Swim tips, advice, Joeisms; other half truths.
Brining you as much meet results and meet news you can handle.
The NIKE Showcase Classic begins this Wednesday morning in Clearwater, Florida with some of the fastest young athletes in the nation. LIVE streaming will be through http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com for every finals beginning Wednesday at 5:00 pm. You will also be able to find pictures, interviews, results, and other meet news right here at http://SwimmerJoe.com.
Enjoy!
![r[1]](http://swimmerjoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/r1-240x140.jpg "r[1]")
SARASOTA, Florida, February 7. LANCE Armstrong, the record seven time winner of the Tour de France in cycling, is officially registered as a member of United States Masters Swimming.
Armstrong made noise within the swimming community last month when he competed at the Longhorn Aquatics New Year’s Classic. He placed 21st in the men’s 500-yard freestyle event with a time of 5:08.11. The 40-year-old athlete would have ranked ninth in the country with that swim a year ago in the men’s 40-44 age division.
Recently, Armstrong tweeted to U.S. Masters Swimming that the 2012 USMS Spring Nationals were “on his calendar.” The event will take place at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, N.C. from April 26-29.
After this fast weekend at Junior Nationals our younger swimmmers realized several things: Yes it was a fast meet, yes they were older, yes the great coaches were there. But in addition to these, one very important event happened that needed to take place with all these younger athletes. They got to see how close they are to actually competing with these fast swimmers.
Young swimmers got to watch some of the nation’s best swimmers through the entire race process — what they do mentally and physically to get ready to race. They got to see what the A and B Final swimmers look like while swimming backstroke, head position and tempo, or the timing in breaststroke with the efficency and glide is absolutely invaluable! So let’s talk about the Pre, Race and Post race pieces that we observed.
Watching Race Prep
Watching the A and B Final swimmers conduct their race prep is probably what gives them an edge from all the other less experienced swimmers. Beginning with a good warm up and then getting by themselves, mentally going through the race in their head, visualizing (see old post), and swinging and stretching their limbs for maximum speed. What that also does is prepares their muscles from a physiological standpoint. For more information, check this article out. This one is from 2002 and for cycling, but it has all the same principles that apply to swimming. Physiology and your muscles
Most young athletes really don’t know what to do and oftentimes they talk and run around right before events. You know what? The more the young athletes practice their meet prep and spending the effort to do so, the more powerful the process and therefore the more focused, and obviously a better and more ready the athlete is! So get practicing with race prep. By the way, it works. I told one of my athletes just this month to start working on it and get your head in the game…What an absolute turn around! It works.
The Race
The Junior National swimmers showed it this weekend. Plain and simple, training takes over. If you have been training to your expertise or your best efforts, the race will take care of itself. So, listen to your coach, focus on technique, and develop your strength and stamina during practice.
Post Swim Care
We coaches state that warming up and warming down are key to great swimming and the longevity of the body as well as onging performance. But how do we really know this? USA Swimming put out a great article about the art of recovery, check it out! Who knew sprinters needed more swim down than distance swimmers? Watching the Junior National swimmers go directly to the warm down even before speaking with their coach was a good lesson for our young athletes.
Swimming multiple events at multi-day meets are very taxing on the body and young athletes need to realize that. The swimmer with most “in the tank” both physically and mentally on the last day will and should prevail everytime.
After this fast weekend at Junior Nationals our swimmers learned a great deal. Hopefully you can also spread this knowledge throughout your team and develop your own “team Pre, race and post strategy” for greatness.
Let me know how your team or your athletic pre, race and post race has changed and how you have worked on it. I’ll post it here on the blog!
Go to Florida Swim Network at http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com, we’ll see you over there!
We now have 3A up under the Results Tab and the High School Tab.
Well, well , well, what can I say? I don’t know if I have ever seen such a crazy fast Junior Olympics (now FLAGS) as this past weekend. The times were pretty much unbelievable. Athletes in every age group were getting Top 10 times in the nation, records, Junior National & Senior National Time Standards as well as Olympic Trial Standards. Wait a minute, what? Olympic Trial Standards? Not by a tenth of a second either! Numerous were by over 3-5 seconds! Truly incredible for the one of the best, if not the best swimming states in the nation!
