  Don’t let them swim away from you, because what you are doing is setting a slow pace, and your end up working harder. 

Last thing we want you to take away from this meet is the knowledge that where you are trying to accumulate points every single event your in matters.  The same thing happens at championship meets, High School championship meets where you are not only trying to get back to finals but your trying to score.  Bottom line after your finished an event and warm down, successful or not it’s time to focus on your next one and always keep moving forward to your next challenge.

We would finally like to thank all the parents for their support throughout the weekend with getting the kids to and from the pool and also for officiating and timing during the meet.  You all mak it easy for us.

IMX

We hope you all are looking forward to the IMX meet this weekend, it’s a chance to get in all your long events over a three day period.  This meet is vital for you 8th graders as you prepare for High School swimming.  This is the point in he season where high school swimmers are preparing for district, regional and state championships, all preliminary and final meets.  At the same time they are looking forward to Junior/Senior champs and National meets.  At the same time they are maintaining their school work.  Indeed it’s a lot on the plate but with good preparation and time management everything is possible.  Look at everything as a learning experience that will help you in moving forward.  Now a closer look at how to prepare for the meet.

WARM UP TIMES 
13 and over Saturday 6:30-7:00. Sunday 7:00-7:30
12 and under Saturday 12:30-1:00 Sunday 1:00-1:30

First let’s suit up for this meet!
Second get your warmups and warm down done especially before leaving for the day.
Third pack water and some light snacks to keep your tanks 3/4 full.

 Now for a plan on how to attack the events
Friday (500 free) your heat and what time that heat starts are listed below
Get out strong off the blocks and try to stay with or near the field for that first 100. If you do that you will set a good pace on that third 50 that you are able to maintain for the next 250-300.  At this point really start to move on the back half of each 50 and try to maintain.   Manage your kick off the walls so you have your legs at the end.

Mackenzie Craig  H11 2:57
Teagan H 30 4:52
Skylar H35 5:24
Blake H3 5:49
James Anderson H23 7:55
Ben H25 4:17
Will H28 4:35
Claire H 11 5:55
Charlotte H 25 7:27
Lyla H25 7:27
Rebecca H 27 7:42

200 fly 1st 50 Establish the pace you want to maintain over the race. Maintain stroke count effortlessly. 2nd 50 others will surge ahead, others will fade do not let that alter your plan. 3rd 50 increase your effort level here, build your confidence and get ready for that big finish. Last 50 time to step it it up breathe often while maintaining your speed pull the body past the arms and drive the arms toward the wall.  As always maximize those turns and underwater.  Hit the wall with a full cycle finish.

200 Back. Hold your streamlines and underwater dolphins tight.  Be aggressive at the walls and

kick into the turns.  Increase your arm tempo o. The back half of each 50, this will help keep fatigue away longer.  You need to really move on that third 50 as this is where swimmers fade and think they can go on vacation.   Hold off that hard kick until that last 50 or 75. Embrace the pain as a good sign and keep working at it because it will fade.

200 Breast. First 50 get out strong but with a good glide (maybe 1...1...thousand) while minimizing stroke count. Try to maintain that throughout the second 50.  Start to build the third 50 while maintaining that good position out front so that your ready to race coming off that turn into the last 50.  Strong pull outs at off all your turns.  In and out of those walls fast and strong.

200 IM. For the fly focus on your kick, then move that focus to the arms on the backstroke.  As we move into breaststroke we switch our focus back to the legs and when you get to freestyle we go with everything you have.  The legs may be a little fatigue from the breaststroke so a little more focus on the pull.  Try to build the back half of each 50 fast.  As always maximize those a. 100 fly stay in control by keeping arms and shoulders relaxed. Maximize distance off the walls.  Maintain a A4 speed in the back and breast and everything you have in the free

400 IM let’s control the 100 fly maximizing the underwater. Stay relax and let the start and adrenaline carry your speed. Don’t over do it here.  Let’s start to get into our A4 speed in our backstroke and breaststroke and as you enter the free let’s get excited your almost home let it go.  Fly hips and legs relax arms. Backstroke go to the pull with the arms and control the legs.   Breast stroke time to go back to the legs.  Freestyle go with everything you have left.

12 and unders
100 backstroke. Underwater’s Underwater’s Uderwater’s especially off the start and on that last turn

100 breaststroke. Aggressive pullouts good head position little if any movement build into that 3rd 25.  1st 50 glide 1..1 thousand   Get those arms back out front so the kick will drive you

100 fly you can’t win the race in that first 25.  Stay strong and relax focusing on the hips and legs for the first 25 or so. Build into that second turn and come out of it like you been shot out of a cannon and then just finish the race.

