Reply To: Sections Results
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."
