Swimming with a Sense of Urgency

We have reached the point of the season I like to refer to as "The Grind". Its a grind because we are coming down off of a high in competition (Pittsburgh Christmas Invitational and NJ State Meet) and training (Winter Break). The end of the season is now within sight but still a bit off on the horizon. We now face two months of training through conflicts and practice changes (see the calendar for this information) as well as several swim meets for which most swimmers will not rest at all. Some may say: what's the point?

The most important thing anyone can take from attending meets unrested is learning how to race tired. Imagine if you can do a best time tired...how much faster are you going to swim primed and ready for that meet? We need to go into each and every meet and each and every race at these meets ready to swim with a vengeance and, more importantly, a focused sense of urgency.

Swimming with a sense of urgency is a key ingredient to peak performance for a swimmer, perhaps the most important. There are many swimmers who are great in practice but when it comes to a meet something is missing. I want all swimmers on this team swimming each and every race like it is their last race ever...how would you want to go out? Hopefully you want to finish with a best time and, most importantly, a performance you can look back on and be proud of for years to come.

There are stories we hear every once in a while of people performing incredible feats of strength in times of dire circumstances; like the person who reaches down and lifts a car off of someone's legs to help save their life in a car accident. Its not that the person suddenly gained super-human strength...its that the urgency of the moment and the adrenaline coursing through their veins drove them to perform that feat of strength. The truth of these situations is that the ability to perform this feat was always in this person, it just took an extreme sense of urgency to bring it out of them.

Each and every single swimmer on this team has the ability to swim out of their mind...beyond what they believe they can do. Dan and I proved this at a Gold 2 practice in November when we allowed each group member to pick one of their events and race it in practice...if they did their lifetime best time they were allowed to get out of practice. That night the group went 20 for 22 in best times. TWENTY! The swimmers had a sense of urgency and were able to use that drive to bring the absolute best out of them. Everyone has this in them...we need to see it on a regular basis NOW!

Coming next, Part 2.

Floswimming.com

Coach George is in the process of putting together a team site at www.floswimming.org. If you have never visited this site you should take some time to do so. The site is run by swim coaches and gives you a lot from exclusive footage from the Olympic Games and Trials to full coverage from college dual meets to interviews with swimmers and coaches from around the country. By creating a team we can upload pictures a videos and give the team some more National recognition.

How do you become a member (as a swimmer) or a fan (as a parent) of the team? Go to www.floswimming.org and create a profile for yourself. Once you are logged in you can go to your floswimmer on the top menu bar and click on "Teams". Seach for "Greater Philadelphia Aquatic Club". Once you get to our team you can follow the steps to either become a member or a fan of the team. From what I can find the most members and fans (combined) any team has is around 95. We need to blow that out of the water!

From your floswimmer account you can do a lot of great things like track your workouts, track your meet results, and your weekly/monthly/yearly yardage totals. This is a great way to see what kind of work you are doing in practice and an even better way to understand how that work will effect your performance in various meets.

Looking Back: 2008

Briefly looking back at 2008 I realize its going to be a hard year to top. So many changes for the good: changes for the team, my family, and myself. How about a Top Five?


5. Adding to the Family. Many of the swimmers have had a chance to meet Izzy the newest member of our family. She's a Pug/Shar-Pei mix who is quite energetic.

4. 2008 Olympic Trials in Omaha, NE. I got the chance to fly to Omaha, NE for the 2008 Olympic Trials. It was great to watch the greatest swimmers in this country go at it for a shot at the ultimate swimming dream. But the highlight for me was to be there to see four former GCIT/GPAC team members swim in the meet: Bill Cregar, Mike Joyce, Jamie Marks, and Christian Sprang. You can look back on the Trials and Olympic Games through my blog posts from the summer.

