Sections Results
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I just got home from Section finals. A 3 hour bus ride couldn’t stop me from wanting to post some results right away. I will go through my entire team’s results, splits, and add in as much practice data as I can. I will not post everything tonight because I need to get to bed but I’ll get a few of my 100 swimmers in first.
First, I’d like to thank everyone from this forum. Especially, oldschool. I’m sure all my nervous/doubting questions got annoying. Without this resource I may have given up on usrpt half way through the year.
Swimmer A (with tech suit) – 17yrs old. 100 free – Lifetime best (55.9), Top Season Times (57.4,57.7,57.8)
The goal was training 13.75 or faster. @:30 was a very hard interval for her and it may have been a bad call but we trained almost exclusively @:40 for these. We would test it out @:30 to see how many she could do (usually 8ish before a fail). @:40 she was able to get into the 20s many times before her first fail. Perhaps we should have done them @:35 but it’s so hard to keep track of. She also did many 25s @1:00 and could hold 13.5s for 16 (our typical set) no problem.Splits – 26.21, 29.13 – 55.34 (So it wasn’t split the greatest but it was a lifetime best. 54.98 is our school record so that was the goal. She went 56.1 in prelims so I was very happy to see her get that close to the time she had trained for. I should also add that she swam a lifetime best in the 50 free and qualified for state.)
Swimmer B (with tech suit) – 13yrs old. 100 fly – Lifetime best (1:04.3), Top Season times (1:06.2, 1:06.8, 1:07.5) The goal was training 15.75 or faster. @:40 she was regularly completing 16×25 by the end of the season. She was not a believer in the training for whatever reason. She swims for a very good club and told me two weeks before sections she was going to get a 1:05 at sections because we weren’t doing enough yards. I was thankful that despite not believing in the training she was swimming the the times we told her to.
Splits – 29.20, 32.29 – 1:02.49 (She swam a 1:03.0 in prelims so I was extremely excited to see her hit her time exactly. I’m still okay with her going faster in finals though. 😉 The top 4 girls were all at 1:03.low going into finals. Coming out of the last turn she was losing to all three of them by almost a body length. One of them went 1:01high but my girl surged at the end (or did their traditional training just fail them and they died?… I kid) and she passed the other two girls. Top 2 go to state.
I’ll leave it there for now and I’ll try to do less commentary and more numbers for the rest of them. I was starting to worry a lot near the end but we did better than I was expecting. We had 80.5% lifetime bests. 29/36. My older distance girl didn’t PB but she had a pretty good meet and was voted section swimmer of the year by the coaches. Another girl had pneumonia the entire week leading up to the meet and swam with a 102 temp(sorry for making excuses). Other than them the times that weren’t lifetime bests were extremely close. .06 in a 50, .1 in a 50 .7 in 200 IM, and 1.0 in a 100 back. But those 50 girls had achieved lifetime bests at JV conference so no big deal. Even our pneumonia girl got a lifetime best 50 free and was on our 200 free relay that set the school record though.
Sorry for the length. Just excited. I’m amazed at some of these correlations. I’ll be much more to the point tomorrow with my post.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Swimmer B’s other event was 200 IM and she cut 6 seconds this year. 3 seconds at this meet from her lifetime best. (2:26.5 coming into the year, 2:23.5 mid year, 2:20.7 Sections). I thought we could be 2:19 but still a good time. Trained for 36.5 back went (36.8 in prelims and 36.0 in finals), trained 25s in breast going 19.0 w/50s going 42.0 (went 42.5 in prelims and 43.1 in finals), Free she held 31.0 in practice (went 31.6 in prelims and 32.1 in finals), didn’t do any specific fly training and went out in 29.4 both races. Finals was a 2:20.8.
