ROADMAP TO BETTER TURNS

 How are your turns doing?  Could they be better? ALWAYS.  Are you doing everything possible to have better turns?  PROBABLY NOT.  Not a criticism just a human fact.  Do the walls only become important for you during a race?  In order to improve in this area you need to approach your walls with the same intensity during practice as you would in a race.

Regardless of your talent level the walls are a great equalizer if you can master them.  Think about this statement from coach Paul, "For a 50 free the start covers at least 10 yards, the turn another 10 yards (flags to wall, wall to flags) and the finish another 10 yards."  Thats 3 critical areas that cover 30 yards of your 50 (60% of your race) (30%of your 100 race) and ( 15% of your 200 race).  Just how good are you in those 30 yards and do you make a point of working those 30 yards hard during your training, or does your training look more like the map above, all over the place with no clear destination.   Your roadmap to improvement is clear it’s straight down that black line turn and return over the same line.

Although we have been limited with are starting block work over the past year, all of you have done a fantastic job on your starts with all of our limitations. The one thing to remember is to step up on to the blocks with a clear mind and an aura of confidence.  Control what you can control.  Explode on the sound legs, hips arms, shoulders, and head all moving as one powerful piston. That's it.  

Here is a cute little story from the past weekend about a girl who came over to where I was with another coach and proceeded to layout her strategy for her upcoming race (the 50 free) and this plan covered everything from start to breathing, encompassing a fast turn and finally the finish.  This other coach looked up and said; "Dear it's only a 50!  Bottom line is don't over think your races.  It causes unnecessary stress which will only lead to you tightening up at that critical moment.

Your start boils down to this; 

Next up we will get into our turns

 Have all the meets that are happening in March have you wondering which one is the right meet for me?  I will try to go through the options here and remember these are only my opinions right or wrong, but they are based on what puts you in the best position to get what you want out of these meets.  I will support your choices and will attend meets when I can, but  remember some of these meets are going on simultaneously.

As you look at these meets understand that unlike in the past whatever meet you enter locks you out of all the other meets.  You will not be able to enter off events in the mako meets and this is due to the numbers that we are allowed to have on the pool deck, and we are trying to give all the swimmers who want to swim the opportunity.

Let's look at the meets;

• March 11-14 Mako Spring Showcase (11-14 year olds) Prelims/Finals  coaches approval
• March 12-14 PVS WAVE 1 Championships (15-18 year olds) Qualifying times plus bonus events possible
• March 18-21 PVS WAVE 4 Championships (10 and under) JO Standards plus bonus events are possible
• March 18-21 PVS WAVE 2 Championships (18 and under elite) Sectional cuts Prelims/Finals
• March 20-21 Mako Spring Fling (all ages ) swimmers not participating in other meets.
• March 25-28 PVS WAVE 3 Championships (11-14 year olds) JO Standards Prelims/Finals

All the PVS meets have qualifying times, but you also get bonus events for each event that you qualify for.

There is a possibility that one, two or all of your bonus events are eliminated, but that is the unknown until the final numbers can be looked at to determine if and where cuts need to be made.

We have had a number of you ask which meet should you attend.  As your coach I would steer you to the meet that offers you the most opportunities to race swim your best events.  The next factor you should ask is, What meet offers me the best chance of getting a second swim at finals.  The Mako Showcase will be similar to the meet some of you attended this past weekend, with our very own D.J. at finals.

Both the WAVE 1 and WAVE 3 meets will be held at 2 facilities respectively, meaning that neither meet will have all PVS swimmers together.  I only say this because this may be important for some of you and may factor in your decision.

This year try not to get wrapped up in the name of the meet, look at what gives you the most opportunities to show up race and swim fast.

If you need help reach out, we are here to help you, but you have to ask.

DMV SHOWCASE WRAP

 DMV MEET

This past weekend some of our 13 and over swimmers competed in the DMV showcase out in Manassas.  This was a three day meet with prelims and finals on Saturday and Sunday, and timed finals on Monday.  Although faced with obstacles along the way like everything else this year the meet went off without a hitch.  Mother Nature not wanting to be left out through us a curve at the end of the week with her snow/ice storm causing another delay in the State High School championships and the moving of our Friday sessions to Monday not only losing finals but also at a different facility.

You will be happy to know that despite all of the disruptions and changes our Mako swimmers did extraordinary well throughout it all.  We hit a little bump the first day and although I don’t like to look for excuses I really believe hat because of our missed practices on Sunday and Thursday it took a little longer to get our legs underneath us and that feel for the water.  In other words we might have been a little heavy Saturday morning.

