Blog 1028: Arena League

Unfortunately I was away for the first round of the Arena League, however the reports I have had back fill me with pride. After looking at the results and speaking to coaches, swimmers and parents, I get the feeling that everyone gave everything they had and I cannot ask more than that. The A team had a very tough draw with 5 teams that finished above us in the league last year including 2 that finished in the top 4. Whilst finishing 4th in the gala, which was probably a fair result, we have to remember that you get the same points if you finish 10 meters behind or .1 of a second behind, so the points totals did not reflect the performance the A team put in, with many swimmers doing personal bests and finishing close to the swimmer finishing first. This was a really tight gala and most races could have gone either way based on a few points of a second, so keep working on the details in training to reverse these results. The B team swam well above themselves going up against 5 A teams and finishing 3rd in the gala. The fighting spirit, grit and determination shone through and another amazing number of personal bests achieved. All the swimmers that competed did their club proud and therefore I have tried to keep the teams the same for the next round, with a couple of swimmers making it into the A team from the B and a couple being brought in to strengthen the B team. The next round is on November 12th and the tick sheets will be posted over the weekend. Please tick off ASAP. Keep up the good work.

Blog 1019: Great weekend

Swimmers competed in 3 different gala's over the weekend and performed extremely well in all 3. Coming away with lots of Medals, Speeding Tickets and most importantly Personal Best performances. This is even more impressive given that we have only just started the season and are in heavy training. The fact that you can swim fast whilst doing this lies a lot within the 2 week break, this is a process that all swimmers go through and having spoken to several coaches over the weekend they were surprised we only have 2 weeks as many of them have 3 weeks or a month. The break gives the body a chance to recover after a full season of hard training, so when you do come back to training you are fresh and ready to go. As always there are many lessons to learn from these gala's despite the high level of personal bests. Once again starts and turns come top of the list, the land training will help with this and those that are eligible to do the extra strength and conditioning should really find a way to do this as the starts and turns from those doing it were already noticeably much improved. This is the area where land work helps most. You can also remember to do all your turns correctly in training and when ever you dive in do it properly not just flopping into the pool. Other details we need to work are making sure we warm up correctly and follow the coaches instructions for warm ups (and cool downs where available) in particular when doing Backstroke - count your strokes at RACE PACE during the warm up for both a turn and a finish, and finally nutrition, whilst the club are looking at putting on another talk on this subject you can read the great article from this months swimming times which will help (a copy is on the board at West Park) you need to make sure you are hydrated or performances will get worse during the day, remember you need a minimum of 2 liters a day but more when you are sat on a hot poolside and competing for hours on end. Add these details to your training and whilst in competitions and performances will be even better than they are now.