Swimmer C(with tech suit) -17yrs old. 100 Back – lifetime best before season (1:07.6), top 3 season times (1:07.12, 1:07.5, 1:07.5) This was a very interesting one. I fear revealing some of this data will make me sound like a horrible USRPT coach but here goes. She wanted to go 1:04 and I thought that was realistic because she had never really trained backstroke before. We wanted to go 16.0 @:30 for a while but she didn’t progress at all. We switched her to @:40 and things got a little better but not much. One set we recorded had her go 8 straight with the slowest at 16.2 and the fastest going 15.7, sat out two then hit 4 more. Most successful she was all year @:40. If she got 12 before her 3rd fail it was a great set for her. Often she’d be hitting her first failure on the 4th one. With 2 weeks left she was really psyching herself out about the sets on the :40 because everyone else on our team was going so much further than her. I switched her to a lane with 100 breaststrokers @:50 and occasionally @1:00 for the rest of the year. She was able to hold 15.5 consistently and the numbers improved to 12ish before the first failure and also seemed to be able to go forever @1:00 (We did 12 or 16×25 @1:00 at the end of many practices for everyone just so they could hit their pace for everything. Not sure they can get a training effect without failure but I do think it helped their confidence).
She went 31.3, 33.3 for 1:04.6 in prelims and then 30.85, 33.00 for 1:03.85 in finals. I expected a 1:04 mid to high but the 1:03 really surprised me. We have a slow backstroke section so she took second and made state. First place was 1:03.83.
This girl was .7 off her lifetime best IM time which was from when she was 15 years old. Splits correlated about the same as Swimmer B. Went from a 2:31.8 to a 2:24.8 with the rest and suit.
Swimmer D – 14yrs old(with tech suit) 100 free – Lifetime best before season(1:02.??), top 3 season times (59.48, 59.7, 59.8) and 100 back Lifetime best before season (1:17) – top 2 season times (1:10.11, 1:16.8?)
Trained 14.5-14.75 for the 100 free. There were days I thought I’d be happy if she broke 59 and days I thought she could go sub 58. Recorded her going under 14.75 for 16 straight @:40 one time. Did her 25s @:40 for both races. Back was supposed to hold under 17.5 just so we could break 1:10. Completed high numbers for the free and the back was a little tougher.
Went 27.2, 30.2 for a 57.4! And went 32.2, 36.0 for a 1:08.2. She could have split those a bit better but great times for her. Also went crazy fast on the 50 free. I attribute some of her success to it just being the year she was going to improve no matter what.
I could go through every 100 swimmer but I’ll move on to the 200 and 500 girls. Every 100 was done at pace or faster except for our girl with pneumonia. It was a really sad deal because it’s her senior year and she hadn’t dropped time in 2 years and was on track to crush her old best 100 breast time. Wound up swimming 1.5 seconds off it.
I need to work on recording better because each practice I usually only know what a couple people did 100% for sure. I just time them to make sure they are holding pace but you never know for sure what they are doing. So for most of these girls I’ve timed them a lot on random 25s and asked “What are you holding?” If they are pretty accurate to what I’m getting then I assume they are doing the sets correctly. During the last 2 weeks we had extra timers on deck to help out though.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Swimmer E – 15yrs old (with tech suit). 500 free(LTB of 5:31.?, went 5:40.4 and 5:42 this year) and 200 free(LTB of 2:08.22, went 2:09.7 and 2:11.2 this year). We wouldn’t allow anything over 32.7 for 500 pace 50s @:50. Meaning most of them were 32.5-32.7. She was very concerned about yardage going into the year (she was the only swimmer I had done this with when I tried it in spring in club. It was only 8 weeks and she came in after a break so it didn’t go well.) We just made it our goal to get 2,000-3,000 yards at her pace every M/W/F. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t hit at least 2,000 yards at 500 pace. Did 50s @1:00 holding 31.9 or faster for 200 pace on Tues/Thurs. These were all splits she didn’t move to until a month and a half into the season.
500 Splits
29.5? (missed the first split because I was running to talk to the counter)
32.54
33.08
33.59
33.50
33.50
33.56
33.50
33.55
31.6 or 31.8? (Didn’t remember to write it down. She was barely off what she had gone in prelims on all the splits and had only made the state cut by .2 in that race. I was running along the side of the pool screaming at her. The last 50 made up for it and she was a half second faster than in prelims)
Time of 5:28.54 (State cut of 5:29.27 was the gaol)I’ve seen her swim 500s year round for 3 years and she has never had a race with splits anything near that consistent. Prelims they all ranged from 33.40 to 33.61 but it was still swam really well. I think I have a better idea of what our distance swimmers will need to train at to get their goal times now. In the future I plan on doing a lot more 100s and 75s with them as well.
