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.