Monday's Practice & Some Training Thoughts

We had a lot going on at today’s practice (Monday May 9).  In the interest of brevity, here are a few items:

1. We had a group of athletes do a 1000-2000-3000.  Jacob led the way with 1027/2043/3112.  The last time we did the 3000, Jacob went 32:56.  We are going to use the times for training paces over the next few weeks.  Good times from pretty much everyone.  Paolo did it all backstroke and didn’t go over 108 the entire 6000!

2. Another group of athletes did 10x200 on either (220), (230), or (240).  The goal with this type of set is for the athlete’s best effort to get them 20-25 seconds rest.  Sometimes, particularly for athletes on (240), the rest will be closer to 30 seconds.  But generally, if the athlete is getting much more than 20 seconds, a faster interval should be considered.

3. It was a challenge getting the practice ready for today.  My goal was to offer each athlete the closest thing to a highly effective plan – which means different sets for different people.  I considered going together and basically doing the same set with everyone but opted to do what we did and give out different sets.

4. I am constantly reminded that the athlete is the one that makes the plan happen and makes the training great.  It’s the athlete that must train well in order to be successful.  Think about: among others, athletes are racing “their best self”—and the best self of T2 Aquatics athletes is an outstanding self.  Athletes, think about the things you have done in training to get the results you’ve gotten.  Are you ready to move past your best training performances? 

5. Best training performances don’t have to happen in every aspect of training.  But there must be some aspects of training that are getting better during a season for an athlete to reasonably expect to improve.  Pick something: kicking, pulling, drilling, speed sets, distance sets.  It’s gotta be something!

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I'm challenging everyone to have a great week of training this week!

What are you waiting for?

It’s more fun to train fast!

Who wants to swim slow for 2 hours!

Everyone in the National Group has lots of great training under their belt.

Upperclassmen, if you tap into what you’ve built over the years, you will see that you are more ready now than ever to swim FAST. 

Upperclassmen, you more than anyone have endurance and speed in combination; years ago you may only have had one of those things!

Everyone needs to commit to great attendance, and get to morning practices – if for no other reason than to give that dedication to the GROUP.  We need to have everyone totally on board and firing.  We can’t have some people coming to mornings and others sleeping in every time.  It’s a simple choice that we can each make!