The UWC East campus hosted the 2017 Dragon's Den meet at the weekend, and we also had swimmers competing at the SSA Proficiency Awards on Saturday.
1 week after returning to normal training post Easter break was always going to be a difficult time to swim best times, especially with numerous lightning breaks (luckily we had Evie Song to keep us entertained!)
Although many people did swim best times, my message to the swimmers at the weekend was to make sure that something positive was taken from each race. Something learned, some experience gained that will improve subsequent races. We have a couple of competitions in May and some people will race the June National Championships. With the best will in the world, nothing can prepare someone for great race execution like great race practice can. Great performances are the result of many things, including; physiology, skill execution, pacing and psychology. Executing a great race doesn't happen by accident, and usually when swimmers perform big best times, a big contributing factor is how well the race was executed.
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Example:
Swimmer 'x' races 200m freestyle one weekend in a time of 2:34.11
The next weekend 2:27.11
What is the likelihood that the person is a better 'swimmer' by 7 seconds in a week?
What is the likelihood that the second race was executed more effectively, with better race skills and pacing?
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This is one reason we encourage swimmers to compete regularly. To learn from mistakes and gradually execute races more effectively.
I'm delighted to see that the sign-up for the meets in May are looking good, and hopefully the club championships will be the same when sign-up goes out. We should always be looking for ways to improve from one competition to the next. The main role of the coaches at competitions is to help identify areas that can be improved.
All of that said, there were some excellent performances at the weekend, with many people swimming faster than at SNAGS in March! The highlight of the weekend was probably the 1-2-3 finish in the girls 9/10 years age group 50m freestyle at Dragon's Den. Of course the outcome was great, but the race execution was also fantastic.
I was also quite impressed with the results of Coach Sarah too though ;)
