Winskill Dolphins Swim Club

Roma 2009 videos

2009-10-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

The internet is such a great resource for swimming enthusiasts;

For swimmers, as well as coaches all the 'HQ' files from the 2009 World Aquatic Championships are available here on YouTube. There are other versions available with English commentary, (here for instance) but the Italian is nice since it lends some atmosphere and doesn't distract you from the events in the water!

For the more technical minded individual you can also get raw data from competitions from websites like swim.ee, which provide data from competitions like the 2008 European Championships in Eindhoven.

With all these things available it's no wonder improvements are coming so rapidly in sport these days.

Time correction

2009-06-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Correction - the 10km event on Sunday starts at 8am Easter (5am Pacific).

Fort Myers 5km openwater swim

2009-06-12T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today was the first race of the Fort Myers / Florida / USA Swimming openwater festival.. at 10am they ran a master's 5km swim, which had about 30 competitors of all ages. Since the course was the same as Karyn's race later in the day we went along to watch from the pier.

Later in the afternoon it was time for our 'test' event. The 5km openwater world team was selected in March, so this particular event holds no significance to the Canadians, but a few of the team opted to do it for experience - which is a huge factor in openwater swimming as the ability to react quickly to changing situations can mean the difference between maintaining contact with the lead pack, and getting dropped. Both Karyn and her roommate, Nadine Williams from Silver Tide in Edmonton, swam the race.

The course was a two loop one, which offered a chance to practice 'feeding' for the two swimmers at the end of the first loop. During the afternoon the wind picked up so that at the start of the race there was a 1 foot chop, which built up during the race to almost two foot swells... also, the water was about 87 degrees farenheit... they were pretty brutal conditions!

Karyn and Nadine ended up swimming most of the race together, coming in after the lead pack, but altogether a good practice swim, and the actual 10km race should be a lot easier!

Karyn is the youngest competitor in the entire trials, so just by being in contention is impressive. The swimmers have a break tomorrow with just a couple of easy swims before the 10km event on Sunday morning at 10am Eastern time (7am Pacific).

Check out some more pictures from the event here.

Again, live 'tweets' from USA Swimming are available during each race here.

Fort Myers Beach

2009-06-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

Today our first workout was at Florida Gulf Coast University again;
800 FS w/ F + S
24x 50 @ 50";
1 - shake drill
2- build
3- 400m pace
4- 6 strokes fast / finish easy
6x 100 K @ 1'55
3x 300;
1- BA Band P
2- S w/ P + F
3- S - 6 strokes fast off each wall

2x(
2x 100 @ 2' - fast!
8x 100 @ 1'20 - hold 1'12, easy and even split

400 Swimdown

Then we had a few hours break, followed by a quick afternoon ocean swim. Now that we are the day before the first race there are many swimmers around. All the Canadian swimmers arrived last night or before, and swam mostly together today. Meanwhile the American swimmers have their openwater camp, as well there are a lot of independant swimmers here with their club teams - today we swam at the same time as Mission Viejo .

Tomorrow the 5k goes off at 3pm. We anticipate very hot water temperature - this afternoon the ocean was 80 degrees farenheit / 27 celsius (quite a bit warmer than what I swam in last week!).

Twitter feed from Fort Myers

2009-06-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

USA Swimming and 10kswimmer.com will be tweeting from both the 5k and 10k races this weekend, join the feed here.

Arrival at Fort Myers, Florida

2009-06-10T06:29:00.001-07:00

On Monday I flew from Newark, NJ to Fort Myers, FL as the second part of a big 'openwater tour'. This leg of the trip is all about coaching, as that night I picked up WDSC swimmer, Karyn Jewell at the Fort Myers airport. Karyn is here to swim the 5km and 10km openwater swims, the 10km offers the athletes a berth on the Canadian National openwater team, with the top two Canadians chosen to represent Canada in the World Aquatic Championships this summer in Rome, Italy, while the third, fourth and fifth place swimmer get a chance to swim for the country in a world cup stop in Quebec during the month of July.

The 5km race is on Friday, and the 10km is on Sunday. In the meantime we split our time between training in the ocean (right), and the Florida Gulf Coast University pool. Karyn and Nadine Williams from Silvertide Swim Club in Edmonton, swim just over 11km each day in 'taper' for their big event on Sunday.

This will be Karyn's first ocean race, although she's done some practice swims with VOWSA in English bay to prepare, Sunday's event will also be her first 10km race. She comes into the race with as much experiance as many of the competitors though as she won the 2008 4km Canada Day swim, as well as the 2008 5km age-group National championships.

The race is also the US World Trials, so look for the best US openwater swimmers, including 2008 Olympians Chloe Sutton and Mark Warkentin to be there prepared to perform. USA swimming is also hosting a National Team Select camp this week, which has been featured on Swim Network's openwater Wednesday today.