Summer Finke (SPA) and Eric Woodruff (GCST) in the 1500s were very speedy as well as Sherridon Dressel (BSS), Matt Hirschberger (CAT), Kasey Schmidt (BSS), and Caleb Dressel (BSS) in the 50s. In fact, Mr Dressel dumped a 9-year-old record!
Speaking of old records, 12-year-old Jackson Defore (T2) broke a 17-year-old record in the 200 IM with a 2:21 and change.
I hear you, what about the 10 & under athletes? They were equally as fast with Talia Bates (GSC), daughter of former UF football player James Bates, winning the 50 freestyle (30.24), while Lucas Kravelenko (CBS) sneaked by Blake “Hollywood” Wilton with a time of 30.03. Other great swims by the 10-year-olds were Kaitlyn Cronin (GSC), 1:17.01, Marshall Webster (SYS), 1:12.79, both in the 100 Backstroke. In the 100 Fly event, Bates wins another one with 1:18.64, while Hollywood Wilton takes the gold with a time of 1:14.51. In their final event, the 200 freestyle, Katelyn Kilpatrick (CFM) wins the 200 freestyle, 2:30.34 and Kravelenko closes the meet for these youngsters with a blazing 2:17.54.
After seeing the amount of Olympic Trial Standards, Senior National Standards, Junior National Standards and State Records at the Age-Group Championships, I can’t until we see Senior Championships this week! Be sure to tune in to the coverage of the Senior Championships this weekend on http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com and http://swimmerjoe.com.
The speedy Florida Age Group Championships, which is know as #FLAGs on twitter, has added many more Olympic Trial Time Standards for the women after day 3, as well as state records and incredible times for the men. Oh yea and HUGE RAIN STORMS!
The girls from Clearwater Aquatic Team (CAT), Michelle Turek, Sydney Pickrem, and Rebecca Mann have been on a massive assault on the record books and the Olympic Trial Standards. In an amazing race Saturday night, the 200 meter fly, 3 girls (Emma Spilman SPA, Rebecca Mann CAT, Nancy Hu SYS) destroyed a 7 year old record where two of the girls achieved Olympic Trial Time Standards. What about the 12 & Under athletes? Skyler Covert (MACG), Kendall Brent (SWIM) and Sherridon Dressel (BSS) seem to be racing each other for the win in everything.
As for the boys, not to be outdone, from GCST, Gulf Coast, Blake Woodrow, Eric Ordaz, and the gentlemen from BSS, Bolles School, Caleb Dressel and John Hutton are also making big splashes in the pool. Records all over the place. By the way, these kids are huge! Compliments to the coaches for getting them in the shape they need to be in!
The final day of FLAGs is tomorrow and should be an outstanding one, including the relays that were postponed by the massive and very intense thunder boomers! You can catch all the action on http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com through your computer, or chime in on your cell phone or IPad with the Ustream App–Best of all, it’s free!
To check all the results from Day 2 and Day 3, you can get it here. Day 2 of FLAGs Finals, Day 3 of FLAGs Finals
By the way, if you like social mixers, tweetups, or meeting new people, come by and grab a cup of coffee and a donut or maybe even a book from special guest swimmer, Doc Lucky Meisenheimer on Sunday morning at 8:00 am under the scoreboard by the stairs to the stands. See ya there!
Quickly back at it in the swimming world with the Florida Age Group Championships (FLAGs) at the I-Drive Center in Orlando.
Day 1 brought us an outstanding start of the long weekend with incredible swims and several Olympic Trial Cuts! The Day also brought us the first time Florida Swimming, in my knowledge, has used the “Chase” starts that Texas and some states us for their meets. This is where they start from both ends of the pool and “chase” each other to the finish. Worked very well!
Another great edition was Florida Swim Network filming both sessions LIVE and also providing replays on their site. Their great commentators and chat folks are great for parents and relatives that can’t attend the meet. Cool stuff!
The facility has also been upgraded with a 1.3 Million Dollar renovation with more to come. Steve Corrie and the folks their have done an outstanding job, brining this place back to the days of it’s glory! (Justus Aquatic Center) Those were the days!
