Off the Deck

Now that the 2008 Olympics Trials have begun and world records are falling, I’ve been wondering about how the swimmers approached their taper for the meet.

Especially because Rowdy keeps reminding us that:
–past performances, records and times don’t matter
–there are only two spots per event
–that he was more nervous at trials than the Olympics
–that his nerves got the best of him during Trials when he finished 7th in 200 free despite being the world record holder in the event at that time

We get it — to make the team, it all comes down to what you do on that given day, at that given moment.

Which leads me back to tapering. Do the big-timers like Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin do a full taper for Trials because there are no promises? Or, are they confident enough that they’ll nab one of the two spots, and thus rely on a light taper? Does anyone ever dare to “swim through” the Trials?

I imagine the decision is easy for up-and-coming age-groupers — the Trials are the biggest meet of the year for them (maybe for the next few years) so why not go all out and do a full taper and see if they can throw down a PR, if not make the team via a major upset?

Factoring a taper might be tougher for the swimmers who enter the meet expecting to make the team. After all, they have to do a quick turn around post-Trials — return to training that’s intense enough to make a second, pre-Games taper effective. And, there’s barely a month before the Olympics begin…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Amanda Beard was recently quoted in People magazine as having “close to 500 suits.”

While I don’t match Amanda in suit number, I do have a crazy amount of suits according to the average, non-swimming American.

To be fair, similar to other competitive swimmers, part of my suit range is explained by performance requirement:

1. basic black poly for indoor practice
2. fun pattern, open-back, light-weight poly-blend for outdoor practice
3. “in good shape” lycra for fun meets
4. back-up “in good shape” lyrca for fun meets with multiple events
5. beat-up former fun meet lyrca to wear under wetsuit when swimming in cold open water
6. thick-strap, heavier weight suit for open water practice
7. thin-strap lycra for open water races (wide straps chaffe at 5K and over!)
8. faded, slighty stretched out former fun meet lyrca to wear to clinics
9. long-leg fastskin for national level meets
10. regular ladies cut fastskin for national level IM events (covered legs are slippery legs during breaststroke!)
11. fun “sun suit” for water-related vacations

I suspect that part of my perceived suit “craziness” stems from how often I buy suits. Again though, I’d like to argue there is a practical element involved — suits wear quickly. And when they go, they go quickly to indecent.* Therefore, I’m always on the lookout for a good suit sale to maintain a “reserve” suit supply.

Of course, now that I have supplied the “but I need them all” argument, it’s time to admit the impulse side of my suit craziness — I love having a new suit! Here’s why:
1) after wearing the same suit for months on end, change is refreshing
2) I like trying out new styles, brands and materials
3) it’s fun to review all the new patterns and colors until you’ve narrowed it down to one purchase
4) looking forward to wearing a new suit is a good carrot when returning to practice after the hoopla of tapering and attending a big event
5) it just feels good to know I have a suit for every training/racing situation

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

*Some fun recent examples:
1) Getting up on the blocks at practice to work on starts: although I had a black suit on, apparently when the sun shone on it, it was worn enough to have become see-through, as one of my teammates kindly pointed out.

2) Breaking out a lyrca for a fun indoor meet: some kind of weird chemical imbalance that day faded my brand new suit from a fierce royal purple to a sickly light pink.

3) State Meet this past March: kind of suspected one of my lycras was a bit stretched out, but hadn’t worn it in awhile, so decided it would be fine for a race or two. NOT! Dove in for first race and front flew down. Had to do the graceful “underwater yank and pull up” with both hands while hoping no-one saw…

Today I was relieved to learn that the entry cut off for the Masters Long Course National meet (Oregon, this August) is July 11, not June 30.

First of all, it gives me additional time to make a final decision about events (right now two are solid; am still trying to narrow down the last two events from a choice of four). More important, the “extra” (well, at least to me now) weeks give me more time to check in on my condition before sending off seed times.

I’ve found that having one to two months between sending in times and racing is enough to make a big difference in my condition, and thus end-of-season times. Last year I sent times that I did the last time I swam each long course event I entered. My thinking was, “well, they’re legitimate since I did them.”

