Reply To: Now what do I do?
Had our first meet, so I thought I’d post some observations:
I continue to see in my small group of swimmers a strong connection between successfully completing a 12 x 50 set with no misses and actual race time. For example, swimmer’s last successfully completed 12 x 50 breast set with no misses was under :33.75. Accounting for an extra turn at the end of each 50 in a race, I was looking for around a :34.75 for last 150 of race. Splits were 30.43 1:04.73 (34.30) 1:39.60 (34.87) 2:14.72 (35.12). That gives me :34.76 average for the last 50’s.
My other 2 swimmers are only about 6 weeks into training. Results were similar until last 50 of their 200 free. Saw a definite fatigue factor kick in.
The difference between the first swimmer and the other 2 swimmers is that the first swimmer worked hard throughout the summer, and the other 2 didn’t. Oldschool, you had mentioned an accumulation of potential earlier. I wonder if this is what I’m seeing in my swimmers?
During last year’s high school season, I noticed it took about 10-12 weeks to see any improvement in “good” swimmers who showed up out of shape at the start of the season. For my “average,” non-district swimmers, it took about 6 weeks to see improvement. My definition of “improvement” was a personal best. This year, I will have about 6 or so who are ready to hit the ground running. This will actually be an improvement over last year.
