Rust Never Sleeps

Rust Never Sleeps is an album released July 2, 1979 by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young and American band Crazy Horse. Young used the title "rust never sleeps" as a concept for his tour with Crazy Horse to avoid artistic complacency and try more progressive, theatrical approaches to performing live.

On our team we use this phrase at this time of year when we go to our first meet to acknowledge our own rustiness at the game of racing. It has been 6 or 7 weeks since we have been on the blocks in early December.

Most of our swims on Saturday reflected that reality. We were somewhat better on Sunday since recollection was working. Our swimmers often wondered “how my swim was” and wondered about their time. We of course didn’t really know their times since we weren’t looking at the scoreboard all that much. We took no splits and recorded no tempos or stroke counts.

What we did do is ask them to “be competitive, no matter what” and we gave them feedback based upon those criteria. Some were able to gather themselves and get a decent grip on the race, especially as the weekend went along. There were several who made bonehead moves on breakouts and some of the technical issues we have been working on…and of course those are the issues they have daily in training sessions….

So we will go back to work reinforcing what we saw over the weekend and correcting where possible all the while underscoring the truth about our sport…it is on each swimmer to decide to improve. If they don’t decide to improve, they won’t.

When they do decide to improve then they must, because that is how the universe works…since the beginning of time.

Rust isn’t a bad thing; it is merely something we all deal with from time to time. As Bart Simpson would say, “Don’t have a cow, man!”