Junior Olympics

It seems like every race for a GCIT Swimmer at JOs thus far has produced a best time.

Congrats to the 11-12 Girls 200 Free Relay for taking first: Ali Bennett, Brittany O'Brien, Brittany Bayes, and Emily Shenk.

Keep up the fast swimming back in NJ!!!

Sectionals...Day 1

Sectionals at the University of Maryland got off to a great start this evening with the girls 1500 free and boys 800 free. Hayley Edwards dropped 25 seconds off of her personal best time to record a Senior National cut time and finish 3rd overall.

Not to be outdone, Len Paccione dropped 12 seconds in the 800 to finish 9th and Ian Keyser dropped 5 seconds to finish 20th.

Tomorrow is the first full day of competition and the entire group will be in action here.

Congratulations

A big congratulations goes out to former GCIT Team member Bill Cregar. At the Southeastern Conference Championships this past weekend Bill clocked a 3:47 in the 400 IM. This time gives him a provisional bid to the Men's NCAA Championship Meet in Federal Way, Washington next month. Bill will find out the week of March 10th if he gets invited to the meet. Regardless, this is a great accomplishment for anyone, let alone a freshman. WAY TO GO BILL!!!

Also congratulations to Kacey McCaffrey. Kacey, representing NYU at the UAA Conference Championships, achieved NCAA Division III provisional cut times in the 500 free, 1000 free, and 1650 free. WAY TO GO KACEY!!! A special note on Kacey's swims: she spent three weeks away from training this winter to work with Habitat for Humanities in Peru. Great people who swim well, that's what its all about!

Big Weekend Ahead

We've got a big weekend on tap. The New Jersey State High School Meet of Champions will be held at GCIT this weekend. The preliminaries are Saturday and the Finals are Sunday. Many GCIT Swimmers will be in action representing their high schools. Last year GCIT Swimmers walked away with six individual state titles along with the South Jersey Female (Joanna Thomas) and Male Swimmer (Bill Cregar) of the year awards. Bill was also named the Male Swimmer of the Year for the entire state of New Jersey.

This year we have a number of swimmers who made the qualifying times for the meet, a great accomplishment in its own. A big "Good Luck" goes out to everyone competing in the meet this weekend. If you are interested, psych sheets for the meet can be found here. Note, some of the entry times are very, very wrong. If you say to yourself "Wow, some National Records are going down this weekend!" rest assured that those times are incorrect.

Not to be outdone, our team has a big meet this weekend: the Double Last Chance Meet hosted by DST. This is an interesting concept as the "Double Last Chance" comes from the fact that the meet has a preliminary and finals session. For most of the swimmers attending it will be their first chance to swim Trials and Finals at a USS Meet. The coaches are all excited about the meet because they feel a number of swimmers are ready to pop off some nice swims and time drops. Good luck to everyone competing in the Last Chance Meet this weekend.

Me...I'll be in Michigan this weekend as for the third year I will be attending the Men's Big Ten Championship. Last year was exciting as Minnesota edged out Michigan on the last relay of the meet to take the title by 5 points. But I have it on good authority that the Wolverines are poised to take the title this year. It was at this meet last year that I witnessed probably the most amazing swim I have ever seen in person (and I have seen a number of world records fall in person) when Matt Greevers of Northwestern clocked a 1:39 in the 200 backstroke. A 1:39 200 freestyle would have made most 800 Free Relay teams but to see someone do it in backstroke was just amazing. I haven't fully decided on it but I may do some live blogging from the meet.

NO PRACTICE

Practice has been canceled for this evening due to the weather. There will be practice tomorrow for Gold, Senior 1, Senior 2, and National. Practice will be from 5:15 am to 7:15 am.

Snow!