The event webpage for the week's swims is openwaterfestival.org, you can check out the psych sheet and other things here. Our pictures from the week are here.

Manhattan Island Marathon Swim - Race day

2009-06-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry this has taken so long to be posted!

Saturday - the day of the race - the alarm went off at 3:45am Eastern time... keep in mind that I had a red-eye flight from Vancouver the day before, which is a 3 hour time zone change, and you can see that I was not particularly excited about getting up that early.

Elliot was staying with myself and Jeff Perkins uptown, we were being picked up at 4am, by Alan Schmidt and then meandering downtown with some pickups (including coffee!) along the way. Because we already had 6 people in a 5 seater car, Elliot took the subway down.

After we made all the pickups we arrived at Pier 11 (on the very far right of the image) to load the boat. Elliot and I dropped the other guys off and we parked the car before returning to the dock. Once everyone was on board I walked back across the financial district of Manhattan. To the South Cove of Battery Park where the race would start. Since there were 34 teams and swimmers doing the race the boat loading took some time, and I had quite a while to kill. Also not really having packed for cold weather I didn't have many extra clothes, and since I had to leave my bag on the boat I had an interesting layer system going. For the race you are only allowed to use a training suit, but I had some Fastskin leggings on for extra insulation while I waited, as well as pants, some running socks, running shoes, a small shirt, the XL race shirt I got in my race package, and a light jacket.

Prior to the start all the solo swimmers were lathering themselves up with grease, and generally being nervous about their upcoming 7+ hour ordeal, whilst the relay swimmers were hanging around laughing and joking! Finally, at 7:10am we were lined up by race number (thankfully we were #34 - the last one!) and jumped in the cove water as our name/team was announced. The water was not warm - 58 farenheit or 14.5 degrees celsius at the start, so I was certainly glad to be the last one to jump in! The race finally began at 7:15am, fifteen minutes behind schedule.

I took a swift lead since that's the easiest way for the kayaker to locate the swimmers, plus I'd previously told Dan that I would do so and didn't want to let him down! After about 10 minutes the kayakers all identified their swimmers, and from that point in the race never left their sides. As we started the 'race' for first quickly became myself and John van Wisse, but since he was doing the effort solo it wasn't really fair to call it a race! About five minutes after the start the kayakers stopped us - as we'd started late we now had to wait for the Staten Island Ferry to pull out of its dock! That is a little intimidating, and also while we waited the 2 minutes for the ferry all the other swimmers caught up, and I began to freeze! Once we got the go-ahead to start moving, I had a really hard time making my arms do what I wanted them to. It's an interesting feeling to feel like you're going in slow motion and now have any control over it. I kept John pretty close, and few minutes later met up with my boat and team mates. Swimming the first leg of the race is exciting because you swim right past all the major landmark buildings in Manhattan, and all the big skyscrapers. Plus breathing toward the left was nice for me since I got to look at the sights as I went. It's a great way to see the city.

Once my first 45 minutes was up (which seems to take forever when you're in the water since you have no concept of how long you've been going) I got to switch off with our second swimmer, Jeff Perkins. Then I began the next part of the process - warming up! It's important doing something like this to get warm as soon as possible so that you're not wasting energy shivering and being cold. It took me about an hour to get back to a regular state of being.

Over the next 4 hours the other swimmers each went in their order, and we progressed through the East river, past 'Hell gate' and into the Harlem River. During the section in the Harlem river the documentry film maker came on board our boat and interviewed me, so maybe you'll get to see that in the upcoming film!

By the time we were almost out of the Harlem river and back into the Hudson, where the swim starts it was my turn to get in again. I got in just before Spuyten Duyvil Creek, so I swam in each of the three rivers that the race occupies, the only member of our team to have ever done this! As it was now A LOT warmer than where I started in South Cove (it was now 65 farenheit / 18 celsius, which feels like a huge difference when you're swimming) I felt a lot more comfortable. When I went into the water our team was in third, about 8 minutes behind the leader, John von Wisse, and about 3 minutes behind second place Penny Palfry, but I managed to pass Penny and make up about 4 minutes on John. Much better showing than my first leg! The second time around the relay we only swim for 30 minutes, which seems quite a lot shorted since we had a great system of signs worked out - holding up coloured paper at various intervals.

After I was done my second leg everyone else went again, and as we came down close to the financial district and South Cove once more, it was very close with John, but he eventually prevailed and beat our relay team by 90 seconds, pretty impressive for a solo effort! Our overall time was 7 hours and 12 minutes this year, which is the fastest that the team has ever done the event.

It was a lot of fun to be part of the race once again, and hopefully I can start looking toward doing a bit more of the race in the future, rather than just 1/6th of it!

