Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I have a few practices to post on this blog, but that's going to come at another time -- it's been a long day, and I've got to get to bed. I do have one very important point I'd like to bring up though:

If you are swimming Florida HS, and you have meets every week (sometimes two per week) please understand what you are doing. You will not get season best times each week. You will not always do "what you think you are supposed to do" at the meets. Of course we want to be consistently good, but just like in every facet of life -- sometimes we do well, and sometimes we don't do as well as we'd like.

DO NOT EXPEND MORE EMOTIONAL ENERGY AT THESE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER HS MEETS THEN YOU DO AT PRACTICE EVERYDAY.

Now, please don't misunderstand. I think it's appropriate to expend more emotional energy at our major meets, like Florida HS States, Senior Champs, Nationals, Junior Nationals, Sectionals and meets that we are real focused on. You've got to up it, and have that emotional "MEET ENERGY" -- Energy that you don't really tap into everyday.

But you just don't need to tap into that all the time at HS Dual meets. That's a hard thing to get when you've got "in town" rivalries, etc.

Honestly, I'd prefer we expend a bit more emotional energy on our practice swims! I know someone's about to have a breakthrough when they can't live with there poor practice and come back the next day ready to break through a wall. That sort of emotional energy, spent everyday, comes back at you when you rest for your major meets!

Here's the deal: if you do well at a HS meet in September or October, compare it to your practice. Was it a fast swim? If it was, great. Doesn't that tell you that you can really train fast at this point in the season? Of course it does.

If you don't do as well, think about it: would the time you did be a good practice time? In many cases we think our meet times are no good -- but if we did those very times in practice, we'd be PUMPED. SO....understand that the only difference beteween meets and practice is that you are going from a dive in a meet -- but you are really in the middle of hard training. You are training to go really fast in November, period. If your best time in a 200 free is 147 and you go a 148 in practice, then that is GOOD. REALLY GOOD. So why do we get upset at meets if we are a little bit off our best times? If we had practice today, and you did that time at the end of a set -- wouldn't you be psyched?

Another thing to understand: you've got to warmup well at these meets. In most cases people hang out and BS the whole meet, then go up to the blocks and swim when it's time. It's like summer league in that sense. How many people are warmdown for a 600, then warmup 20-30 minutes prior to your event, do a few builds, get out and dry off, put on some clothes...then go swim you event? Then warmdown another 600. I'm not sure we're doing that. We WILL do that at USS meets, so you may as well practice it at HS meets. I probably haven't gone over that enough with you guys, so we'll discuss this at practice -- and I'll teach you the proper protocol if you are not doing it.

Hey look -- we just found another way to get better! THE SKY'S THE LIMIT!!

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