“WIN”. What’s Important Now

 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

 In order to reach your goals and see success at meets you first have to succeed in practice, and it involves more than just showing up each day. It all starts with how you look at practice.  Is it just about swimming as fast as you can and add up the yardage to satisfy your cravings. You have to ask yourself this question, Am I getting the most out of the time I put into practice? Many things go into having a successful practice and it all starts with the attitude walking in and being ready to go on time.  Excuses are the easy way out of doing what is right.  Starting on time each and every day is a good way to tell yourself that "I want to be better."  That first jump into the water and that first stroke are always the hardest but it's gonna happen so just do it.  Being late might not be a big thing to you, but what you are actually doing is being disrespectful to your teammates and your coaches.  I think and believe that most swimmers want to get better and succeed and

  During our practice on Friday we talked about how sometimes we need to slow it down a little and actually feel how are bodies are performing.  Okay I get it, you hear a lot  of work hard, go all out and yes that is important but it is also important to slow it down at times and focus on the execution of of what we are really doing.  Sometimes you need to slow your roll in order to move forward or you just might find yourself going in circles instead of moving forward. Now on the flip side Saturday morning we threw in parts of a set that were to be swum ALL OUT but as we discussed a  lot of you were having trouble getting to that speed.  And why were we having trouble?  Could it be that you were getting in your own way, stumbling as you went along? It all comes back to that mental side of this sport and the games that you are playing in your head, and the stumbling blocks you put in front of yourself that prevent you from moving forward. Here is a good example that occurred on Saturda

  I have been getting a lot of questions on what to swim in the upcoming meets so let’s take a look. First off everyone will not be able to swim in both meets due to sheer numbers.  SWIM AND ROCK MEET at Oakmarr November 19-21.  This meet will be offered to our 3 time of week swimmers in the Junior Blue and all of the Junior Gold and the Senior Prep group.  This has always been a preliminary and finals meet and we will see how that shakes out as it gets closer.   We should all be thinking about swimming our very BEST EVENTS at this meet.  We will be suiting up for this meet. MAKO GOBBLE MEET.  This meet will be for the rest of our groups or if you will not be available for swim and rock.  Swimmers in the Junior gold and Senior prep groups who are swimming at swim and rock should not participate in this meet.  If there is overwhelming desire to swim in this meet, I would like to see you only pick one day and enter events that you will not be swimming at Swim and Rock.  Think outside the

  What a weekend but we all got through it and made it to Monday, some of us even answered that call for morning workout and yes I did take note of those who hit their snooze button at 4:15. Your absence was duly noted with an asterisk in my book and on that note be careful what you say to the coaches first thing at the meet.  You may ask, Why?, but when the first thing out of your mouth is, I'm tired! two things are happening, One you are setting yourself up to fail or only have a so-so meet and the second is that you will not get much sympathy from coaches who have been on deck all day.  So be careful of the words you choose and if you have any doubt then go back to our book to the section on talking positivity to yourself.  "Set Yourself Up To Succeed!" Let's get to some observations from the weekend.  First off, you all overall had a good meet for early in the season.  It's been a while since the majority of you raced in this type of environment and you all we