The day after the race Elliot and I walked around Manhattan, then on Monday morning I flew out for Fort Myers, Florida for the World Championship Trials in the 10km openwater swim... I'll post some pictures and updates on that shortly!

Post=race MIMS report

2009-06-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

So it's been difficult to get a reliable internet connection going here. There was no blogging from the boat from myself, however one of our team mates, Jeff Perkins, did a great job over here.

One of the USA Swimming members, Steven Munatones, twittered the race here. Steven will also be twittering live from Fort Myers next week as Karyn does the 5 and 10k swims out there. Check his website - 10kswimmer.com - for updates both from MIMS and from next week's races.

On Friday I fly into Newark, NJ airport. I had an interesting travel day as I took the redeye flight from Vancouver to Chicago, then Chicago to Newark. Once in Newark I took the airport monorail (AirTrain) to the train station, where I hopped on the NJ Transit train over to New York's Penn Station in Manhattan. From Penn Station I went onto the Subway down to the southern most tip of Manhattan Island, where I got the ferry over to Governor's Island for the pre-race meeting. I made the ferry trip with 5 minutes to spare!

The prerace meeting was pretty amazing. Each athlete introduced themselves and those that are doing the race solo all have very impressive resumes. For some of them this would be their first Marathon swim. Each of those people were raising money for very respectable charities in their home countries, like one woman raising money for Children in Guatmala to get a specific surgery. Others had done TONNES of marathon swims, for instance a few of the swimmers had done the English Channel swim multiple times, including some double-crossings! Very elite company indeed.
After the pre-race meeting we went back "uptown" to the hotel, before going to meet with our kayaker, Dan Starer. Dan is one of the most experianced NYC kayakers around. He's circled the island of Manhattan many times, and this year is going around once per calendar month... he said January and February were both quite cold! As I've mentioned before there is a documentry being filmed about the race this year, and the filmmaker came out to tape some of our meeting.

That was all for the day before the race... then it was time for an early night as we had to get up at 3:45am the next morning!

MIMS - course description (repost from Jeff)

2009-06-04T09:58:00.001-07:00

For those interested in more information about the swim and the course itself here is a link to the official web site. It gives a description of the course and links to other areas of interest. Check out the photos from last year.

Race information (click me)

Here are some links to a documentary that was produced in 1993 about the race. The water is much cleaner now! Rumor has it that another documentary will be produced this year, hopefully featuring our team frequently!

“The documentary, which is fully funded, is essentially a sequel to one that was made and aired on the Discovery Channel in 1993. It is being produced by the same 1993 team and we plan for it to appear on broadcast TV either in the late fall or early spring. If you did not see the original, I have posted it to our website for you to watch.

High Resolution: http://www.nycswim.org/Resource/ViewVideo.aspx?Video_ID=96&band=hi

Low Resolution: http://www.nycswim.org/Resource/ViewVideo.aspx?Video_ID=96&band=lo

In preperation for Manhattan Island - some history

2009-06-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

Reading up on our marathon swim for Saturday, here are few historical notes about the MIMS.

This will be my second year as part of the 'Vicelords' relay team... a team comprised exclusively of Kenyon College swim team Alumni. The Kenyon swimming dynasty took control of NCAA Division III swimming in 1980, and has maintained it's "streak" ever since, winning 49 NCAA titles... more than any other college in any sport in any division... literally the most winning program in history! (Incidentally the longest winning streak for Men's NCAA Division I swimming is held by James "Doc" Counsilman of Indiana at 6 - the Counsilman Centre for the Science of Swimming is where I studied my graduate work in Sports Science.).

In 2007 the Vicelords team made it's debut with the 6-man relay at MIMS, which featured by brother, former WDSC and Kenyon College swimmer ,Elliot Rushton. Elliot also represented Canada at the World Championships for the openwater 5k and 10k (this was before openwater swimming was an Olympic sport). One member of the 2007 team was W. Hodding Carter. Most people that pick up Hodding's book will be amused and perhaps gain something from it, but in actuallity from a performance perspective his contribution to the relay team was lacking.

So last year (2008) I was added to the team in his place. I think that there are a few swimming memories that I hold most important, and relays with my brother are always in the forefront of my mind - I distinctly remember our age-group team winning the 4x 50 Medley relay at LC BC Provincial Championships which would've been easily forgettable except that I did the butterfly leg and he did the Freestyle leg. That medal still sits on my desk. Another event we completed together was the Skaha Lake Ultraswim, an 11.8km marathon swim in which we tied for the first place trophy (a large vase that now sits on our mother's mantle). Finally, last year's MIMS was a great shared experiance, as well as a great way to see the city of New York from a unique perspective.

