Saturday September 11 2010 – HS Prep Notes -- "T2 Takes it To Another Level"

Lots happening today at Norris! We had the Shark Relay Extravaganza, which I know will be fun and fast for our T2 athletes. Many of our Senior group came in at 7 to get a swim in before the meet – big UP to those that showed up and got the workout in. Is this a normal thing for you, to get up and do a workout before a meet? I don’t know but I do know we’re going to do this my way….the workout was geared toward getting you ready to race, as opposed to kicking your butt so you were too tired to race – and I believe that as this was an early September “Relay” meet, or practice was appropriate.

We will NOT sell-out, and get ready for every little HS meet like it’s our big meet of the year. There are just too many of them. This is why we were training today.

Think about it:

Let’s say you have 6 HS dual meets, 1 relay meet, 1 intra-squad meet, and 1 invitational…plus a district, regional and state meet – that means you’ve got 12 HS meets between September 1st and November 15th, with only the final 3 meets really meaning much in terms of your progression into the State Championship HS meet. It’s roughly an 85 day season if you compete in Florida HS States – 73 of which are “training” days and 12 of which are “race” days.

IF you were to prep for each of those meets by taking an easy day the day before the meet, let’s consider for the sake of argument that those days are “prep” days, not “training” days. The meet days are just that: meet days – “race” days, not training days. IF you were to take it easy during practice the day before every meet, and then swim the meet the following day, then you are essentially taking those 73 training days you are supposed to have and turning it into 61 training days (73 training days minus the 12 days you’ve “mini-tapered” for the (in most cases) meaningless HS dual meet).

SO, if I’m doing the math right, here’s an ideal HS season, given the fact that I’ll give you a 10-21 day taper at the end of it – which counts as “training” if you are taper with me at T2:
HS season = 85 days
HS season training = 73 days
HS racing = 12 days

Here’s what it looks like if you go real easy the day before each meet (not training but going through the motions):
HS season = 85 days
HS season training = 61 days
HS season meet prep easy days = 12
HS racing = 12

And here’s what it looks like if you go easy the day before every meet, AND you take every Sunday off during HS season (This is what most HS teams in SW do):
HS season = 85 days
HS season training = 51-53 days
HS season meet prep easy days = 12
HS racing = 12
Sundays Off = 10-12

My point with this is: you’ve got to make every practice count, especially if you are swimming HS meets. You simply do not have the time to mess around and think that you’re going to make great gains during the HS season. Hopefully much of the gain you make is through consistent training year-round – that way your HS season isn’t 85 days, it’s 365 days or something close to that. When we train the day of the meet, or we work it hard the day before the meet, it’s because at T2 we want to have something to taper off of when we get ready to swim our fastest in November and early December. It’s also because even though I realize the importance of HS States for many of our T2 athletes, High School States is NOT THE END OF THE SEASON. 85 days is not a long season, it is very short. If you think the end of HS season is all you're going to have this year, you will sell yourself short -- and sell yourself out.

We will continue to get faster through early December, then come back and be at our best in late February at the USS Florida Senior Champs. Then we will continue to get faster through the summer where I anticipate members of T2 to go very fast in the LCM pool just like the SCY pool -- some will move on to college and be way faster going into their freshman year because of it, and some will step up and start making Olympic Trial Cuts at some point soon. Those OT cuts are ONLY going to be made in a Long Course pool.

I urge you to keep swimming fast in HS meets, but please just keep swimming fast everyday -- no matter what! There is more out there for you if you look hard enough and have the courage to gaze a bit outside of what is normal for HS swimmers in Florida.