We entered the swimmers into this Meet to act as a benchmark for us as to where our training was so early in the season after the holiday break.
To all the swimmers who took part over the weekend please do not be disheartened if your times were in fact not near your personal bests as this was to be expected. There were however, despite being very early in the training cycle several great swims not least of which was Alice Henderson taking the 9 year old 100 IM record.
I would also like to point out that the majority of swimmers on the 50 metre swims held their times very well and the longer distance swims were always going to be difficult to master at this early stage.
It was a very long weekend for those who took part both days but I was still very impressed with the effort shown and as usual the spirit we have in the club is fantastic.
With the training lanes now amended for the next four weeks there will be heavier training sets but don’t worry it’s nothing that you cant handle.
Swimming is not an exact science and there will be periods in your swimming where it becomes increasingly more difficult to smash your personal bests. It is a case of hanging tough and you will break through the barriers that you thought were not possible. It does however take hard training and as always listening to what you are taught.
I have no hesitation in saying that if you put the effort in to your training then you will be rewarded with personal bests as you only get out of swimming what you put in.
Overall this was a gala which all of you should look to as a learning experience but very very much in a positive rather than negative way. This early benchmark will be vastly improved upon with hard work using the skill sets you have and coupled with the heavier training sets given to you.
It is also worth remembering that to swim well and fast you need to be relaxed because if you try too hard the inevitable happens and you slip water. This leads to tension in your stroke and in many cases your stroke technique flies out the window. It’s amazing the difference when you concentrate and also when you cut out any silly errors which are frustrating for both you in the water and for your coaches. I used to have a full head of hair by the way lol
Goes without saying very proud of all the swimmers who swam over this weekend.