“WIN”. What’s Important Now

 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

 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 C

 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

  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 const

 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 someti

  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 fo

 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 t

  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

 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

  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