Coach's Comments January, 2007
I would like to take this opportunity
to thank everyone for the kind and
generous gifts that I received this
Holiday season, with the best one being
the great attendance we had for the
Holiday workouts. If swam in every
scheduled workout, you would have swam
over 140,000 yards, or from Detroit to
Toledo.
As we look forward to the New Year and
second half of the short course season,
everyone needs to reassess and make some new
goals to replace goals that have been
accomplished. I encourage everyone to write
down their goals, using a goal sheet, and
e-mail or bring them in, and we can discuss
them. At this point I must emphasize that
you must make a commitment to get in the
workouts needed to accomplish any goal. You
must carve the time out of your day to get
in a full practice/workout, you will not be
happy with the level of your success if you
just try to squeeze in your workouts in
between an already busy schedule. Without
continuity and regularity in your workout
schedule you won’t be prepared to swim well
at the meets you enter, and there are only a
few meets left. Also if you are in the
Bulldog and Senior group you should be
attending at minimum of six (6) meets a
year, swimming all days and swimming the
maximum number of events allowed.
I’m looking forward to the meets we have
coming up this month: the BAC meet, BBA meet
and Indy. These are all good meets to give
you feed back on your progress. Will you
swim your best times? - probably only
in a few events. If you’ve been able to take
full advantage of the training you’ll be
swimming tired, if you haven’t gotten in a
lot of training you’ll be a little out of
shape. You need to look at what times you
were doing at these meets last year, and you
need to be ahead of those times, and not
necessarily doing your best times, although
that’s always nice.
When we go to meets you need to have your
events written on your hand before you come
into the pool, this will help you when you
check-in not to miss any events. Everyone
should be on deck behind the blocks and
ready to get in five (5) minutes before
warm-up. With the meets being so crowded we
have a better chance of securing a lane and
getting in a good warm-up for everyone, when
people get spread out the warm-up is usually
poor.
You must also have proper attire. You
should have a sweatshirt and pants and
footwear when you go to a meet. It gets cold
and drafty in most of the pools we’ll be
swimming at. You must do everything you can
to stay warm at a meet, otherwise you will
not be able to fully focus on your races.
Also if you get sick it will be a
tremendous setback. I need to emphasize that
you need to take every precaution to stay
healthy. Drink lots of fluids, wash your
hand regularly, eat health, and take your
vitamins (airborne, etc) and try to, stay
away from people who are ill. This is a very
exciting time because the opportunities you
have are all awaiting you, especially if you
commit to make over 80% of the workouts.
The Top 18 Participants of the Holliday
workouts Dec 22 – Dec 31:
Bobby Jenrow, Matt Lee, Emily Hopcian,
Caroline Arakelian, Savanah Hatt, Meghan
Kanya, Bofeng Zhang, Michaela Keady, Jill
Johnson, Allison Kellahan, Amanda Niles,
Nick Arakelian, Evelyn Stein, Susan Morris,
Alex Miller, Spencer Miller, Rebecca
Arakelian, and Leah Erlandson.
Coach Brad
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