This year we hope to win the overall title after being second the year previous, and who knows where the prior year. I feel that I am in better swimming-shape than in 2008, after competeting in the BC Master's Provincial Championships and setting Canadian records for my age-group in the 400 Free, 800 Free and 200 Backstroke. I get to start the race this year, swimming under the Brooklyn Bridge, and (hopefully) getting us an early lead. Other members of our team are; George Pond, Dennis Mulvihill, Jeff Pearson, Karel Starek, and Alan Schmidt. Our perennial substitude is Craig Hummer who can never actually be there because of his other commitments.

Openwater season is on!

2009-06-02T21:22:00.001-07:00

Seems that June 1st has un-officially launched the 2009 openwater swimming season. Yesterday some of the swimmers and I went down to Kits Beach to join the annual VOWSA practice swims in the bay.

The water temperature was actually very comfortable (for wetsuit swimming) at 16 degrees Celsius / 61 Fahrenheit. We did two loops of the course, accompanied by some pictures from Lynda Mageau.

On Thursday night I leave for New York City to compete in the annual Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (MIMS). The race is on Saturday, you can follow our progress here. Which should be updated pretty well in realtime throughout the day. I have the lead leg of our 6-person relay... first time around we swim 45 minutes each, followed by 30 minutes on the second round. Based on previous results we anticipate finishing in about 7.5 hours.

After the New York swim I fly down to Fort Myers, Florida, meeting Karyn Jewell down there. Karyn is going to compete in the 2009 Openwater World Championship Trials. Karyn will race the 5k on Friday and the 10k on Sunday as part of a 17 person Canadian contingent.

Watch here for more updates over the next few weeks!

Repost from Swimwatch.net

2009-05-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

Not So Intelligent

By David

I’ve long been a fan of the scholarship of Jonty Skinner. His works on a wide range of swimming subjects have provided insight and wisdom to a generation of coaches. However, his most recent article published in the American Swim Coaches Association Newsletter Volume 2009-01 falls well short of his own high standards.

Before addressing the shortcoming in Jonty Skinner’s work, I find it quite extraordinary that the American Swim Coaches Association continue to publish article after article critical of modern swim suits. There are some things in this sport that are worthy of universal condemnation; for example, smoking bongs, popping steroids, fighting outside bars. Swimsuits are not in that category. There are valid arguments for and against full body suits. An organization that promotes itself as representing all of its members has a duty to address both sides of this sort of debate, not just the views of its executive. In this duty, the American Swim Coaches Association has failed its membership. Their discussion on this subject has been biased, one sided and unenlightened.

But back to Jonty Skinner’s article. Here is a list of what I mean.

“Technological progress – shouldn’t come at the price we appear to have paid.”

And what price is that? Skinner does not tell us. Perhaps he expects us to nod like robots and shrink in fear at the dangers of these body suits. I call it Bush logic. George W. Bush did this all the time: weapons of mass destruction, world terrorism – none of it supported, most of it not even true, just the threat, just the fear. Skinner has learned the Bush logic well.

“These changes have left us all on a slippery slope.”

That sounds bad even if we don’t know what the slippery slope means. And the ultimate Bushism; all this is seriously dangerous when FINA are “not dealing with it very well.” My God we face these dangers and we’re unprotected – call in the Marines; invade Switzerland. Now, I’m no great fan of FINA but the truth is FINA are doing quite a good job of sorting out what swim suits are fair. But that’s not news the conservative wing of swimming want to hear.

And then there is this gem:

“Having said that we’ve just gone through two summers where performances have been radically altered by the suits.”

Again, no evidence is provided to support that outrageous claim. Just because different suits were introduced and swimmers broke records does not prove the suits were the sole cause. And Jonty Skinner should know that. Two events occurring at the same time are not sufficient to establish that one caused the other. What else coincided with swimmers setting these new records? Were swimmers paid more? Did more swimmers have swimming as their sole occupation? Did they have access to better training, nutrition, medical backup and administration support? The answer to all those is yes, yes and yes. Does Jonty Skinner consider any of that? No, it’s just the suits.

But then the ultimate dishonesty – the perfect Bushism:

“Why accept something as genuine when you can tear it down by speculating about the possibility of drugs? You don’t even have to provide evidence; rumors do the job. My own feeling is that it’s not a suggestion I care to make.”

Here, in the middle of an article so full of speculation and rumour, Skinner feels the need to publish a denial just in case anyone picks the deception. In this context “It’s not a suggestion I care to make” is in the same league as, “I don’t want to be rude, but.” Because the sin is denied does not mean it has not occurred. Jonty Skinner may not feel like making a myriad of negative rumours and suggestions. That has not stopped him from doing it.

Although Skinner is South African by birth, he concludes his article with a classic piece of Americana – the French are cheats:

“The suits reduced the function of endurance in the equation. The French sprinters could now finish races with sustained velocity using in some cases inferior techniques.”

