What a great practice this morning. We all braved the snow and ice and made it happen today for a 2 hour practice. I'm not going to lie, I really liked being able to get the kids in at 10:00 instead of 6:30, that extra sleep and time to get there was great. There were a couple of highlights for our practice today:
First, the great turnout from our group. Out of the swimmers that could come we really rocked the house with the commitment and the ability to make it. I was impressed that we filled up 8 lanes so well, where we usually have 5. Showing up at times that practice is offered when it is different than your normal schedule isn't easy. There are easy excuses to not go to practice but it seemed like everyone that could make it did. We had a couple of swimmers missing, but most let us know that their parents just couldn't make it due to practice times and work.
Another highlight was the end of the practice, the daunting VO2 Max. The VO2 Max is our version of the Pacer in school. It's a dropout set that we set up a couple of different ways throughout the year. This is one of my all time favorite sets, the swimmers really get into it, go for goals, and cheer each other on. Today we did our classic VO2 Max which is a set of 4 * 25's, 3 are free and 1 no free. The 25's started today on :40 seconds and we dropped :02 seconds every 4. As the swimmers start to drop out, they come over and cheer the rest of the swimmers on who are still going.
3 Stars of Practice (Hockey Style)
The 3rd star: While we had a lot of great swimming, 3 people stood out to earn stars today. First was Isaac, he really pushed himself more than I have seen in the past. Isaac is a strong swimmer who is just figuring out how to work hard, and I think he took a huge step today. He was using his strength today and stayed in as long as he possibly could.
The 2nd star: The next swimmer is Hannah. She has been getting faster and faster, and today she really stepped up and kicked butt. Hannah was going second in her lane and was consistently finishing in front of the swimmers going first in the other lane (she was behind the champion). The sky is the limit for Hannah and she keeps surprising me in how she can adapt and continue to learn how to work. Hannah was working her streamlines and pushing herself to be great today. Hannah made it longer than many swimmers who are older and have faster times, and made it all the way to :20 seconds per 25, which was my goal for the group to get to.
The 1st star: This one was easy as Maddie stood head and shoulders above everyone in this set. Maddie took over from the beginning and won every 25 throughout the set. She was the last person standing and did 6 * 25's on her own at the end. Maddie split 17 seconds on every 25 from a push, both freestyle and backstroke, throughout the whole set. Her streamlines were fantastic, she was using her distance per stroke, and kept her kick up the whole time. What really impressed me was the effort and energy she was putting in the backstroke in the set as she was holding the same speed as her freestyle. She made it through :18 seconds per 25 and finished the last one for time backstroke in :16 seconds. If you've done the math that was 48 *25's by the end of it!
Another shout-out to our group and how far we've come since the beginning of the year! I can't wait for championship's to start next week and see what we can do!
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