For example, I sent the 400 IM time I did at the one and only local long course meet in June. At Houston that August, I ended up dropping 17 seconds (yes, I was as surprised as exicted!) Back at the hotel later that day, I overhead a woman say to another “some girl in my 400 IM heat entered a 6:24 but went a 6:07″ while discussing how badly some people seeded themselves. Yep, that was me she was complaining about.

Part of my random seeding was from inexperience in some events — it was only the second time I’ve swum the 400 IM and 800 free in a long course meet. Some of it can be explained by improved health and condition — the last time I did Nationals was several years ago in Ohio when I had just been diagnosed with asthma and wasn’t training year-round at altitude.

I’d like to think that much of it was just plain hard work though. I trained (both swam and lifted weights) hard between those two June and August meets.

So where does this leave me for this year’s entries? I am sorry to say “I don’t know.” Right now I’m contemplating taking my lowest practice repeat time and subtracting a few seconds (start off the block, taper, etc.) as that might be most legitimate. Using last year’s time seems presumptuous because I may not be in the same condition, and as any swimmer knows, being wildly slower than your seed time in your first event can be a difficult “what’s going on !?!” mind-set to break in time for your next race.

If anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them — I’ve got a few weeks until I submit my seed times. Of course, I promise to share tips with readers here.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Imagine that as a child, a good portion of your time was spent in pools. And as you grew older, you chose to pass on many of the typical teen activities in favor of studying to keep your grades up while seeking more water time, and adding weight lifting and stretching to your training regimen.

At that age, almost every swimmer’s dreams include earning a college swim scholarship and finding the coach and team that offer the training and racing experience to earn Olympic Trials QTs.

Imagine then, the pain, anger, hurt and frustration you experince after you are told swimming has been cut, right in the middle of your college years.

This is what 24 young men, former ASU men’s swim teamates, are experiencing now.

Perhpas even worst are the current hard feelings over how the cut was made. According to recent press releases which followed the official ASU announcement made this past May, teams (men’s wrestling and tennis also have been cut) and their coaches were not given advance warning, or in other words, a chance to save their sport.

Luckily, the Sun Devils and their supporters have not given up on their swim team. Fundraising efforts have sprung up around the country since the announcement. Many are endearing individual efforts such as the Laney family’s. Max would have returned to the team this fall. To help raise awareness of his team’s plight, Max baked cookies for an ASU men’s swimming information/donation station manned by his dad during a recent masters swim meet. Judy, Max’s mom, created her own “swim-a-thon” at the meet by swimming all the freestyle events.

To reinstate the Sun Devil men’s swim team, an endownment of $5 million needs to be established. To help reach this goal, an organized a fundraising movement. To make a contribution, as well as check on the latest news concerning the future of ASU men’s swimming, please visit www.saveasuswimming.com.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Lots of times I can mentally grasp what I need to adjust technique-wise to shave off a few tenths here and there, but getting my body to respond is often another thing.

Consider turns, for instance. I know I am supposed to maintain a nice streamline position to carry speed off the wall. Yet I end up being more flat-barge-like. Seriously, I can feel myself slowing down after every turn. No matter what stroke.

Honestly, part of the answer to my sluggish turns can be chalked up to laziness — it’s hard work for me to go without air and dolphin kick while streamlining off of every turn, especially because my favorite races require lots of turns (a 1650 has almost 50!!!)

Beyond getting tired on turns, I lack that natural, gumby-like flexibility found in many other swimmers. Thus, my natural off-the-wall position features some very un-streamline elements like bent arms.

I haven’t given up on improving my turns yet though, so I’ve added a streamline stretch to my a.m. routine. It’s definitely kicking in because I can feel my shoulders, as well as biceps and triceps loosening up over time. And, it’s becoming easier to get into a better streamline position off the walls at practice.

One key thing I’ve learned recently through trial and error is to save this stretch for last. Forcing my shoulders into the streamline position before warming up them up via other stretches makes them cranky and unresponsive, turning this stretch into a painful time-waster.

I’d like to add another dimension of this stretch — doing it regularly in water by pushing off the pool bottom in mid-level water — to my day as well, but somehow I always forget to or run out of time!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist