A COACHES VIEW FROM GREENSBORO

 

70 Makos traveled to Greensboro last weekend for a four day meet at the coliseum.  We began the meet on Friday with a couple of distance events where several of our Mako swimmers participated in and left with some awesome swims.

Saturday morning came early as the 12 and under were  scheduled for first warmup at 7;30.  For those of you who have never been to this complex let's set the stage.  You had the main complex of 2 pools with 8 and 14 lanes that we would be racing in and then you had the diving well  that would have another 8  lanes.  Through the hallways on the other side of the building there were 2 other pools that each had 10 lanes.  Of course the teams were assigned different pools for each session and of course our 12 and under were scheduled for the back pool for that session.  Have you ever tried to round up 40 8-12 year olds early in the morning, started feeling like a lost shepherd looking for his lost flock.😃. Our first warmup of the meet needless to say was a little chaotic as I expected everyone on time

knowing what to do (my bad) without remembering that we had swimmers from other groups. As we worked through our warmup this is what I saw in my mind.   The best thing was that we had a half hour to have time to go over what was expected of them.  We went over our meet warmup procedure for our 12 and under's and emphasizing how important it was to be on time and how if your late it affects the whole group and is very disrespectful to everyone involved.  The second thing we  talked about was the actual swimming which went like this;

• feet first
• 200 free smooth and strong
• 4x50  free to back descending 
• 100 kick on back streamlined
• 3x50 kick descending 
• 8-12 25's alternating choice (no free) and free fast
• 2 starts off blocks

The swimmers were awesome for the rest of the meet as they were on time and went through warmup

without a hitch and what I saw was like night and day.

Are you ready for the most asked question of the meet?  When should I go over?  We all know that some of that was if not all of it was being anxious which is understandable.  Here is a rule of thumb for the 50's go over about 6 heats before (they go fast) for your 100's maybe 4 heats and for the 200's about 3 heats.  Why?  If you know when to go over to the blocks it reduces the anxieties that much more and that is time you can relax a little more.  This is part of what we talk about; "TAKING OWNERSHIP" of your race.

As for our actual racing we had tons of awesome swims from all of our Mako swimmer, lots of new events and a Buch of personal best posted throughout the weekend.  One thing that stood out race after race was our starts with great streamlines and our momentum off those blocks.  Time after time our swimmers were coming up ahead of their competition. We are learning and executing what we have learned in our races.

Our turns need some work.  Technically they are improving but we need to be more aggressive in and out of those turns.  We saw some slowing into and out of those turns and this kills momentum and speed.  We need to do a better job engaging a faster and more purposeful dolphin off those walls to carry our speed into the next leg of the race.

FINISHES-- We need to set up those finishes to the wall.  The object is to get your hand to the pad before

the other swimmers and you can't do that is you relax on that last stroke.  We've say it all the time, "FINISH LIKE A CHAMPION" no matter what.

Overall we had a great showing at his meet and its time now to turn our attention to the qualifying meets and see how many cuts we can get for the championship season.

Stay on point and keep up your hard work and take care of yourself away from the pool.