Finals that night however we were back and everyone had some really good races with everyone getting some best times and a few even making the walk to the podium.  Sunday we had a lot of quality races during prelims with a large number qualifying for finals later in the evening.  Again in the evening we came to race and ended up with mostly all best times

Monday we were at the CPAK pool in Manassas a totally different environment and except for our kids who competed at IMX, a new racing venue.  As pointed out by our 13-14 year old ladies we did get an extra hour with warmups starting at 8.

Despite Mother Nature getting involved again with a minor winter storm we were able to arrive safely for some rare Monday swimming.  The difference today was that it was going to be a timed finals format which wasn't going to stop our Mako swimmers.   Without a second swim looming over them they were ready for that one opportunity and they made the best of it.  Although lots of best times were recorded what was nice to see was the effort and how each of you got to those times

Swimmers who qualified for Finals;

Caitlyn Goff, Skylar Small, Sara Small, Ben Farello,

Emily Tao, Sophia Cloutier, Riley Miller, Charlotte Dixon, Ashley Cruce, Adrian Coray, Charlotte Lim, Erin Termina, Kitty Moy Jacobs, Katerine Helms, Ava Craig, Jacob Macrina, Beau Souders, Blake Madsen, Will Breslin, Graham Evers, Claire Kathman, Aleigha Scherber, 

HAPPINESS versus JOY

 

In your swimming are you looking for happiness or are you searching for joy. Think about that for a second.  You may ask yourself, What is the difference.  Happiness is defined as the state of being happy.  Happiness is an emotion.  Happiness in swimming often is result oriented.  If I win I will be happy and if I don't win I won't be happy.  Does this sound like anyone you know?  The state of being happy in swimming demands on a certain outcome and as all athletes especially swimmers know that result may 

not always happens.  In fact if you look at that scoreboard enough you will be let down more often than not which will make you unhappy.  Its like being on a rollercoaster you are always chasing that feeling with all of it's ups and downs, the twists and turns, a never ending cycle that you are always chasing.  We need to find something that is more constant, another state of being. 

Joy on the other hand is a state of being, a feeling of great pleasure.  Joy is a constant and it is not result oriented.  The joy comes from the process of enjoying what you are doing.  Don't make the day to day a chore.  Joy doesn't depend on a outcome of an event.  Joy gets you off that emotional rollercoaster   

and puts you into a constant state of pleasure, its a lifestyle.

As we have talked before it's the day to day process of this sport that will create memories long after the races are forgotten.

THE BELL

 The ringing of a bell can have a variety of meanings for everyone. To you all maybe it signifies the end of the school day, the first sound you awake to each morning.  I know that the bell stirs memories of a former rugby coach I had who happen to be former a military and CIA guy.  He had this bell he would bring to every Wednesday practice, our hard day, and all we had to do to get out of practice was to go over and ring that bell, no questions asked.  The only caveat was that if you rang the bell you lost your spot on the team of 15 until the following Wednesday.

For some of you, your bell may ring ring internally and may even be what lives in your head between your ears, the voices always pulling at you. it's not always easy to practice at a high level day in and day out, but if you want a chance to be successful you must find a way.  Does that mean you need to swim all out every time you push off the wall, NO but you do have to focus on the purpose of the set.

There are sometimes where we are looking for an all out effort when your arms become heavy and your legs burn but if you want the chance to change your outcome and races you need to find a way.  There are times when we do drill sets, do you work hard on doing the drill correctly or is it done haphazardly, if you want to change your outcome focus on your technique.  

TURNS...TURNS...TURNS...  How do you approach your walls?  Is it with intensity? Or maybe its with

the mindset of "here we go again, another turn".  We have talked about how important each turn is in a short course pool.  Regardless of where your talent level falls the turn is a great equalizer offering an opportunity for all to increase speed, pick up an advantage and just maybe effect the outcome of your race.  Think of how many turns we go through during a single practice, those are opportunities to get better.  As you approach your turns in practice never give up, always look at a way to get better with this aspect of your swimming.

STREAMLINES...STREAMLINES....STREAMLINES... 

As with our turns the streamlines are a important component of your race and as with the turn the longer the race the more important they become.

