SWAT’S STAR TIMES

Parent Information:

The following articles were taken from USA Swimming Web Site for your information. If you want to learn more about this or other topics you can visit their web site at www.usaswimming.org.

Top 10 Hardest Things to do in Swimming

10. That First Big Event – Whether it’s the 400 IM, the 200 fly or the mile, there’s always that event that has swimmers shaking in their boots when they do it for the first time. Once they pull it off, though, they realize it was easier than they thought.

9. Diving in for Morning Workout – That first brisk plunge is all you need to wake yourself up at 6 a.m.… if only you can throw yourself in.

8. Keeping Your Goggles on while Diving In – At any given meet, you’ll see countless age groupers swimming the 50 free with goggles around their necks. Heck, even some senior swimmers have problems with this one.

7. The Flip Turn – Think about the first time you tried a flip turn. You were probably either too close to the wall, or too far, and it took weeks of practice to do it right every time. Even today, you probably still miss walls and get water up your nose from time to time.

6. The Breaststroke – Who hasn’t been disqualified in the breaststroke? This stroke has about a million little rules to remember and requires a great deal of timing and coordination – no wonder all the top breaststrokers are such specialists.

5. Pacing – Whether it’s the 200 or the 1,000 free, pacing is the key to the race. Unfortunately it sometimes takes people their entire careers to finally get it exactly where they want it.

4. Making the U.S. Olympic Team – Of about 250,000 athletes registered with USA Swimming each year, only a maximum of 52 (26 men and 26 women) are chosen every four years.

3. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal – Of the millions of swimmers in the world, you have to be the best swimmer in your event on that given day. But hey, somebody has to win it.

2. Breaking a World Record – How tough is this one? Only three American men (Lenny Krayzelburg, Aaron Peirsol and Michael Phelps) and two American women (Janet Evans and Natalie Coughlin) currently hold individual long course world records.

1. Make a National Cut in Every Event – Only a handful of American swimmers in the history of the sport have been able to do this.

(This article on nutrition was taken from the USA Swimming web site www.usaswimming.org and I thought it will be helpful to share with all of you).

Grilled Bell Peppers

Even though the bell pepper is not a true pepper you would find on your dinner table, you can thank the likes of Christopher Columbus and other fellow sea traders from 1494 for the addition of the bell pepper into American cuisine.

Bell peppers (Capsicum frutescens) created high interest in a time when spices from India and the East Indies were in demand. Traders were on a constant look out for the next big spice and this offered them a pungent and versatile option for flavoring food.

In this day and age, bell peppers are liked for more than just good flavor. With low levels of heat, high vitamin C levels and the ability to help lower free radicals in the body, bell peppers make a wonderful addition to any outdoor feast.

This simple, easy to prepare favorite can be grilled up and added to a variety of foods for awesome low guilt flavor!

Ingredients:
2 bell peppers cored and sliced into broad, flat, pieces
1/2T extra virgin olive oil
Kosher Salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Toss bell pepper pieces with the oil and seasonings until evenly coated. Arrange each slice skin side down on a hot grill. Grill one to two minutes and flip sides. The peppers are ready to remove when it has slightly softened.

Serving Suggestion:
The grilled peppers can be served with your favorite grilled meats, veggies, on sandwiches or with hummus just to name a few.

4 servings
37.5 calories per serving
15 calories fat per serving

UPCOMING EVENTS:

- DSSC Turkey Splash Meet, November 17-19 Tigua Pool (11200 Santos Sanchez).

- Del Norte Meet December 9 Shawer Pool (Loop 375 & Yarbrough).

- EPAP Leo Cancellare Meet, December 15-17 Tigua Pool (11200 Santos Sanchez).

- Please register online or contact Jose Alcoreza, dues to be paid by registration deadline on all events.

More Information:

Speedo’s tip of the week.

Tips for Distance Races
This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from Chris Thompson, the American record holder and 2000 Olympic bronze medalist in the 1500m free. Thompson offers some advice on swimming distance races.
Thompson’s Tip:
Distance swimming is not an easy discipline to master. In order to be successful, I'd first recommend that you try swimming distance races in a few different ways. First, try going out hard at the beginning of the race and see how you hold on. (We call this positive splitting). The next time you swim, try going out at a more controlled pace, or even a little slower, and see if you can pick up your pace as the race progresses. (We call this negative splitting). There have been many successful distance swimmers who swim both ways. You can also try a third option where you start the race at a solid speed and just maintain it the whole way. (We call this even splitting). I've tried all three techniques many times in my career.
Once you figure out what kind of distance swimmer you are – a positive splitter, a negative splitter, or an even splitter – then you will be able to focus on that type of training in your workouts. Also, it is very important that you talk to your coaches about it. They will be able to give you input as to how you should be training and what sort of pacing would be best for you.
Finally, just make sure you are calm. If you start out a distance race with too high of an energy output, you are going to be in trouble late in the race. The best advice I can give you though, is just to keep practicing distance racing. In workouts, really go out there and swim the best you can on the distance sets and take every opportunity to swim distance races at competitions. Distance swimming, as with anything in life, is easier with experience.

Social Events (Birthdays) HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Aldrete, Carla (11-03), Holcomb, Rachel (11-07), Ruiz, Sofia (11-12).

