Prelim-Finals Meet, USA Swimming special guest on deck

Coach’s Note 1-06-11   UT Meet details for this weekend, Holiday Challenge T-Shirt info, Special Guest from USA Swimming visiting Nitro…

UT New Year’s Classic meet details: This is a Prelim/Finals meet and the first one with Finals of this season.   All Finals sessions (top 8 and in some cases top 16 finishers from AM session) warm up at 5:00PM and the Finals meet starts at 6:00PM each day.  Be there at least 15 minutes before your warm up.   Be sure to check with coaches AND with results table on deck prior to leaving each AM session to see if you made it back for finals. If you qualify and don’t show up, there are fines that will be imposed by UT.

Holiday Challenge T-Shirts !! If you are in Advanced Silver, Gold, TAGS 2, TAGS 1, Senior 2, Senior 1, or National – and you made the designated number of team practices over the Christmas break, be sure to order your specially designed 2010-2011 Holiday Challenge t-shirt.  Don’t miss out on this, as it is a testament to the hard work you put in, and an honor to be able to wear it with pride.

You may have seen a new face on our pool deck yesterday (Wednesday) helping the coaches, talking to several of our swimmers. The coaches already spent a few hours yesterday afternoon with her and have another few hours set up with her today prior to our practices beginning. We never stop learning, and we bring the latest info to our pool. Here’s some info on her:

USA Swimming Sports Consultant MJ Pasion. MJ will be bringing cutting edge technical info to us straight from the USA National Team and I have listed her bio and the things she will be doing with the swimmers below. MJ will be doing clinics in the afternoons and then specifically working with NG on Thursday am and our Senior 1, TAGS 1, and NG on Thursday pm. We are very excited about her visit and this is no charge to the swimmers—just a great chance to learn and apply to their swim!

Mariejo “MJ” Pasion

SPORTS PERFORMANCE CONSULTANT

“MJ” has spent the last quad (4 years)  working with USA Swimming’s National Team Division. She was part of the Performance Science and Technology Services Team where she was able to work closely with the National Team athletes and coaches.  Among her duties included video-taping, video and race analysis, lactate testing, providing nutrition information and club visits.  She has been part of the technical staff for the 2006 Short Course Worlds, 2006 Pan Pacs, 2007 Pan Ams and 2008 Short Course Worlds Teams.

Before coming to USA Swimming, MJ was a head coach on the collegiate level for seven years producing several All-Americans.  In additional to coaching all swimming levels, she has been coaching club swimming for the past 12 years, the last four with the Colorado Springs Swim Team.  She has also coached swimming, cycling and triathlon for Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong’s coach, giving her a well-rounded view on coaching.  MJ is a graduate of New York University where she completed both her undergraduate and postgraduate work.

• Understanding Race Analysis
• Recovery and Nutrition
• Lactate Testing
• Goal setting
• Latest stroke technique from the National Team (Back,      Breast, Starts)
• Progressions to the USA Swimming National Team

That’s it for now. Thanks for being a part of Nitro Swimming. See you at the pool ! Coach Mike.

Changes to Championship Meet formats

Coach’s Note 10-04-10        Championship meet format is changing…Forget JO’s, forget STAGS, and well, changes at the TAGS level as well.

For those of you new to USA Swimming, perhaps new to South Texas Swimming (that is the “territory” or the LSC – which stands for local swim committee that Nitro belongs to), there are two seasons of swimming: Short Course and Long Course. To confuse you even further, short course season is longer than long course season, as it runs typically throughout the bulk of the school year. Whereas long course season (so named because the meets are typically swam the long ways, 50 meters) spans the late spring/early summer – end of April into August.

There are membership meetings held a couple of times per year where the various committees involved in swimming get together and discuss proposals, vote on items, and help steer the course of competitive swimming in our area as well as state wide, and across the country. This past weekend played host to the Texas Senior Circuit meetings on Friday; the Texas Swim Association (TSA) on Saturday, and the South Texas Swimming meeting yesterday, Sunday. Tim attended the Friday session. I attended Saturday’s session. Tim, Ryan and I attended the Sunday South Texas meeting. We were in our seats from 8:15AM until about 4:00PM. I have included below what was decided on by the membership and how it impacts how things had been done in the past. Read on if interested…