Again, good streamlines require no talent, all they require is the mindset to master them every time you come off a turn.  They don't really care how tired you think you are.  All is needed is the will to work on them hard at every turn during practice and make it a habit.  It actually takes more of your energy to move your body through the water off a turn in a BAD streamline than it does in a GOOD streamline, energy that is taken away from your actual swimming.  If you want to affect your outcome work on your streamlines.

As we head into our Championship season our excitement picks up along with your intensity, so now is the time to double down on your efforts in and out of the pool, and if you want to be in a position to be successful, never ring the bell.

CRUMBS

 

Your parents have always taught you to clean up after yourselves and when eating try not to leave crumbs and what yo ask, does that have to do with your swimming.

Use your imagination for the next few minutes and imagine all the crumbs you leave lying around not only during training but also in your everyday life that   has a direct effect on your success in the pool.

Crumbs are like choices we are faced with everyday and as a swimmer the crumbs you have are many.  Finishing that school project in advance, doing your school work in a timely manner in order to avoid cramming.  Maybe it involves your eating habits and the fact that you could fuel your body with better nutrition.  Garbage in garbage out.  Are you getting enough sleep in order for you body to recover and come back even stronger?  Maybe your technique and effort at practice is not where it should be.  Is your focus somewhere else during practice?  If you are constantly getting in late I would venture to guess that your focus is not on the task at hand.  

It is easy to find and make excuses for leaving crumbs laying around.  However when you leave these crumbs laying around you eventually start looking over your shoulder, and are left to wonder, only if I.  The crumbs you leave today are tomorrow's regrets. Have you ever heard of ROI,

with is an acronym for "Return ON Investment" and that is exactly what you are trying to achieve, a ROI with all your sacrifices and hard work.  Make smart choices that fill you up and puts you in a position to succeed.

Don't leave Crumbs

MARCH MEETS

 Today PVS has posted a plan on how the championship season will look for this season.  There was a lot of thought and planning that was put into this effort in the hopes that all the needs of our swimmers would attempt to be met.  Because of the ongoing pandemic our championship season will have a different look and feel to it for this season.

One of the biggest changes this season is the Junior/Senior championship meet typically held together the first weekend in March.  We do understand that the format with new qualifying times may affect several of our swimmers because of different factors including birthdays. 

As I said in my last posting wherever you find yourself, please do not consider yourself a victim, deal with it, move on and we will not only be fine, but more importantly we will swim fast in what ever meets the coaching staff decides is best.

When you view these meets look at it through the prism of which meet offers me the opportunity to swim more events and at the same time giving me the opportunity to have a second swim at finals if offered.  This is how I will be advising you all as we move forward.  Don’t get wrapped up in the name of the meet.

If we prepare properly both mentally and physically we will be able to swim fast wherever we end up.

Let's make the most of our opportunities.

SWIMMING NOT EASY

 

Who said swimming is easy?  They have never gotten up at the break of dawn, grabbed a little something to eat, head out into the dark only to arrive at your destination and jump into the cold water which will be your training arena for the next 60-90 minutes.

It does not matter what arena an athlete competes in because every athlete makes sacrifices in their daily lives whether they are physical, mental or social.  Every day we are faced with challenges and choices and as an athlete you are faced with a few more.  The first choice your faced with each day is to show up for practice. There will always be "something that tugs" at you and yes it takes great discipline to make the correct choice for your well being.  Commitment takes a lot of effort and involves sacrifices and making the right choices every day. Does it end there?  No.

The next choice you have to makes, Am I going to focus and walk away from this workout a better swimmer?  Take a piece of paper and write down 5 things that will make you a better swimmer/athlete.  They can range from things outside the pool such as eating properly, getting enough rest, hydrating, and dry land workouts.  They could be things during practice such as proper warmups and swim downs, leaving walls correctly every time. breathing patterns, good effort.  Think of these as a balance sheet with a credit side and a debit side.

 Check in with it often and see where you stand.  After a meet if a coach suggest that you need to work on a faster turn than you know your in the red and it requires a little more of your attention to move it into the black.

Now, if you make all the sacrifices and do the things right will you be successful.  Depends on what successful means to you.  If it means a best time every time you dive in, I feel pretty confident that you will be disappointed more often than not.  Swimming, like life is not easy, it owes you nothing.  Don't fall into the entitlement trap.  If you have a bad result don 't think of yourself as a victim, get over it and move on.  Most things are more rewarding when you have to work hard to get them.

UPCOMING MEETS

 You guys are probably have been as confused 🤷🏻‍♂️ as I have been for a snowy Monday judging from the emails I am reading, so let’s look at a plan.