200 Free. Think of our effort scale start out strong about our low A4 (80%) for the next 100 try and build to a strong A4 (90%) and let loose on that last 50 and get up to A 5 on our chart.

PIECE OF CAKE RIGHT GUYS AND GIRLS.

This Week’s Go To Workout

Another Saturday with no practice because of a college meet.  It’s that time of the year, but if your sitting around in a corner bored silly, maybe you can find a way to a pool and get in a short workout.  Yes I know it might snow but around here that chance of real bad weather means there’s a good chance it won’t be too bad.

Anyway here is a workout for your bucket.  The gold group did it this afternoon with headsets. I have adjusted the intervals for the senior prep.

WARM UP (1000)
300 swim 25 free fast feet to wall. 25 backstroke get those stroke counts and fast dolphins
200 kick with snorkels
4x25 kick fast with snorkels @40
4x25 kick fast with snorkels @35
4x25 kick fast with snorkels @30
200 pull with paddles (add for prep)

PACING SET WE KNOW HOW TO SWIM. LETS LEARN TO RACE NOW
3 rounds (1200/ 2200)
1x200 free@3:00 (strong /build and maintain/ race hold on to speed/ finish strong )x50’s
1x100 free @1:45 strong/ race middle 50/ get home strong
2x50 free race A5 @45
Rest 1:15

IM WORK 8 rounds (can be done with fins) 600/2800
25 fly @30
25 back @30
25breast @30
Rest 30
Rounds 1-2 DPS GOOD TECHNIQUE 
Rounds 3-4-5-6 race @A5 
Rounds 7-8 smooth

200 easy kick

Sprint set rest 1:00 between rounds (500/3500)
4x50 free race fast @45
3x50 free race fast @40
2x50 free race fast @35
1x50 race fast (COME WITHIN 5 seconds of your best


COOL DOWN

Have fun with it

EFFORT LEVEL

What an interesting Monday we had, first with the prep group in the morning followed by the gold group in the afternoon. The past couple of Monday’s we have been doing a cycle set for a couple of reason, first as part of our training and the second to help you understand how to train hard and race fast.

Often there are times that we tend to believe we are doing things correctly when in fact we are missing something that we are unaware of.

We discussed our effort level at both the morning and afternoon workouts and tried to explain our chart of A1 to A5. A5 is race speed and it drops off as you go down with A2 being warmup and warm down. A3 are normally recovery swims.

Now unless you are watching the clock on the A4-A5 and getting your times you are just lap swimming and you may or may not improve.  Your choice but keep that thought when you come up short at the next meet.  Coach Shannon drew up a chart for you to help better understand this concept

For the coaches it’s frustrating when we are trying to swim at A5 and hold it and you guys have no clue what your coming in on.   Furthermore some are way off their best times or they are not very consistent and their times look like the clock above.   YOU NEED TO TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR TRAINING AND RACES.  Don’t be the one that waits until a week out from the big meet and try to get serious.  As an athlete as you progress through the levels, you need to become more focus in your training approach, nutritional habits and yes it takes sacrifice.  How bad do you really want it?  Stop and think about it and be honest with yourself.  Saying it doesn’t make it so. 

FEBRUARY QUALIFYING MEETS

The two meets that are approaching will be our last chances to qualify for the championship meets.  The first one is the Snow Meet which is a one day meet.  The second meet is the Presidents meet which will have finals on Saturday. When choosing events let’s have a plan in place.  The events you should be looking at are the ones that give you the best chance of achieving qualifying times.  These times are posted on the Potomac Valley web site.  When looking at these events consider where they fall in the meet.  There are times that swimmers are entered back to back to back events with no recovery time in an effort to get out quickly.  Not the smartest way to pick events when trying to be successful, you can’t have it both ways.

If you have all your qualifying times already use one of these meets to swim off events or distances to get some racing in and to better times in those events.

As for suits we will wear them only if we are trying to achieve cuts.  To wear a suit is a decision for the coaches and swimmers to make period.

BEST EVENTS

How often should I swim them?  Every meet? Once in a while?  😵help me coach I’m confused!
Here is an example and for our purposes we use two swimmers Courtney and Lauren who are both 10. There friends see them playing in the pool one afternoon and encourage them to join the swim team.  There is a swim meet that Saturday that is open to anyone so the girls decided that this might be fun so they make plans to attend.  They really like backstroke and so they enter the 50 back and get a time of 55.00.  The next week they swim the event again and get a 49.00.

