It's Championship Time

My few swimmers going to JO's went through a pretty simple set of workouts. Worked on getting top speed by doing fast 25's, and worked on turns, worked on little things like streamlines and underwaters.

Again I tried to not do too much similar to what worked for WAG. They ended up getting out a little early compared to the rest of the group. It was weird to rest a small group, while the larger portion of the group is resting for Coastal Championships.

I think I did a little more resting for JO's than I did for WAG. I can't wait to see how the swimmers respond to the more rest. I don't believe young swimmers actually do a full taper as they haven't put the yardage in or broken down the body enough to get a lot out of a full taper, but the rest does seem to work.

As a swim coach, we always try different ways. They are all with the same premise in mind, but what age-group swimmers need is so different from senior swimmers, and it really depends a lot on how you ran your season. Some may say I didn't pull back enough, but if the yardage never got that high in the first place; do you really need to back off that much from your yardage trend. I've always liked higher intensity (simulating race speed) with rest and longer intervals. Here they get to take the skills learned in a season and try to put them into full speed.

Had to talk to the swimmers about needing to sprint when I ask for a sprint though. Trust the muscle memory and focus on swimming fast (this is very different from the first phase of training that we do). I talked about the speed you swim at practice now is going to be very telling on how fast they are going to swim at the meet.

There is the anxiety though. You always wonder about if things are going to come together. It will come together for some of them, and then not for others. So who will it come together for? Who will it not? You'll always hope it comes together for them all. Championship Meets in February for age-groupers does present a challenge because of what occurs over the holidays. Some never miss, some miss a little more often than normal because of outside reasons, and then there always is the sicknesses that pop up with the cold season. Inconsistencies leave a wild card. I have had some kids swim out of their minds despite a out of norm practice attendance, while some have responded not so well. Their age-groupers though, inconsistency comes with the territory.

After tonight though, I feel a lot better. The swimmers looked good, and they seemed excited and ready.

Let's get this meet rolling.