“WIN”. What’s Important Now

  I am sure that most of you who have been making practices over the holidays did not mind missing todays workout with all the gloomy weather.  Now I on the other hand was there ready for our last workout of the year.  There was one advantage which was I had the pool at the gym to myself for over an hour and although I attempted your plan workout, I could not finish it in the hour and 45 minutes. I did however win 3 out of the 4 sets so that was positive.  Thank you to all you swimmers who made the effort to attend workouts over the last 2 weeks.  It will go a long way in how you swim in February thru April. As we look back over the year and everything that has occurred.  Some good.  Some not so good. Let's not spend time on the not so good or the what if's or what wasn't in 2021.  Instead let's build off what we were able to accomplish and do during the year.  Things such as a IMX meet in February, a fantastic championship season during March, some outstanding long cou

Senior Prep, Junior Gold/Blue groups, I wanted to take this time to thank each and every one of you for your amazing efforts throughout this past year.  We worked through a lot over the past year and had an outstanding  effort and showing at our JO’s back in March with an abundance of personal best swims throughout the meet. Throughout the summer as you all found your way back to your summer teams you continued your excellence in the water scoring points week after week culminating with Divisionals and All Stars ⭐️. This fall as we arrived back to the pool to start a new season, your hard work continued and you reaped the awards during the Swim and Rock meet culminating at the Winter Classic to wrap up our fall season. I couldn’t feel any more proud when I look back at what everyone of you achieved throughout the year and consider it to be the best part of the day to come in and work with all of you.  To be able to work with such a great group of talented kids with so many different pe

  "Practice does not make perfect.  Only perfect practice makes perfect." Vince Lombardi I know in the past I've posted how perfection is hard if not impossible to attain, but it does have a place in personal growth as long as you don't take it literally. As we strive to be perfect, we as athletes must remember that true perfection is not the end all.  The bigger picture that you as a swimmer should be looking at is that as your practice should be done at a level of respect for how you see yourself performing/racing in reality at all times. Instead of striving for perfect, strive for excellence during practice.  After all excellence is perfection at it's core. Perfection says I want to never mess up.  Excellence says I'm going to work on this in the best possible way to the best of my ability and become very good at it. Let's take Tom Brady for example.  There is no dispute that he was born with some level of natural athleticism and that he has been blesse

  Okay so we are done with our meets in December and I have had many questions about meets in January.  No, you don’t have to be a psychic to figure this out although it does seem hectic for sure.. Let's take a look at the meets coming up in January.  First up in the first week of the year is the January Distance meet on the 8th and 9th.  Saturday we will be swimming the 1000 and Sunday the 1650.  This meet will take place at St.James.  I would like to see all of the Senior prep and Junior Gold swimmers to swim in one of these events.  Please read the announcement carefully to make sure you qualify for this meet. If you have not done the 1000 then that will be the event you sign up for.  -. If you have already done the 1000 it's time to try the mile. You may ask yourself, "Why should I swim these two events?"  I could give you my standard because you can but I think I look at it from this view.  It's a rite of passage.  Okay it's a very long rite of passage

  Hey kiddos, we had a good weekend in the pool.  It was nice to get back to a meet format like last weekend.  You all found the strength to power through a grueling weekend of races.  A lot of you swam over 10 (some had 13 or more) races throughout the four days of competition.  We were awfully proud of each of you with your ability to stay focus on what was in front of you, your ability to move from one race to the next.  Apparently our talks on keeping everything in front of you is starting to sink in.     I usually don't put names out there for fear of missing someone, but we do have to shout out to Sadie Buckley for her new team record int he 400 IM, 100 IM and the 100 back.  Our 11-12 girls relay won the 400 free, 200, free, 200 medley and the 11-12 boys placed 2nd in the same 3 relays. Due to the short turn around on Sunday we scratched the 400 medley relay to give our kids time to recover for finals. It was great to watch all of you supporting each other throughout the week

  You guys nailed it tonight both with your warmups and those of you who had a distance event.  Let’s make sure we bring that same energy tomorrow for your events. Thanks to all of you who showed up to get a swim in to loosen up and also to all the parents who made the effort to get the kids to the pool.  It’s much appreciated.  Thanks to all the kids who took care of their teammates and pitched in to count the swimmers laps. Our 12 and understand did a great job swimming their 500’s wit many best times.  What is really incredible is that a lot of these kids just dropped a ton of time two weeks ago at the swim and rock and did it again tonight. Something that I did notice is that some of us let outside noise get to us. Remember as you work through this weekend control what you can control and put your earmuffs on to shut out those other noises. Bring it tomorrow.

