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.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Fort Myers 5km openwater swim
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.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Fort Myers Beach
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!).
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
USA Swimming and 10kswimmer.com will be tweeting from both the 5k and 10k races this weekend, join the feed here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Arrival at Fort Myers, Florida
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 s
wimmer 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 w
ith 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.
wimmer 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 w
ith 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.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Manhattan Island Marathon Swim - Race day
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 col
d. 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!
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 col
d. 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!
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