Coach's Comments MARCH, 2007

Let me start by congratulating everyone on their accomplishments over the past short course season. The progress made by all of our swimmers has been just fantastic, some swimmers going from no time to state qualifying time. Many of our swimmers are continuing to improve, having qualified for the District Meet, they swam well enough to achieve a JO time and swam at the JO Meet. Then, some of the swimmers at the JO Meet qualified for the State Meet. This was a great achievement.

Dont put limits on yourself, if you can dream it, you can achieve it.

As we come up on the various championship meets I will be doing extra work on technique with those individuals swimming in those meets. The week before the meet Ill work with the swimmers going to that meet in small groups. Working on starts, clean breakouts, turns and race pace (or tempo). I will be trying to bring in to clearer focus how to swim and win the races they will be competing in.

Properly preparing for a championship swim is more than resting and cutting yardage. Its true you taper down on the amount of yards you swim in a workout, however there must be an increase in the intensity and speed with which you swim a select number of yards in that workout. What we are trying to achieve is a sense of swim meet intensity and urgency in our practice swimming, so that you can swim at this higher level with ease and comfort in the Championship meet. You must also remember that you have had the past several months to get into tip-top physical condition, so that you are not in need of yardage, to be getting stronger physically and fitter aerobically. If your workout attendance has been low, or your workout intensity has been low, over the past few months than you might not be where you want to be at this point of the season. Your endurance should be well developed by now and what we are focusing on now is speed.

Championship swimming is about swimming fast, swimming relaxed, and racing. You have to be ready both physically and mentally to go all out in your races, otherwise you wont have given it your best effort. And that is all I ask of you, that when you get out of the pool after a race and you know you did your best.

Coach Brad