So there you have it: the French are unfit and don’t swim as well as Americans. In fact, their fitness and technique are bloody awful. But because of the new suits, those cunning Froggies can now beat us, something they would never be able to do unless they were up to no good. This sort of talk is dishonest and un-American. Clearly the new suits need to be changed if those hideous and inferior French swimmers are using them to unfairly beat clean cut, honest Americans. Jonty Skinner, you should be ashamed.

And in the final paragraph we hear that “the suit is impacting performance on a metabolic and biomechanical level.” Now most readers will know that if your goal is to impress the not-so-bright, use long words. As a final insult to our intelligence Skinner has resorted to that ploy. Certainly metabolic and biomechanical will do. Skinner’s case would have been better served had he spent more time explaining just how the new suits altered a swimmer’s metabolic or biomechanical anything. Certainly that would have been more constructive than depreciating the performance of good French swimmers.

We are unimpressed.

20.94... wow

2009-04-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Fred Bousquet was the first US College swimmer to swim under 19 seconds for the 50 yard Freestyle, now he's opened up new ground in the 50m Freestyle with an amazing 20.94;

Muscles in swimming - aka DO YOUR ABS

2009-04-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

Repost from Swimtelligence

What Muscles Do We Use to Swim?

Here is a fun and interesting video I found on YouTube. It is a computer model of a person swimming each of the four strokes. The muscles light up purple whenever they are activated or used. This was developed by a Dr. Nakashima at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. I am not sure how this was created or what methods were used to determine when certain muscles are activated, but it is interesting to look at nonetheless. One thing to notice - look at how often the abs light up in each stroke - see, dryland really is important!

Icey breaststroke

2009-04-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

Reposted from 10kswimmer.com;

Iceman's Open Water Breaststroke

Wearing baggy shorts while swimming breaststroke, Win Hof swam 57.5 meters in his Guinness World Record ice swim under a lake near Kolari, Finland, deep inside the Arctic Circle in 2000. 57.5 meters of head-up less-than-streamlined breaststroke underwater is very impressive, whether it is in 0°C or not. Take a look here or below:

Repost: The set that makes you great

2009-04-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Repost from Professional Triathlete, Scott Curry's blog

The set that makes you great.

April 1st, 2009

I consider myself a pretty lucky guy living with a Senior Nationals 1500m swim champion. There’s something about successful people who know how to think, live, and be successful. Elliot Rushton is master storyteller,…he’s got a story for just about any occasion or topic, and reads up on about just about everything that he doesn’t know the answer to. Anyways, today Elliot told me another story - in typical Elliot style, relating it to the bacon he was cooking on the stove at the time (but that is another story…) The story was about a time during a practice in his rookie season whereby he was the only guy who had an extra set scheduled do in practice [as an aside, distance swimmers tend to be the minority on swim teams,…often they are required to do longer workouts, in solo, or with very little company - and Elliot would often find himself being the only one staying longer finishing up the extra set]. Anyways, Elliot recalled getting sick and tired of being the guy having to log the extra miles while the rest of the team were able to finish up much earlier. He ended up saying out-loud to a teammate that he had decided that he was going to cut his longer practice short and finish the practice that everyone else was doing.

He vividly recalls his teammate telling him,..”what if this is the set that makes you great?”

After that point, Elliot was mentally committed to every single workout that was given to him. He said it was the thing that stuck, that made him absolutely unable to ever cut a workout short.

To this day, his teammate has no recollection of this conversation. But in Elliot’s mind, it was a powerful statement that stuck with him.

Elliot uses a blog as somewhat of a log for his benefit,…you can follow his adventures starting triathlon training, leading up to the 70.3 IM Calgary race. Elliot’s blog click here.

London 2012 preperation underway...

2009-04-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

News from London today - check out this link for a video on the roof structure for the 2012 pool - below are artist's images of the completed structure

2009-03-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Reposted from 10kswimmer.com;

How Did He Do It?

Graham Coleman from Ireland was a swimmer as a child and then didn’t swim for decades. Five years ago, he got back into the water and starting doing marathon swimming as a complement to his work at a software company. Besides successfully crossing the English Channel while raising over £20,000 for the Central Remedial Clinic 2007, he also crossed Lake Zurich, participated in an English Channel double-crossing relay, a Lake Windermere double-crossing relay, four 10K Irish Long Distance Swimming Association swims and the Cleggan-to-Inishbofin Swim.

How did Graham do it?

How did he start from ground zero and be successful on his first English Channel attempt in 16 hours and 42 minutes? Graham’s time is not fast, but the important thing is that he accomplished his goals that he set out. Graham shared his goal-setting concepts first-hand with us:

Setting Goals to Increase Performance

Goal setting is both one of the most important components in achieving success and also one of the most commonly ignored. Often swimmers are so focused on improving their techniques, strength, flexibility and maximising the training hours, but let’s take a look at how goal setting can help endurance athletes.

