Swimming

The Individual Team Sport

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The Individual Team Sport

Over the past few weeks I had a hard time to find my way to the pool. Life as a soldier finishing up my duties with the Swiss Armed Forces and the winter weather have been issues but the biggest issue was being teamless (think I just made up a new word). Besides not finding the time to go swim what was missing when I actually made it were my teammates. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind to go and swim on my own, mix up lane lanes with the “normal” people. I can do a set and push myself, it’s just not the same.

I remember the time when it used to be my coach and I almost every early morning…just the two of us…him ready to send me to hell and back…I ready to chase my dreams…both of us working to achieve a goal, working for a swim that won’t even last over a minute. Just the two of us, yet it wasn’t the same. Although I did swim almost every morning on my own and often did different workouts than my teammates in the evening, I was part of something bigger…a TEAM!

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Workout Thursday, January 13, 2011

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Last Thursday I went to Maggligen for a workout with one of my former teammates and oldest swimming friends. His team was away for a meet and he went through some hard training earlier in the week so it was sort of a recovery workout with some smooth build swims. I’m thinking about making a subscription based workouts stream available, so I though you might like this one in the meantime. Download the workout as a PDF on ProSwimWorkouts.com

Upper Keys Masters Meet Series

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The Fighting Manatee Swim Club is putting together a Masters swim meet series in 2011. They will host three meets, one meet in every pool available, starting with Short Course Yards on the first weekend of February. Also during this first meet there will be a swim clinic by US Olympian Jon Olsen. Please read the meet announcement or visit their website for more information on the series.

Teen raps about life as a swimmer

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Just the other day I came across this article about a young swimmer who wrote and produced a song about the life of a swimmer. I thought this was worth sharing and if you’re a swimmer, you should absolutely listen to the song! Here’s an excerpt from the article on USA Swimming’s website.

Dylan Ludwick, 17, a member of the Tri-Hampton YMCA swim team in Bucks County, Pa., recently submitted a song to USA Swimming that he wrote and produced for his team’s annual taper meet. […] Ludwick offered his song as a free download, but would like to encourage swimmers to show their appreciation by donating to the Fran Crippen Elevation Foundation. Ludwick grew up watching Crippen swim in the Middle Atlantic LSC and had a chance to compete against him at last year’s 5K Open Water National Championships.

Download the song [download id=”6193″] or read the full article on USA Swimming’s website.

2010 Swimwear of the Year

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2010 Swimwear of the Year

Swimming in the years B.J. (before Jaked) supposedly wasn’t a sport of high interest. There seemed to be a lonely warrior, Michael Phelps, on a quest to bring swimming to the main stream and into the living rooms of millions of people. The road to his 8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics certainly took swimming out of the 4 year shadow the sport was known for. But who would have thought that this would be just the start of swimming media mania? The so called “shiny suits” made their way into swimming and with them the world record line on television looked like a technical error by the broadcaster with oftentimes the full field ahead of it.

Swimming was nothing like we knew it B.J. anymore. Legends were taken down and the rate at which world records were broken was higher than any FINA staff member possibly could hold up with. Most WR probably never officially were one as the approval process took longer than another swimmer taking down the new standard once more. I wonder if they even cared to hand out the official certificate you’ll get for a WR. FINA’s administrative expenses must have tripled at least during the shiny suit era.

And of course selling suits that regularly ripped after a single use had to be more than just a great business to be in. Let’s face the truth, most of us were not sponsored by one of the suit manufacturers and the pressure to under perform or get beaten up at a meet wasn’t an option and the dollars bills ended up wrapped around our bodies in form of one of those shiny suits.

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