First off the DMV meet is for a few of our 13 and over senior prep/ blue swimmers and you should have gotten emails.  There will be championship meets during March for all swimmers.  That being said if you already have qualifying times for those meets you should be looking at additional events that you have a chance of qualifying for.  You should plan on not swimming in the Mako meet at the end of the month unless there is a specific reason, and if so I will have to approve it first.

The rest of you should be planning to swim in the Mako meet at the end of the month.  The same guidelines apply when choosing which events to swim.  Look at the events that you have a chance to qualify in and be sure to allow enough recovery between swims.  If you have 3 events in one day you may have to make some choices like going for 2 instead of all three.

As some of you have learned along with myself 12 and unders are not allowed to swim more than one session in a day unless it is a championship meet and who said old dogs can’t learn new things.

We will treat these meets like a championship and will suit up, so let’s really keep our focus over the next few weeks.

IMX Wrap Up

 

This past weekend we had 16 swimmers travel out to Manassas to swim in the IMXtreme challenge  meet.  Our kids put in a great effort swimming  longer events with reduced recovery time between events.

All the kids were great with seat assignments, going through their warmups and getting a lot accomplished in the 20/25 minutes we had.  They handled their second warmup right before their events and apparently they knew what they were doing because they posted 48 personal best out of 52 swims. The 4 times that were off pretty well matched their entry times.  I think we wish we could have a couple of those back but they are in the rear mirror now, lessons learned.

On Friday afternoon/evening the first event on the kids list was the 400 and 200 IM.  In the early two sessions Charlotte Lim,  Blake Madsen,  and James Anderson posted  best times in the 400 IM.  Each of them approached each leg strong with a great effort and push on the back half of each leg.  Blake would end up finishing 3rd in the event.  In the next session Both Lilly Fisher and Blake Farello also posted best times in the event, Ben dropping over 16 seconds.  Again the effort in the back half of each 100 was nice to see, we do believe you all are learning.

The last two sessions of the day had the 11 year olds followed by the 12 year olds swimming their 200 IM.

Our Mako swimmers Sadie Buckley, Anna Helms, Oliva Roca, Nick Harris, Claire Dobrydney, Lyla Devlin, Rebecca Prunty, Luca Iaci, Josef Gruendel and Tony van de Graff all had some great swims.  During this event we did hit a few bumps ranging from thinking too much, too many expectations and not having fun and a little lack of focus, but those will be topics for another day. Sadie won the event while Claire placed 3rd in her swim.  Sadie pulled off the Hat 🎩 trick winning all three 100's in the 11 year old session.  Yes people she won the 100 breast from lane 1.  Where did that one come from?  Anna placed 9th in the 100 back dropping almost 2 seconds.  Also dropping almost 2 seconds was Nick placing 12th.  Claire won the 100 back for 12 year olds and Lyla dropped 2.5 seconds placing 8th.  Claire also dropped 5 seconds in the 100 breast placing 3rd, yes that was a Dobrydney placing in a breaststroke event, but hold the presses Claire is not about to give up her freestyle events as she pointed out to me.  Lyla again placed 7th in the 100 breaststroke event.  Claire also placed 3rd and Lyla placed 8th in the 100 fly.  We had a really good Saturday.

Sunday we all looked out to see a winter wonderland,  but what about the meet, we had some unfinished business.  Early on the meet was a go so off I went to the pool, and as I told the kids if the pool is open I’ll be there.  As I arrived at the pool with the other coaches it was decided that we would run the first session for 13 year old but unfortunately we would have to cancel the other three sessions.  With everything else in the last few months I guess Mother Nature wanted to get in on the action and remind us all that she is still out there.

James and Charlotte arrived early and went about their warmups for the 500 free and the 200 IM.  Both of them swam great 500’s dropping over 20 and 30 seconds respectively.  They really focused on the pacing strategy that we had discussed. The two of them finished off the meet with the 200 IM dropping over 5 seconds each in their races.

Our top finishers for the meet are;

13 year old boys Bake Madden 2nd

11 year old girls Sadie Buckley 1st.           

12 year old girls Claire Dobrydney 2nd

12 year old girls Lyla Devlin 7th

Great job by all the Mako swimmers in the meet and also to our group members who had some great swims in their district championship meets over the weekend.  

Rest enjoy the day off catch up on some homework and let’s get ready for that final push into championship season.