Imagine if something existed which could make the early morning sessions easier to get up for, those long pool sessions easier to complete, the seemingly endless sea sessions more enjoyable and your race results as good as you’d like them to be. While setting goals certainly won’t make rice taste like chocolate, they give a purpose and help athletes stay motivated to achieve that higher level they have been striving for both in training and in the events.

So what is a goal?

A goal is a specific, measurable target which you would like to achieve in the future. Goals are the reason to get out of bed at 5 am to go training before work. Goals are the reason to go training when all you want to do is sit in front of the TV. The great thing is, setting goals is a simple process. People have been doing it for years – “I want to drop a few pounds before I go on holidays”, “I want to get my work done during the day and stop taking it home”.

The only new thing is, now we’re going to apply this logic to what for most is a life-long hobby to help us achieve the success we want.

Setting Goals

So you think setting some goals might help with your training and events, but how do you go about it? Well firstly there are a few things we have to consider. Whilst this is a simple process, the steps you take to set your goals are very important. If you end up with goals that are too general there will be no incentive to succeed. If they are too easy, you’ll struggle for motivation. Too hard and you’ll end up disappointed or even worse, injured. I use a simple four-step process to set goals:

1) ACHIEVABLE - Of course goals should stretch you and make you aim higher but too often goals are set which are too far out of reach. Goals must be feasible; otherwise the negative effect of not achieving the unrealistic goal can be seriously detrimental. If you currently swim 1,500 meters in 20 minutes, setting a goal to beat the world record may just lead to a sense of failure as the realisation occurs that this goal is not achievable.

2) DETAILED - Detailed goals make it perfectly clear what you want to achieve. Vague goals lead to a lack of focus. It’s better to say “I will reduce my 1,500 meter time”, instead of “I’d like to get faster at swimming”. All too often, general goals like the later end up as aspirations, as opposed to targets.

3) MEASURABLE- Goals and the progress towards these goals must be measurable. This
measurement not only helps you monitor progress, but also provides vital motivation as you train towards achieving your goal. Most swimming goals are measured in terms of speed or time. Taking the first example, let’s add the measurement - “I will reduce my 1,500 meter time by 60 seconds”

4) TIMED - By setting a deadline to achieve the goals, the focus and motivation is maintained. Without a time-frame, goals enter the arena of aspirations again. Taking our example, by adding a time frame we get “I will reduce my 1,500 meter time by 60 seconds by 1st July”. Comparing this to the alternate initial goal of “I’d like to get faster at swimming”, suddenly you can see the power a correctly created goal can generate

Maintaining a Focus on Goals

Keeping focus on the goals is the key to maintaining motivation.

Think of the end result – allow yourself to imagine what will happen if you achieve your goal. How will you feel when you swim faster than you ever have before? When you knock time off events you never thought possible? When you finish higher in the race than ever before? Allow yourself to imagine how you will feel when you achieve this goal, and let that feeling motivate you to train harder

Chart your progress - chart time trained, distance swam and improvements in times each. Many find that using wall charts to graph this progress gives them an extra kick when they’re feeling “what’s the point?” Suddenly you can see how much you’ve achieved so far, how far you’ve come and how you’re getting closer to your goal.

Share your goals – there’s nothing quite like people power to help motivation! Let people know what you are trying to do and who knows you might find that if they get behind you, the extra push they give could be vital to getting that step closer to your goal.

Plan to succeed – to achieve your goals, you also must create a training plan which will help you to get from where you are now, to where you want to be. Consult coaches, experienced swimmers and experts in the area. Make sure you have a plan which you know if you stick to it, will get you to your goal.

Summary

Goals are something which give us targets to strive for, Maybe this is to improve your speed for 1,500 meter or maybe this is to improve your final position in a 5-kilometer race. Whatever the case, remember to keep a focus on why you want to achieve this goal and how you will feel when you succeed and let this feeling motivate you!

Finally, remember that sometimes things happen that mean goals have to be raised or lowered - maybe you’ve had an injury and need to lower your goals or maybe you’ve had an opportunity to train more than expected and need to raise them. Keeping goals at the wrong levels can be just as damaging as having no goals at all, so make the process open to changes as required. So stay open to changing goals if your circumstances change.

Thank you very much, Graham, for sharing your secrets of success.

2009-03-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

Nays have it: success is all in the genes

(reposted from the Sydney Morning Herald)

Michael Cowley
March 24, 2009

AS IF gold medal bragging rights over friend and training partner Stephanie Rice and a place on the world championship team were not reward enough for winning the 200 metres freestyle on the opening night of the Australian championships, there was another reason victory was so special for Meagan Nay.

The 20-year-old, an Olympic finalist in the 200m backstroke eight months ago, had flipped onto her stomach and taken up the 200m free. The event was now hers. Almost three decades ago, it was her dad's, too.