 They like the event so much that for the next 5 weeks they keep swimming it and their time improves to a 37.00. The seventh week brought out the tear drops as their time in the event jumped back to 40 and the girls were devastated and now thought that they were bad swimmers.

What the girls did not grasp and what was not explained to them is that the stop watch starts at 0 and the more you improve and get near that 0 the harder it becomes. Also while only racing in the same event the girls were not experiencing or growing in the other events the sport has to offer.   Sometimes it is better to take a break practice your technique, work on the little things, get stronger and then swim the event rested and fresh and see how truly amazing and gratifying this sport can be if approached correctly

TECH SUITS

So at practice today as we were finishing our dry land, a couple of you brought up that 🐘 elephant in the room and that is, Should I wear my tech suit to get my cuts?  Simple answer is NO!  



Let’s dive into this issue just a little. First off if you get a cut this weekend it is because you have worked hard and have earned it, not because of a suit.  

Those suits are meant for 2-3 meets a year.  That’s it. You are to wear them at championship meets when you want to have every advantage under the sun.   At the qualifying meets in February we will bring them out if we are swimming for cuts, because if we don’t get them at those meets it won’t matter in March.

The last point I would like to reinforce is our talk about controlling the things you can control.  Don’t get wrapped up into what other swimmers are doing.  Focus on what you are doing.

I hope this finally puts that 🐘elephant to bed.

Sometimes Risks are Needed

This past weekend a few of us made the trip down to Lee District to swim our 1000 and 1650 freestyle events.  I was thrilled that many of you accepted this challenge and participated.

As a coach I really believe that these are two events that swimmers in our gold and prep groups need to face once a year.  If you trained during our holiday break, I have always looked at this meet as a perfect way to end this part of your training and a signal that it is now time for that push towards championship season. Sometimes in order to see success later and to get some needed balance in your other events it’s important to open other doors once in a while and take a risk.

Often times when I see the meet entry reports I notice that swimmers are always signing up for the same events and my first thought is, clearly there is no plan that this swimmer is following.  Sometimes the comforts and security that those events give you are the same reasons why you can’t take that next step on your way to becoming a better overall swimmer.  Sure the 1000 and the 1650 can be pretty intimidating.  You begin to wonder about things like, how fast should I go out, will it hurt, can I finish.

Once you go off the blocks those thoughts go away and now you let the mental side of swimming take over, and I submit to you that psychology your brain will help your body get through the event and the confidence you gain from the experience is enormous.

The swims that all of you had over the weekend were outstanding.  What I was looking for in your swims was the ability to start strong and set a pace by the 150.  From there I was looking for the ability to be consistent with that pace over the course of the race. You all were great in setting the pace and holding it, I did not see any bouncing back and forth and when it was time to bump it up you were able to do it.  This tells the coaches a lot about your mental side in the sport which will help as we surge into the next part of your season.

We had one swim that was unusual and it involved one of our girls in the 1650.  At about the 1250-1300 I noticed her splits were getting 1-2 seconds slower so I knew something was up. To my amazement I looked up and here she is now swimming backstroke and knowing she had been out of the water my guess was that she couldn’t get air.  She would complete the race swimming backstroke the rest of the way and upon getting out she had some tears, but i think they were mostly tears of embarrassment.  Trying to bring her back to a good place I pointed out that her backstroke looks really good and the turns were great, nothing to be embarrassed about.  A gusty swim and I was so proud of her for finding a way to get it done.   👍

PRACTICES

This week we headed back to our routines, bedtimes, school and yes back to our workouts in the pool.  All three groups settled in and got back to work quickly after the holidays.  We started out great only to be interrupted by Mother Nature and our first ”snow storm” of the season.  We have had a good first week of training.  With new lanes the gold group got off to a great Monday that followed into Wednesday’s workout.  With both the Prep and gold group you may have notice that each warmup ends with 5x100 (Blue Group 5x50) free all out with a certain amount of time to rest.   This will gradually adjust as we move through the next couple of weeks.  The thought process is that by doing the same thing every day, we will build confidence both physically and mentally.  The key here is to do this set correctly every day if there are going to be any gains.

Senior prep group since we missed our Tuesday workout, we will do it today and because of the meet the pool will be closed this weekend.  If you want to get to a pool please do the Thursday practice below to stay on track.