3. World Champions! I have friends who think October 29th will be the most memorable October Day in my life...more important than October 4th. I've been waiting my entire life to be able to witness a World Championship in Philadelphia and hoping the entire time it would be brought here by the Phillies. To see the players on that team come together through injuries and other problems to hoist the championship trophy in October was amazing. I also took note of the way the manager, Charlie Manuel, conducted himself and drove the vehicle that brought the team to the World Series Title.

2. GCIT Swimming becomes Greater Philadelphia Aquatic Club. By the beginning of July I was certain my time with GCIT was coming to a close. I was getting inquiries from other teams (club and college) and I knew that working under the umbrella of GCIT was no longer in my best interest. Then on July 8th the newly appointed Superintendent at GCIT informed me the school wished to cease opearation of the Club Team and have a new private company take its place and pay the school pool rent. This became an opportunity to put together a program with the fixed goal of becoming one of the best club teams in the country. GCIT would still get the money they were making off of the team over the last few years while the new company would be able to provide for the swimmers on the team in a more direct and focused manner without the overhead of a public school system. GPAC allowed Tjitske and I to stay in the Philadelphia area (our first choice all along) and gave the coaching staff more tools to help the swimmers become the best they can be.1. The Wedding. Yes, October 4th will be the most memorable October date in my life. I have been blessed to have met someone as wonderful and supportive as Tjitske. Most importantly, supportive of the path I have chosen with this program. We had a beautiful day for a wedding and a great time in Aruba on the honeymoon.

YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!

Finally. Just plain finally. To finally have a World Championship in this city is amazing. For it to be the Phillies who have brought that World Championship here is a dream come true.

There will be no practice on Friday. If you go to the parade or not, enjoy the day. We'll see you at the meet on Saturday.

Dr. Alan Goldberg's Website

Hopefully everyone got as much out of the presentation by Dr. Goldberg yesterday as the coaching staff. I am sure many of you would like to follow up with his website check out all of the stuff he has under "Free Online Resources". If you like what you see there are plenty of great products he has available for purchase.

The website is: www.competitivedge.com

Back...

Yeah, so with everything that has been going on over the last two months I kind of completely forgot about this blog. It was not until last night when I went online to read my mother-in-law's blog regarding her work in Haiti that the light bulb went off in my head. So I took a brief moment today to change the name of the blog, the banner, and a couple of the links. Don't expect much out of this blog for the next month of so. We are really working hard to get everything on track for the team and this is something that has to take a backseat to those efforts.

But we will be back posting very soon...until then GO PHILS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Live Michael Phelps Chat from Chicago 2016 Committee

Some of you may know that Chicago is one of the finalists to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Having been in the city this past weekend I think it would do very well hosting the Games with its biggest bonus being the large number of knowledgeable and enthusiastic sports fans in the city. You would not believe the hospitality shown to us (dressed in complete Phillies garb) by Cubs fans over the course of the weekend. This is a city that will truly embrace the events of the Summer Olympics as well as the ideals of the Games.

Today the Committee working to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago will host a live video web chat with Michael Phelps. Phelps will talk about his historic campaign in Beijing as well as his support for the Chicago 2016 bid. The chat will begin at 6pm Eastern Time but the chat room will open early for people to talk about Chicago's Summer Olympic bid.

To access the live chat and for more information go here: www.chicago2016channel.com.

For more information on the Chicago 2016 bid visit the official website.

This Blog Will Be A Changin'

This blog will be undergoing some changes over the next couple of weeks for obvious reasons. Don't get used to the current name because that will go away once we settle everything with the team.

Be excited! The changes coming for the team are exactly what we need to advance this program now and ten years from now.

FINAL Team Tryout

We will have one final team tryout on Wednesday, September 3rd at 6 pm. YOU MUST REGISTER FOR THIS TRYOUT BY EMAILING msprang@gcit.org.

Some of our practice groups are at or beyond capacity and, thus, have been closed for further registrations. We are trying to come up with a way to accommodate all interested swimmers, however that may not be possible.

We will have more information on the situation at the tryout on the 3rd.