Robbie Nay was Meagen's father. As a 15-year-old, he swam the event at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Two years later, he won a relay gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, and was just 0.01 of a second behind Australian sprint icon Mike Wenden to narrowly miss the bronze medal in the 200m freestyle final.

Robbie's story turned sour shortly after. He got hooked on heroin and, in 1978, pleaded guilty to possessing and using the drug. Then aged 22, he entered rehab, battled back, and amazingly, in 1980, beat surf lifesaving legend Grant Kenny at the Queensland titles.

Meagen was born eight years later, but then, when she was just four, in November 1992, her father was killed in a car accident. Meagen said her father would have been proud to see her go to the Olympics last year, and also for her success in "his race" last week.

Her winning time of one minute, 57.90 seconds was just 0.06s slower than her father's time in Christchurch.

"Yeah, I think it was really special winning that event," she said. "I kind of inherited good genes in the 200m freestyle, I think. Apart from making the team and things like that, it meant a lot to me as a person. It was a very special moment."

While she broke on to the Australian team for Beijing on her back, freestyle is not a radical change. Nay was supposed to swim freestyle at the Olympic trials last year, but pinched a nerve in her shoulder in the lead-up and could only manage one event, the 200m backstroke.

"I had the time of my life over in Beijing, but it was so scary, too. It was my first major Australian team so everything was a bit daunting, especially the final of the 200m backstroke [she finished seventh], but, at the same time, I learnt a lot just in that one swim, and I took away a lot of things I have since been working on in training."

Nay put those lessons into practice at the trials, qualifying for swims in the 200m freestyle, 200m backstroke and the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays.

"I've been concentrating on freestyle a little bit more in training with my coach, Michael Bohl, especially after the Olympics. It's something I've always liked doing in training, and it's just picked up to the next level here, and hopefully in Rome I can step it up again."

Nay and her teammates will be back in the water tonight when they contest the annual Skins event at Sydney Olympic Park.

Message to the team after Provincial Championships

2009-03-05T12:28:00.001-08:00

We are finished with the prelude, on Monday we took a day off - that was the page turning to the opening line of chapter one of the 2009 swim season.

Lets spend a short amount of time patting ourselves on the back for a good job at the Provincial meet. First, head on over to the "Team Ranking" link at the meet results page (click on February 2009). Winskill Dolphins - 2nd place to Island Swimming / VASC. Congratulations to all of you who scored at the meet to get that result. We had a lot of good results, highlighted by Vito's 8 individual gold medals (very Phelpsian!), Clarissa qualifying for the 2009 Age-Group Nationals (first Provincial group swimmer to make the meet - congratulations Ben!), Luke qualifying for the 2009 British Age-Group Championships, and Nicole, Sidney, Sarah, Nunu, Colette, Matt and Markus qualifying for the 2009 Far Westerns meet in San Jose.

All of those performances were, at the time, spectacular but if the best we do this season is place second as a team at Provincials in the spring then we've missed the big picture.

One of the most important questions to ask yourself with your swimming is, overall, am I improving FASTER than everyone else? Before the meet we challenged you to produce more than 10-40-99, which was 10 gold medals, 40 total medals and 99 finals swims (our total from the 2008 season's two Provincial championships combined). It's important to understand that qualifying for a meet is just the first step, once you get there you must to have the imagination and determination to make the final.

The next step is winning a medal. Any lane in the final is able to win a medal, we had some great examples this weekend of inspired performances from outside lanes;
Elliott Lee - Silver medal from lane 7
Matt Lock - Bronze medal from lane 2
Clarissa Tan - Bronze medal from lane 1
Markus Thormeyer - Silver medal from lane 8

Our total over the weekend was 16-41-104, so we surpassed the previous year's totals in every measure. Nice job. Better was that heading into the meet we had 118 swims ranked in the top 10, but after the weekend was done we came out with 134 top ten performances! That's a pretty major improvement over seed times from those swimmers and in those events where you were clearly not favoured to make a final.

But this is just the beginning. Think about RIGHT NOW as a starting point for your season. From here we head back to the drawing board and work on the MANY technical issues we have to correct to become the best swimmers in Canada before July. One of the best goals you can have as an age-group swimmer is to equal your SCM times by the end of the LCM season. That is, if your short course time was 58.70 in the 100 Free, lets make it a goal to get down to that time long course. Hopefully you're figuring out by now that the improvements you make are directly related to the amount of meaningful work you put in day-in and day-out over at Winskill... what you do at the commonwealth pool has relatively little influence on your races compared to your training habits at home. A smart swimmer will realize quickly that the more in touch they are with their technique and the better their workouts have been leading up to a meet the faster they swim in the race.