THURSDAY 1/9/20
Warm up. 400 swim mixer. 300 kick with snorkels (700)
Cycle set.  8x100 fast @1:50 (hold 1:10 or faster) 8x50 smooth recovery @1:00 back. (Alternate 100/50) (1200/1900)

28x25 free kick fast sprint @40
200 easy. (900/2800)

6x200 free pull with paddles @3:15 (1200/4000)

COOL DOWN 400 swim kick x50 (4400)

If your swimming this weekend let’s show up with a purpose and focus on the bigger picture.  This meet is just a piece of the picture along the journey.

GO TO WORKOUTS

                          


Well guys I guess by now you know that our practice has been cancelled for this evening, and although you may be excited and jumping for joy, let’s remember the season we are in.  This is a time when we need to get all the hard training done leading into all the championship meets.  Not a time when we want to be getting excited about missing workout sessions, and yes the coaches do not enjoy missing these workouts either, let’s stay focus on our goals and stay sharpe.

That being said let’s also remember that Mason will be closed periodically over the next two because of scheduled meets.  They will also be having the High School State meet in the middle of May, so let’s have a plan so that your hard work pays off.

Here is a go to workout that you can use if you miss practice.  I will post one throughout January that can be used any time you need to, keep them in your buckets to plug any leaks.

AEROBIC MAINTENANCE FREE

WARM UP (1200)

400 swim mixer

300 kick with snorkels

16x25 IMO @30-35 fins (distance for stroke)

100 kick with boards

Main Set (2800)

8x100 free@1:35

4x50@1:15

6x100 free@1:30

4x50@1:15

4x100 free@1:25

4x50@1:15

2x100 free @1:20

4x50@1:15. 

COOL DOWN 200 

RULES 100’s are fast hold best time +10-12 seconds.  They can be back also just add 10 seconds to intervals.  All 50’s are recovery swim no free.

DISTANCE MEET

Below are the approximate times that you will be swimming this weekend.  The first number is your heat as of today and the time that heat will swim.  It could change a little due to scratches but the affect will be minimal.

This can be found on the web site.  We will be swimming a 10 lane course mixed gender.  Try to arrive at least 1 hour before.  Check in right away and proceed to do your warmup.  They will seed you in as soon as they have a lane.  Get a good long stretch out to start and don’t forget to do some kicking.  Everyone should have a interval they would like to hold in their heads from Thursday practice.  Go through some 50’s using the clock on a minute just to get a feel for what your speed should feel like. Do these 50’s to a flip to get a true race feel.  Do about 6-8 of these and you should be good.  If the race starts to hurt think of yourself as a rock because a rock feel no pain.  

HAVE FUN WITH IT!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We hope you all had a great holiday season, and got some much needed rest over your break.  It was great to see all of you who made an effort to get in your training sessions.  As of today we have had a bunch of you make all the workouts and I would like to thank you for that effort.

We had some great work mixing in a distance workout followed by a sprint workout.  You all put forth an outstanding effort as we worked through these workouts.

As for myself I took a little time to read over your letters that you wrote back in September with your goals and dreams, and to also see how we are doing as a group in chasing those goals.  After reading through all of them I proceeded to chart out the next 5 weeks of our season starting on January 6 and we will refer to it as the Mako 5 week cycle set.

Yes this is a new year and let’s face it, since the start of time people of all walks of life make resolutions that are for the most part hard to keep.  For us in the swimming community it can be that much harder, what with the crazy hours spent practicing the eye watering workouts, and the sacrificing we do throughout the year for a sport we love.  At this time of the year think of resolutions as part of your goal making checklist half way through the season.

As we talked about back in September these goals help keep you focused and motivated, but let’s face it we’re all human and sometimes we stray off our path and need a jolt to find our way.  These resolutions may provide that jolt!  

Remember the two types of goals that we discussed.  We have our outcome goals which are easy because they come down to the watch, but as I have tried to get you to do is set behavior goals that will help you get to that outcome.  Often times it is something that you as a swimmer need to practice multiple times to produce the outcome your looking for.  So if you are thinking of things you can do to help here are some tips, breathing off walls, aggressive work on turns, pushing through the hard swims with a little more effort, show up with a positive attitude, supporting each other and picking each other up when needed and always being nice to yourself and others.  

As a swimmer thinking about resolutions these are the things you should be thinking about among others that just may get you the outcome your looking for.

HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS and HAPPY SWIMMING