  Hello Senior Prep and Junior Gold swimmers who will be swimming in the Sports Fair Championship meet starting tomorrow evening at GMU. Let’s go over a few specifics that we talked about this week so that we are all on the same page.   First off please be on time for warmups as all the teams have been assigned to lanes. We will have two warmup periods during the 13 and over sessions with one lane in the big pool and one lane in the back pool so arrive focus and ready to rock your warmup so that you are in a position to be successful.  The 11- and 12 warmups will have more room but the back pool will not be open for that session or during finals.   While we are on the subject of warmups please remember to get in for your warmups for your events and remember it’s just to get your heart rate elevated.  Remember to warm down immediately after your event.  The longer you wait the longer it will take to get warmed up for that next event.  At the end of the day give your body the present tha

  This week is our “mid terms” culminating with a championship meet this weekend with our 11 and overs and next week’s meet for our 10 and unders. As we enter the next two meets let stay a little more focused on why your at the pool in the first place.  While we want you to have fun and enjoy yourself, we also want you to remember why your their, to RACE.  Many swimmers swim badly because they allow themselves to become wrapped up in everything and racing because secondary on their agenda.  They forget to go through proper warmups and warm downs especially the warm down.  If your not in the warm down pool right after your swim you’ve missed your window.  I see kids running to talk with friends check their phones pretty much anything other than what they should be doing, warming down.  On the flip side they don’t warmup for that next event and think their bodies are going to be able to do what they are about to ask.  Your mental state also goes a long way in determining how you will pre

  Happy Thanksgiving to all the swimmers from the Senior Prep, Junior Gold and Junior Blue groups.  Thank you all for showing up and doing what is needed to make us all better. You are all wonderful and we hope you enjoy your day off and if you become a little bit fidgety during the day go outside for some fresh air and exercise. Most of all this Thanksgiving instead of counting your laps, just look around the table as you sit down and count your blessings. If your out of town and get that itch to get wet and can find a pool here are a couple of workouts. WORKOUT #1  Warm up 800 200 free (first in the 11) @3:00/3:15 200 IM/free @ 3:15/3:30. Focus on good tight open transitions 200 free (25 kick in 11 25 swim) @3:15/3:30 200 IM (25 kick/25 swim UNDERWATER DOLPHIN KICKS FINS 500 20x25 dolphin kick @40 (odds on stomach evens on back. Must all be fast). Make it all the way if you come up finish fly FREE IM WITH STROKE FOCUS 1800 2x200 @3:15 first and fourth 25 fly 2x200 @3:15 first and fou

  So, you had a bad race this past weekend.  End of the world, not likely.  Your a bad swimmer, not likely.  Not working hard enough, only you can answer that one but I doubt it.  Just wasn't your day, more likely.  Anyway the positive is that you got to race, something you love to do and you finished unlike these pour souls who never touched the pad. Here is something to put in in perspective, You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.   Think about it for a second. Bad swims can bring about many emotions ranging moping loss of confidence or maybe even thinking your a bad swimmer.  Sound familiar?  First step in dealing with it is to spend some alone time with yourself and mentally evaluate the swim.  A good place for this is in the warm down pool. No one likes the experience of having a bad result and it's human nature to be upset about it. Don't spend a lot of time being frustrated and by all means don't ca

  The wrap up from the swim and rock meet this past weekend.  After missing this meet last year it was a great experience.  You all showed up, raced and should be very happy about your performances over the weekend.  A big THANKS to all our parents who volunteered to help out during the meet, we could not have done it without your support. While I watched swimmers race this weekend, ones who have put in the work during the last year and especially during the past 2 months I may have had a tear or two (okay maybe it was the bad air)  thinking back how far you all have come during a very challenging time.  Some conquered new events over the weekend, ones that they would have never dreamed of racing a mere two months ago.  Some of you got to experience coming back and swimming at finals with the "BIG KIDS" in the evening, and yes Petra you can race a 200 fly twice in one day, just ask Coach Peter it was his favorite event. It's always fun to watch our 12 and under's race