Over the next few months you have a period of time where you can, if you choose, become MUCH faster than your competitors. The easiest thing to do after a major competition is take a week off (as some clubs are doing) and then come back with a little bit of work, all while thinking about how great you are now that you placed 2nd at the Provincial championships.

Big deal. On NONE of the goal sheets did we mention our team placing at Provincials. Nowhere did we discuss how we wanted to do in February. All the goals we've been focused on since late August have to do with the upcoming summer. If you recognize that this past weekend was a good step in the right direction, then keep taking those steps, eventually we will end up down the road as having a season we can really feel successful about.

There are a few important points to reflect on this week;

This is just the beginning of our season. We have a long way to go before July and August, where the real goals lie. Don't lose focus on those things we've set out to accomplish
Your success or failure at a meet does not hinge on your warmup at the meet, how you feel that day or what you had for breakfast. What matters is the months, weeks and hundreds of hours of training you've put in LEADING up to that meet.
No one on the planet has technique that is "good enough". We are far from the best, so we had better out how to be better, and do it quicker than everyone else. Everyone is improving, everyone is working hard... our challenge is to work harder and better than everyone else!

So... three things to do;
FOCUS ON THE END GOAL
WORK HARDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE
TECHNIQUE IN TRAINING

Great aerobic base

2009-02-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

Many athletes keep blogs, some detail their training, others focus on their community events, and some just their personal thoughts. Examples include;

2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Adam van Koeverden (CAN)
2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Stephanie Rice (AUS)
2000/2004/2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Ian Crocker (USA - who has a few posts, but all are very worthwhile reading. Especially look back this one, posted after he DQ'd the US 4x 100 Medley Relay in at the Melbourne World Championships in 2007, thus denying Michael Phelps his 8 gold medals at the meet.)
7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong (USA)

Personally I enjoy keeping up with Canadian triathlete, Simon Whitfield's blog. In the latest post he had linked to this article on another local Olympian, Svein Tuft.

A lot of time, in the coaching community there is discussion of 'long term athlete development'. Which is partially the basis for Swimming Canada's implementation of the new Age-Group National pre-qualifying times for 2010. Coaches discuss the theoretical way of getting all athletes to perform well as they get older and move toward maturity. Part of the problem with all this talk however is that great athletes are, by definition, outliers. That is, they are exceptions to the rule, and do not follow a 'normal' path of development.

Svein Tuft is an excellent example of this. He choose to bike around BC and Alaska with his dog instead of finishing high school! Which, from a training perspective puts in some excellent aerobic base mileage. Think about training for 8 hours a day, stopping to rest when you need to, doing most of it pulling a heavy weight behind you... doesn't sound like something most people would jump up and do on a whim, does it? This is what he did for a good 7 years. After bike touring around for a while, he discovered that he was now pretty darned good at cycling, and started competing - racing sometimes, then taking time off to get back to his travels. All culminating this summer in a 7th place finish in Beijing. Not bad for a guy who didn't start competing until he was 22.

Trying to pretend that everyone fits into the same mold creates a lot of very mediocre performances. All of this goes to show that when working with a high level athlete, it's important to recognize the individuality - after all, that's what you want to emphasize if you want to create a champion!

Community sport programs

2009-02-06T12:04:00.001-08:00

Although it might seem like I live at the pool all day, I do get to leave sometimes. Many times that's to head to a meeting or other 'fun' event. Last night I had a community sport meeting hosted by the 2010 legacies now project over in North Delta. The evening was designed to provide feedback to the Provincial government on directions for sport from 2010 to 2014, and was a good chance to share ideas, problems and solutions with both other community sport groups, civic administrators and the 2010 facilitators.

Some of the issues that came up were pretty typical - insufficient facility space, poorly managed facilities, lack of volunteers, lack of local training situations for coaches/staff etc. Through the sharing of ideas we also discussed some potential solutions as well as solutions that are already in place that many people are unaware of. One such program is the KidSport BC program.

KidSport BC is a community based sport funding program designed to allow children aged six to eighteen to participate in a season of sport, the grants are available for up to $200 to be used for sport registration and participation. You can apply once per year PER SPORT, so if you swim but also play soccer then you can apply twice per calendar year.

One of the other issues we brought up was that there are so many organizations that offer support services for coaches, athletes and administrators that it can be sometime difficult to know where to go! For swimming in BC we have;

Swim BC - our PSO (Provincial Sport Organization)
Swimming Canada - our NSO (National Sport Organization)
Sport BC
2010 Legacies Now
SportMed BC
Canadian Sport Centre Pacific
BC Athlete's Voice
Coach's Association of BC
SportsFunder
BC Games Society
ProMOTION plus
Team BC
Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport

It's little wonder there's such confusion about what programs are out there!

New blog!

2009-02-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

This is a new section on our website where the coaches and board members will be posting links, news items, technique articles/videos and other things. Be sure to check back here frequently for the latest and greatest!