200 Free splits – 29.46, 32.06, 32.70, 31.83 for 2:06.05. I felt like she could have been faster because she had been going 31.lows on her 200 sets the last 3 weeks of the year. Both prelims and finals had a slow 3rd 50.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Billratio,
NICE JOB! Think of you have learned in just a few short months and how much better you’ll be next year when you take that information forward! Now you can show athletes that training matches performance and performance matches training.“I fear revealing some of this data will make me sound like a horrible USRPT coach” No what you sound like is a coach who used his data to make a decision on how to help an athlete go faster. Her avg 25 speed was 15.96, and her target time was 16.00, man that’s not “horrible” that’s smart!
Just an FYI, you can make training adaptation without failure and by going them on 1:00; you probably opened some “speed reserve” for them.
After things settle down and you have time to look back on race to training and vise versa you’ll start to see patterns, strengths and even more important weakness. Then the journey begins!
Again Nice Job!
Oh and by the way GO PACK GO!
Oops probably should have asked this before the above comment. What were your girls 50 times? Couldn’t find “crazy” on my stopwatch
Oldschool
"Only in America. Dream in red, white and blue"
Crazy fast means faster than I expected for her. 🙂 We did sprint 25s @2:00 a few times a week with her but mostly focused on the 100 free and 100 back and she was training for a lot of other events early in the year. She got 26.40 leading off the relay which is .11 away from the MN club state time for her age group. She had never even gotten an A time before this year! She also busted out a 25.57 at finals when she was second on the relay.
I was intentionally leaving out our sprinter’s time because I was hoping to just post it after state. She went 25.19 which was a best time but we really wanted (and I thought was possible) her to be well into the 24s. She was leading narrowly and had the worst finish she’s ever had (sounds like an excuse but it had to cost her a bit). I said to the swimmers next to me “What did she do on that finish?” Everyone agreed was bad. The first thing she said when she got back was I don’t know what happened on the finish. The girl I thought she was beating went 24.95.
Which brings up a question. We have 4 days to practice until state. She missed going in the 100 so we don’t have to train for that anymore. Is there anything we can do in that amount of time to get a tenth or so cut off? I don’t want to tire her out but I was thinking 2 rounds of 12×12.5s and one round of 12×25 @2:00 from the blocks and then cut down each day. Too much or too little? We’re having a tough time figuring out the right balance between getting her tempo really going and catching as much water as possible.
If a girl can go 11.9 in practice without a tech suit from the blocks, what would you expect for a 50? I know it depends a lot on the swimmer and the turn but do you have a general idea? I know when I was swimming I was always faster to my feet in a meet than I was to a hand touch 25 in practice. Not sure if girls would be different though. Even just out in 11.8 and back in 12.8 would be amazing.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Billratio,
You mentioned she had problems at the finish. If you take snapshots of tempo did her tempo slow down? If you don’t then and this is kinda a “touchy feelly” type of thing, but was your observation that her tempo slowed down or did she get “spinny” loss of distance per stroke (d/S)? If you think either one of those things happened then maybe the focus should be on the back ½ and maintenance for the front ½. So, the 12.5s I would probably do and change the 25s from a dive to push 25s on 1:00 or even 1:30 from a push focusing on not letting tempo drop or losing d/S the last 12.5. It’s more a focus on back to front then front to back. With only 4 days training adaption is minimal at best and will be more brain massage and awareness then anything. She knows she can go fast and she just needs to clean up that last 12.5 and you can use that during practice as reinforcement.Why I asked for the 50 times was there are calculations that can be done to determine speed reserve and I just wanted to see how she compared with my kids. I will tell you this she is in good shape!
My SWAG on her is 24.79 to 24.87; remember SWAG is a Scientific Wild Ass Guess. But that is better than a WAG!
I hope this helps!
"Only in America. Dream in red, white and blue"
There was a typing error on the 100 flyer splits. It was 29.2 and 33.2.
During the season her tempo definitely slowed at the end of her 50. I didn’t notice anything like that yesterday though. It was more of just taking an extra stroke at the end when she was 2 inches from the wall with her other hand.
We started doing 25s @1:00 trying o hold under 13. It got tough after 3. She was holding 13.0 when we moved to 1:30 with a random 12.6 and 12.7 in there. It might have been a slight stopwatch error by me but I thought it don’t think so. Not sure what would cause to of them to be so much better.