First off – TAGS (Texas Age Group Swimming Championships). The TAGS committee voted to go back to 10 & Under, 11-12 combined, 13-14 combined, “A” final only coming back at night for finals. In other words, if you are  11, you will be competing against the 12 yr olds to battle for a nighttime swim in the top 8. Same thing if you are 13 —- battling the 14 yr olds for one of the top 8 spots. No more “B” final swim for the 9-16^th place finishers – at least not for this coming year. I am working on changing that back as I don’t believe timelines warranted a move to make the meet smaller than what it already was, and I liked the idea of bringing back more swimmers with more opportunities to swim at night in finals. But legislative steps take time, and I will do what I can on this. What this means for us in the short term is that RELAYS WILL BE KING !! Whoever owns the relays in the most age groups, will more than likely win the meet. So – NI-TRO RE-LAYS ! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) NI-TRO RE-LAYS ! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)…

LSC Champiosnhip meets: Get familiar with USA Swimming time standards — Specifically A, BB, B time standards. You can find these at www.usaswimming.org and clicking on time standards, then finding the 2009-2012 time standards. They will be grouped in three different categories: Long Course Meters (LCM), Short Course Yards (SCY) and Short Course Meters (SCM). The majority of the meets we swim are LCM in summer and SCY during the school year.

We are following the lead of most LSC’s in the country and going with a “Tiered” Championship meet approach. I will have the exact dates in a few days, but once the new year hits, there will be a “B” Championship meet, and the only swimmers eligible to swim in those events will be those who have a “B” time in that event, but not fast enough to have a BB time in that event. If a swimmer has a “BB” time or faster, they would not be eligible to compete in that event at the “B” Championship meet. Participation in these meets are not mandatory, and we will have other meets where our “B” level swimmers will be able to compete.

About two to three weeks later, there will be a “BB” Championship meet.  This meet will be for those who have achieved a BB level time in a particular event. A swimmer who has achieved an “A” time or faster in an event would NOT be eligible to swim that event at the BB Championship meet.

The meet that technically will replace STAGS will be an “A” Championship meet, where “A” times or faster are required to swim in particular events. This will be held BEFORE TAGS during short course season (school year) – typically end of February. This meet will be held AFTER TAGS during Long Course Season, and I believe it will be first week of August 2011. The voting body decided to split up our LSC into a north half and a south half for this meet, and it will be all age groups at this meet together – our 10 & Unders, 11-12, 13-14, and 15-18. So no more splitting up the family, separate meets, driving headaches, etc.

8. Congratulations to Nitro’s own Lauren Davis, who was elected as one of only two swimmers in our entire LSC as an Athlete Rep !!

That’s it for now. When I get exact dates and more details, I will pass them along. Thanks for being part of Nitro ! Coach Mike.

What is Long Course? What is Short Course?

4/14/2010 Here’s a note from the American Swim Coaches Association: What is Long Course, What is Short Course?

“One of our pools is 25 yards wide by 50 meters long. Why isn’t the pool 25 meters by 50 meters or 25 yards by 50 yards?”

For years the “American Standard Short Course” pool has been a 25 yard pool. Almost all high school pools and most college pools are 25 yards long and most high school and college meets are run as short course meets. USA Swimming Club teams generally swim short course meets from September through March.

The international standard is meters. The Olympics, Pan-American Games, and World Championships are held in 50 meter pools. In this country, most 50 meter pools are outdoors due to the cost of building an indoor 50 meter pool. For that reason our long course season is generally from March through August. As more and more indoor 50 meter pools are being built and as the United States focuses more on international swimming the distinction between the “short course season” and the “long course season” becomes less distinct and more meets are going to the long course standard throughout the year — with the exception of high school and college swimming which will generally remain short course yards.

At this time (April) many teams are training short course but are preparing to go to long course when their outdoor pool is ready. Some lucky teams are located in a climate and have access to long course pools all year around. And some lucky teams have indoor 50 meter water all year around.

Eventually we all will be at swim meets during the spring and summer that are long course. This will cause some confusion about times. The times will be slower because a 50 meter swim is approximately 5 yards longer than a 50 yard swim. Another factor are turns. There are less turns in long course swimming and generally, turns are faster than swimming — we can push off the wall faster than we can swim. (Although for some of our swimmers who have not yet mastered a turn, the turning process is slower than swimming!)

Some people attempt to “convert” a short course time to a long course time or visa versa. The conversion factors are not precise due to differences in turns, strokes, and individual’s ability to swim the extra distance at speed. Conversions can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointments, or to a false sense of achievement. For those reasons we do not convert times. We simply say that each swimmer has two sets of best times, one for long course and one for short course.