As for the competition itself, wow, absolutely something special! The 800 Freestyles were the Brent, Hirschberger, Mann, Finke and Woodrow show. I mean really! Out of those 5 swimmers, 1 State Record fell (Matt Hirschberger 8:48.59), 2 Olympic Trial Cuts (Rebecca Mann 8:41 and Ariel Finke 8:42) and 4 FLAG Championships! What a way to open a meet! Other winners were Skyler Covert MACG, William Tabor BSS, 100 Breast, Sydney Pickrem CAT (Olympic Trials), Austin Sellers TBAY, 200 Breast, Sherridon Dressel BSS, Hirschberger CAT, 100 Free, Michelle Turek CAT, Caleb Dressel BSS, 100 Free, Pickrem again CAT, Jackson Defore T2, 100 Free and Djan Madruga in the 200 Back.
So unbelieveable right? I can’t wait until tonight! Check back later for results and tune in to http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com to watch and chat!
Swim Meet, Vacation, Filming and Crazy Fun!
First, the Texas Open. A swim meet for 6 Blue Dolfin swimmers, heading to one of the fastest pools in the country. I look forward to seeing how these young athletes react in a new atmosphere, new competition and swimming without most of their friends hanging around. Should be interesting. I know in years past the athletes really kicked some serious tail (That’s a swimming term, haha). To see their speed and others, it will be streaming LIVE on http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com beginning on Friday. Check the website for times! Join in the chat while you’re watching!
Vacation, Vacation! If you have never been to Austin, it is a must! The arts, the music, South Congress Ave, Cupcakes, Ladybird Lake path, RunTex, Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, hill country, Whole Foods Headquarters, on and on—it’s a blast!
Filming at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop and UT Swim Coach Eddie Reese. I will be helping Florida Swim Network at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop and also filming the SwimmerJoe Show there with UT Head Men’s Coach Eddie Reese. We will have many other great guests along the way, so stay tuned to the Network!
Crazy Fun! I love hanging with my sis, her hubby and their 6 kids. Yep, 6. We are on the go from 7:00 – 11:00 everyday going antquing, shopping, swimming at UT, finding old cities in South Texas, etc.
So next year, join us! We would love to have you, wherever you are in the country. Also stay tuned on this blog to get updates along the way this week!
If you are able, tune in tomorrow, Wednesday night, at 8:00 pm EDT and all weekend for the swim meet. See you there!
I will talk about the All Star meet in another blog post shortly, but I first wanted to talk about something that really touched my wife and me.
I had a great time this past weekend at the Florida Swimming vs Florida Gold Coast Swim Meet. Physically, I was on deck coaching the 11-12 Boys Team, while technically, my wife and I rolled out our newest hobby, streaming live on Florida Swim Network, and boy was it both fun and rewarding. After many, many comments and thousands of people tuning into the live broadcast–Yes, thousands…I know! Exciting!–we were touched by the many people who at the end of the meet thanked us for showing the meet over the internet. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents who couldn’t attend because of work, etc., were able to watch their favorite swimmer compete. This was great! But, especially touching was the story of Eric Ordaz, a swimmer who made a point to find us in the parking lot as we were leaving. He thanked us for broadcasting, and then his father also followed up telling us this:
“Thank you very much for doing the broadcast. Eric’s grandparents where tuning in from Panama and they have never seen Eric swim. They were so excited, they were crying when he was swimming and they were so proud.”
Wow, Panama? To me, that made it all worth it. If we can can touch families and showcase swimmers to their friends and family, then it really justifies this experience and spreads the joy of swimming. My wife, who goes by @centralFLTop5 on Twitter, was the commentator and did an outstanding job. By the way, she knows nothing about swimming…haha, but that made it even better! If you want to read the comments go to http://FloridaSwimNetwork.com and look under the All Star post. Cool stuff! (And special thanks to our interns, Quinn Poti and Shannon Kennedy, two senior swimmers who were drafted!)
So keep tuning in to Florida Swim Network and we will continue to elevate our LIVE streaming capabilities and telecasts. If you have ideas, let us know on the site, and perhaps even more importantly, if you have videos you want to see on the site (maybe of you putting in a monster swim!), send us the link and we’ll put it up. We love showing off swimmers in the state of Florida!
See you at the next one.
Quinn Poti, Shannon Kennedy, and Bess Auer
SUNDAY: SwimmerJoe will be streaming live from Orlando, Florida tonight where several Olympians are participating in the Senior Champs. Watch Ryan Lochte, Peter Vanderkaay, and many more! Going live at 4:30 p.m. EST.
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