The York YMCA Rambler
20 January 2008
By Coach Michael
SWIM-A-THON GLORY
I would like to thank everyone involved with our Swim-a-thon this past Saturday; it succeeded beyond my expectations. I loved seeing little kids counting and cheering for big kids, big kids counting and cheering for little kids. Not only was it an afternoon well-spent, but we also raised a substantial sum towards supporting this program in its national aspirations. If you have not already turned in your pledges, or if you have raised additional monies since the swim, please turn them in to Mrs. Kramer as soon as you can, so we can finish our accounting and get our prizes determined and ordered.
And if there was anyone out there who questioned whether watching several heats of 5000 Freestyles could be exciting, those doubters have now been answered. Each heat saw several “races within races” and many kids swimming fast the whole way. And in particular with our Junior swimmers, racing three miles straight is quite an accomplishment; when they look at themselves in the mirror, they can’t help shouting, “Holy moly, I am tough!”
Of especial note, Grant Seymour, just turned 8 years old, finished the whole 5000, as did 8-year old Courtney Harnish. Grant had the spectators so excited by his strong finish that they lined the pool deck and did “the wave” (ineptly) to get him home.
Our two mighty eight-year olds brings up an interesting subject in my mind. No one expects an eight-year old to finish a 5000 free. Everyone, maybe even me, expected them to bail out somewhere between fifty and a hundred lengths. No one would have questioned their stopping early; everyone would still have given them an ovation if they had only done 100 lengths; and everyone would still have been impressed that such little kids could swim so far. One of our senior kids watching Grant even asked incredulously, “Are you making him do the whole thing?,” to which I irritably replied, “I’m not making him do anything.”
They CHOSE – to do the swim in the first place, to keep on going when they got tired, to ignore the little demons in their heads enticing them to stop, to keep going NO MATTER WHAT. They personified ENDURANCE. And they are the sort of hero-champions that epic poems are written about.
THURSDAY SCHEDULE SWAP
This Thursday, 24 January, we will be having a “Shrewsbury Special” practice at the Shrewsbury branch of the Y. Juniors and Seniors will train from 4:00 pm (or as soon as you can get to the pool from school or from the bus) until 6:30 pm; Novices will train from 6:30 until 7:30 pm. Note that using a different pool, notably one with starting blocks and deeper water, allows us to work on some aspects of swimming and racing that we normally don’t get enough work on, so please try to get down south for this special practice.
THE CHOSEN TWO
Two of our York Y swimmers, Caleb Tuten and Sada Stewart, have been chosen by USA Swimming to participate in the Zone Select Camp, to be held June 5th to 8th at the University of Buffalo.
There are four Zone Select Camps, one for each section – or Zone – of the country. Each camp has the top twenty-eight girls in the Zone aged 12 to 13, and the top twenty-eight boys in the Zone aged 13 to 14, based on long course results from last summer. Half the swimmers qualify because they are the top swimmer in the Zone in an event; the other half qualify by having the top IMX scores in the Zone. [Note: one more reason to work hard to raise those IMX scores!]
At the camp, the swimmers will spend four days training long-course with their camp-mates, doing test sets and working with the USA Swimming sports scientists, attending educational seminars, and meeting swimmers from other clubs and states.
This is a prestigious selection: very nicely done. And, from the speed and improvement I’ve seen this season, I expect that this summer we will put several swimmers onto next year’s Select Camps.
AROUND THE BEND
Initially for our Junior and Senior swimmers, we had two complementary meets on our schedule, the Annapolis meet (an “A and above meet”) and the GBSA meet in Baltimore (a “BB and below meet”) on successive weekends. Then we added our Tournament of Champions, and suddenly our schedule was ridiculous. So, in order to streamline things a bit:
Our Juniors and Seniors with “A” times are attending the Annapolis meet on February 9 & 10 (just Saturday & Sunday – no Friday sessions). Entries are posted on the wall.
Juniors and Seniors without A times will be signed up for the Delaware Swim Team’s A/B/C meet in Wilmington the same weekend: Sat. & Sun. February 9 & 10. Families with one swimmer qualified for Annapolis and one for the DST meet have been entered in DST to simplify life. Entries will be posted on the wall asap.
The GBSA meet has been deleted from the schedule altogether.
We will have some swimmers competing in the CPAL Divisionals and All-Stars on the 16th and 17th.
We will be taking a group of our Senior swimmers to the national Grand Prix meet in Columbia, Missouri, in mid-February to race Michael Phelps and his Club Wolverine, Natalie Coughlin and company, etc. I’ll try not to miss filming any world records this time. None of the Missouri swimmers will be competing in the Annapolis, or DST, or Divisional/All-Star meets. They will be training straight through to the meet.
Our Tournament of Champions will be held on Sunday 24 February. We are offering the longer events; this will give our swimmers an opportunity to race events they haven’t seen in a while and to make cuts for championships. Note that this is a “closed Y” meet. Please plan to support the team with your participation.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
"When you really start to hurt at about 30 to 40 kilometers, then it comes down to who has got the mental capacity to push through all those pain barriers. And you have to do it alone. There's no one else out there. You're all by yourself."
Bill Koch, Olympic silver medalist, World Cup champion skiier