Not sure how good 13.0 is when she goes 13.5 doing 100 pace @1:00.
I know in prelims I had her timed at 12.15 to her feet (25.45 was her time). So coming back in 13.0 would be okay I guess. I didn’t get the 25 split at finals but she looked a lot faster.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Hey, Bill, nice swimming! It takes a big leap of faith to trust what other people say is foolish. From the times you posted, it looks like your kids reaped the benefits of your trust.
No better feeling in the world, huh?
Look forward to reviewing your data and drawing some insights going into our season.
Rick
Btw, Bill, where are you located in the U.S. I’m looking for more east coast coaches using usrpt. So far, I’ve met only a couple.
Rick, it is a wonderful feeling indeed. I know there were a lot of people who were probably skeptical but I was fortunate to not have any parents who questioned what we were doing. It took a lot of trust on the part of the swimmers as well. One parent came up to me after Finals and said “They’re all believers now.”
I’m in MN. I know of two other coaches in the state who do this and I’m sure there are more. Though one of them hasn’t given up the kicking yet. Tangent: Dropping all those long kick sets I used to do has made it so much easier to get things done with my team. Oh, all the hours I wasted…
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Another great thread!!
Rick…I am in NC
billratio & oldschool, did you refer to doing 25’s on the 1:00 for 100’s? I’ve gotten so use to doing them with the rest that doc recommends.
thanks
drpaul, yes those 25s @1:00 were for 100 pace. Everyone actually swam about .25 to .5 faster than the normal 100 pace they trained for though. We did them almost every day for the last month of the season but they also had 100 pace 25s on faster intervals.
I will say that I found very few of my swimmers were able to hold pace for a significant number with only 10-15 seconds rest. Actually even 20 seconds rest was very hard for them. My distance swimmers could hold pace with only 15-18 seconds rest but the 25s were hard for my girls. It could have to do with the fact that we’re just not a super elite group. I think Rushall is okay with 25 seconds rest if needed.
I posted on here earlier in the season about my frustrating with my flyers and breaststrokers not being able to do their 25s at pace. Oldschool said they move those swimmers up to :40 or :50 or even 1:00. Pace is more important than getting the exact amount of rest.
Every flyer and breaststroker we had did their primary sets on :50 (except our 1:02.4 flyer does them on :40). The results were the same at sections for all of them. I even had 2 backstrokers who went on :50 and their results were a little better than my girls who were doing them on :40.
My freestylers did most of their sets on :40 and all hit their pace except the girl who went 55.3 and was training for 55.0.
It’s a small sample size but I think it is enough to suggest hitting your pace is much more important than getting the recommended 10-20 seconds rest.
I heard Dave Salo say that after college he trained for 3 months(i think that was the length) doing 60×25 @1:00 every day. He got best times in everything at his meet.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Of course, this is my first full season of USRPT so I can’t say for sure we wouldn’t have done better if we had stuck with 10-20 seconds rest. But it’s hard to complain when every race we had (except one 500 and one 200) was pretty much right at the practice race pace or faster.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
Actually all 4 of our 200s were a little off pace. One more than the others. I think I just have to adjust some things next year. If you go with multiplying the pace 50 time by 4 then we all were faster than pace. If you say they should hit that pace on their last 3 50s with a first 50 being a bit faster (1.5 faster?) then they all missed pace.
So maybe I’ll just expect something in the middle and adjust the pace. Still have tons of learning to do.
"Most people have the will to win. Few have the will to prepare to win."
good stuff billratio,
This too is my first year & while I love it….I have a lot to learn. I struggle with pacing versus conditioning. For example I have 14yo girl (my daughter) with a 1:01 100fly. If I were to put her on the 1:00 for her 100, she would probably make 13.0-13.5 (she’s made 12.5-12.8 before)from the push but she doesn’t come close to that pace “during” the actual race. We’ve been training usrpt for 5 months & she hasn’t swam her pb yet which is frustrating…..some of it is mental with her at this point too :). Might try it though, 12 x 25 on the 1:00 & see how it goes. Would boost her confidence for sure 🙂
Every kid is different & we’re still trying to figure it out with her
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