Tjitske has a huge project due on Tuesday, her last major hurdle before receiving her doctorate. She also has an internship this year at a school in Morrisville, PA but really needed some more time to finish this project. She got her wish today thanks to, as she says, "Father Winter". I told her this is probably the last time she will ever welcome snow during the week. Its amazing how quickly your mood about snow changes when you move from the world of being a full-time student to the world of working full-time. Those of us in the latter group pretty much fall into two categories: the group that has to trudge to work in these conditions and the group that really needs to get work done but can't get to the office today. Neither group is very fun to be in on a day like today!

GCIT is closed today. I along with the three swimmers who showed up for morning practice didn't find this out until we arrived at the school at 5 am. Kind of unlucky for us that the snow only started to get bad by that point. A decision has not been made on practices for afternoon. You can expect a decision on that by 2:30 pm.

Regaining Our Home

Today at practice I realized something very important: we were the only ones there! It is really tough working and training there between November 15th and the middle of February with the number of high school swimming and diving teams there every day. But from the middle of February through next November 15th the high school teams are not there and there is more space (and less noise) for us to deal with.

It is important to remember that the GCIT Aquatics Center is was built so the area high school teams would have a place to train. Without them and their needs we wouldn't have this great facility. Yeah, it gets loud and crowded and we have to have practices canceled or really tough times (see you at 5:15 Saturday morning) because of swim meets. Yet it is completely worth it for the lane space we have outside of these times.

So take the time enjoy the space, the lower noise levels, the longer daylight hours (10 hours and 59 minutes of sunlight tomorrow, increasing by two and a half minutes each day)...I believe we have earned it.

1 + 1 = 2

Above is one of the most basic addition problem there is. This is something that is taught to us at an early age and is the basis of most of our knowledge of arithmetic. As we progress we move on to subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentages, algebra, trigonometry, calculus...and on and on (well, at least for some). All of this learning started with 1+1=2 and developed into (again, for some) a complex form of mathematics. For all of us, 1+1=2 became a known entity, something that is consistent and something we do not have to be reminded of at the beginning of every math class throughout our schooling.

One of the first things a beginning swimmer will learn is streamlining (like a kayak, not a canoe...right Bronze?). A good streamline is essential to maintaining speed off of the start and turns and leads to great body position during that lap (and great form in all four strokes). Just like the math problem 1+1=2 coaches should not have to tell the swimmers to streamline off of the walls at the beginning of every practice (or every set or every repeat of a set). If progress is to be made a swimmer needs to be consistent in their learning as well as their swimming during practice. Some of the people you see at the top of the results event after event and meet after meet are not the most talented swimmers around, but they are certainly the most consistent and persistent swimmers around. Talent will only take you so far, but you have to do the rest through excellent practice attendance, consistent learning and hard work during practice and a willingness to improve yourself on a daily basis.

Forget About the Groundhog

Some people look forward to February 2nd when groundhogs around the country (like Punxsutawney Phil) are pulled from a hole at sunrise to determine the proximity of springtime. Me, I prefer to look further ahead about two weeks when teams begin to gather in Florida and Arizona for baseball's Spring Training. That, my friends, is the truest indication that spring (and summer, for that matter) is right around the corner.

The approaching spring also means the coming of another championship season. Five months into the season with just over a month to go a swimmer can do more to harm their preparation for the championship meets then to help it at this point. Practice attendance is vital right now but that alone will not get you to your goals. You have to be doing everything in and out of the pool to prepare yourself for March. Now is a perfect time to assess your eating and sleeping habits and make necessary adjustments so that you are ready for peak performance in March.

COUNTDOWN
NJ High School State Meet of Champions and DST Last Chance Meet: 14 Days
Eastern Zone Sectional Championships: 25 Days
MA Junior Olympics: 26 Days
MA Senior Champs: 32 Days
MA Mini Champs: 42 Days
Eastern Zone All-Star Meet: 46 Days
MA Regional Champs: 48 Days

These are the meets the coaches have been planning for since August. These are the meets the team has been working toward since the first day of practice. They all seemed very far away when the preparation began but they now appear on the horizon.

(Oh...95-67 and repeat as NL East Champions with a trip to the NLCS in October.)