And
the winners are, to no one’s surprise, the ones who did the work. From a
coaching perspective this is so refreshing. Shortcuts do not work. From an
athlete’s perspective it is equally reassuring…do the work and get the prize.
Don’t do the work, no payoff.
We
think our last post had to do with the preparation for the December shave meets
and what would the impact be of not being able to train regularly for 10 days
in mid-November due to the bad air quality in Northern California.
Ken
had texted workouts to each of the swimmers encouraging them to find indoor
water and do their best at keeping training going. We could not find a pool
with enough available space to bring all 35 kids at one time. It would be
piecemeal and up to them.
Each
of them admitted at the debriefing session after the meet that they had done
some of the work but not all and even some was not done with the same level of
intensity as if the group had been together. All of this information was to be
expected.
As
we watched the racing unfold both in Federal Way at the Husky Invite and in
Austin at Winter Juniors one clear cut impression was made. To a person, all
those who had trained diligently from September, before the bad air, had an
excellent meet. One young man even made his Winter cut at Husky in the 200
breast. Even 1650 distances were not affected. Our sample size was small (2)
but both guys had solid swims, one 15 year old dropped to 16:38…he was 10:03 at
the 1000 so he had a bit of a fade but still very solid.
Work
works. In this era of quick fixes and short attention spans little is as
satisfying as a reward hard sought and won.