 We have a busy week on the horizon as we return to the annual Swim and Rock meet at Oak Marr on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  This meet will be he a prelims and final meet for the 11 and overs on Friday and Saturday. Let's review the procedures for this type of meet. FINALS- On Friday and Saturday the top 8 11-12 year olds and the top 16 13 -14 and 15 and overs will return in the evening to swim in the championship finals session.  If you make finals you must show up to swim.  If you fail to show up you will be scratched from the remainder of the meet.  If your intention is to scratch you must do it within 30 minutes after your event ends.  You must talk to a coach before scratching.  Swimmers from the Junior Gold and Senior prep groups will NOT be scratching and if you need to you better make a good argument. POSITIVE CHECK IN-  Be aware of the events that you need to check in for, normally 200 and above events. This is normally done before you get in for warm ups and needs to

  Here we are in November and we are off to a good start with our first few practices with our prep, gold and blue groups.  We hope those of you who were out of school enjoyed the time off and got some extra rest as you head into the next quarter.    In swimming we also are headed into a new phase in our were especially with the gold and prep groups where we will increase our intensity as we head into the next few meets some of which will have a championship format.  Think of these as your midterms as we move closer to our championship season that will be here sooner than you think. We have preached to you all a lot about putting yourself in a position to be successful, and as coaches that is what we try to do during practice especially when we have sets that involve race strategy.  We spent a lot of times working on learning our pacing for your 100's and 200's in the attempt to ease your stress and allow you to swim those events with a lot of confidence.   Some take aways from

 Ashley settled in on Halloween eve to watch her favorite Halloween movie.  Ashley and her brother had spent the afternoon carving the family pumpkins.  She remembers how she made fun of her brother's  pumpkin with it's large circles for eyes. ] ]]  She had told him that pumpkins were suppose to have scary faces not happy faces.  He was mad and told her that it was bad luck to make fun of pumpkins because they had been know to get revenge.  The evening brought with it dark skies and thunderstorms as the weather was beginning to change.  Suddenly Helen sat upright on the sofa startled at the sudden noise coming from outside.   She brushed it aside for the moment figuring it’s was the branches from the wind hitting the house when all of sudden there was a loud boom followed by a bright light and the house fell into total darkness.   Trembling as she  approached the front door she observed that the whole neighborhood had been plunged into total darkness. Ashley slowly cracked the

  It's Friday which means another week of training is about to end, but ask yourself, Did I accomplish anything this week?  Did I get better?   Last weekend as I thought about the plan this week I thought about this, we the coaches sometimes just assume and expect you to be able to swim the mid distance events but do we really prepare you to swim them.  We talk about how you need to set yourself up for success, so you should expect the same from your coaches.  This week the swimmers from the gold and prep group spent a lot of time working on our 200 free and 200 back events.  The Gold group also started to work through the 200 breast stroke event.  The senior Prep group spent time working through our IM events.   We worked on some stroke drills at the beginning of each set and then proceeded to longer repeats of 100's and 200's with the goal of starting out as fast as possible and maintaining that tempo and effort as long as we could with the idea that if we could  feel and

  Senior prep, we want to make sure we all understand what we were trying to accomplish today at practice. After a good warmup wit some long mix swims, pulling and kicking we went I to our big set for the day. It was basically an IM set with 4x100 IM followed by 4x50 fast free.  We went through 4 rounds of this with each round finishing with either 2x50 kick fast or 25’s  kick fast. As you noticed and we talked about the intervals started fast were some of you had trouble making it or barely make it.  Each segment of the round we increased the interval by 5 seconds.   The problem we were having is that we want to get the same effort on the last round as we got on the first round.  The slower interval does not signal us to slow it down, it’s meant to give us a little more recovery time in order to keep the effort high.  It is important that we all understand that so we are working together to make each of us better. If we can all get together we have a better chance of everything coming

 What happened this week during practice?  Let’s take a look back with a quiz?  How focused were you?  Take a piece of paper and write out your answers and bring them in Monday and Tuesday. What is the difference for the need of air In a 50-100-200-500. What are some breathing patterns you can use? What is the purpose of our underwater dolphin kick? When do you know it's time to breakout? What is your pacing strategy for a 200 free?  Is it the same for all 200's? We spent a lot of time this week on our underwater kicking going to the 10m mark, then the 12.5m, then to the 15m mark and finally trying to go for it.  The majority of you were very focused and stepped  outside of your comfort zone during this drill. Some of of us not so much.  We know it's challenging and it's human nature to go as far as what you are comfortable doing, but in athletics that will not help you down the road especially for age groupers. What was the purpose of those short kick swim sets from th