From The Board:

Effective with the September 1 dues statement all team dues categories will be increased $5 per month. Example: Pre-Competitive will increase from $35 to $40 per month; Senior dues will increase from $55 to $60 per month. At the same time we will adjust monthly dues for improvements in ability and/or aging up. Rafael’s group is based on swimmer ability (lane), and Polly’s group is based on age - Black 13 to 14 years old, Senior is 15+.

The dues increase has become necessary to improve the Club’s cash reserves. Our dues have remained the same since the Club’s inception October 2000, but it has finally become absolutely necessary to address our financial requirements. While the number of swimmers has increased year after year, we also now have four coaches. Because of more swimmers, we rent more lanes for practice.

The good news is we have established a quality swimming program with over 90 swimmers. Thanks to the hard work of our coaches, parents and board.

Tom Lore

SWAT Treasurer

Before the Big Time

By Bob Schaller

Special Correspondent
Splash Magazine: May-June 2005

Most Olympians didn’t start out with gold stars on their foreheads. In fact, many of them were just like you when they were younger, working hard at practices and having fun in the pool.

So just because you might not be at the top of the heap right now doesn’t mean you should give up your hopes and dreams. That next big swim could be just around the corner.

All you have to do is hang in there and stick with it, and you’ll accomplish great things.

“I was really a late bloomer,’’ said Kaitlin Sandeno, a gold medalist at last summer’s Olympics in Athens. “I wasn’t winning anything when I first joined a club.”

Kaitlin’s Olympic teammate, Maritza Correia, says her swimming experience was similar, and that her career has been a series of ups and downs – great years followed by so-so years, and bad years followed by great swims and trips to the medals podium.

“When I first started with club swimming, I wasn’t very good – maybe a win here and there,’’ she said. “My whole career has been in waves – big waves where I win five or six medals, and then lows where I don’t win anything or I drop off. But after those drop-offs, it seems like I’ll come back and break records and win a whole bunch of events.”

And you never know what direction your talents will take you. Larsen Jensen, the Olympic silver medalist and world record holder in the 1,500m free, actually started as a sprinter.

“I first started swimming, and it was just a summer league, not USA Swimming or anything like that,” Larsen said. “I’m from a small community of maybe 10,000 people. So I went 30 seconds in the 50 free, which was pretty good at the time in my small town for a 12 year old – or at least I thought it was. I was beating people in practice and winning.”

Another late-bloomer, Olympic gold medalist and American record holder Ryan Lochte, remembers finishing dead last in a big race when he was 12, and it wasn’t until he was 14 or 15 that he started training harder and winning most of the races he entered.

When he was younger, Ryan was inspired by a friend who constantly finished ahead of him at meets.

“This (guy) was one of my best friends, and he just always beat me, and one day I said to myself, ‘I hate losing – this won’t happen again,’” Ryan said. “I remember that, because it was 1992, and I watched the Olympics on TV, which was also inspiring.’’

While he wasn’t always at the top of his game, Ryan does remember his first win.

“I was 8 years old,” he said. “It was a 25 freestyle, and I have a picture of me holding the first-place ribbon I won.”

When times improve, a special opportunity might arise for swimmers, whether it’s to make a national cut, earn a college scholarship or just feed off the encouragement that comes with improvement.

Larsen said simply putting in the work itself often leads to an unexpected breakthrough.

“In a way, that mindset of just working my behind off in practice really helped me, because all I wanted to do was improve, and I gave myself no reason to think otherwise,” he said. “So the harder training led to major time drops.”

Kaitlin says sometimes, those breakthrough years can just sneak up on you.

“I don’t even know what caused my breakthrough,” Kaitlin said. “I think it was just getting comfortable in the environment, putting in a lot of hard work and picking the right events.”

Maritza said she still isn’t used to being known as a “record holder.”

“One of my Florida records (in the 50 freestyle) just got broken at Junior Olympics,” she said. “It’s so cool, because my brother coaches down there, and people talk about ‘breaking Maritza Correia’s record.’ That’s such a great feeling, to know that something I’ve done is pushing kids now. I never imagined that would happen.”

As Kaitlin points out, that big change often comes with discovering what events suit a swimmer best. The Olympians interviewed for this article recommend not specializing until at least physical maturity has taken place.

And even when that’s occurred, most elite swimmers say doing other strokes is still important, if not just to break up the training, then to build muscles with different strokes and maybe discover untapped potential in another event.

Ironically, many of the Olympians didn’t, when they were younger, even swim the strokes or distances that earned them Olympic medals.

Larsen still believed entering high school that he’d be a sprinter.

“My freshman year in high school is when I really got serious about swimming,” Larsen said. “I thought I’d make Junior National cuts in the 50 and 100 freestyle. Then I got a coach who said, ‘You will be a distance swimmer.’ I liked that idea, especially the tradition and heritage of the event. I had gone 17:30 in the mile, and in this book I was reading about swimmers, (an Olympian) had gone a time similar to that. So I started comparing myself to him and got into the mindset of a distance swimmer.”

Maritza’s list of events was diverse as an age grouper. She swam everything.

“I did the 400, the mile – all the freestyles and butterflies and even breaststroke,” Correia said. “Every meet we went to, I swam something like 12 events. And though I compete mostly in the freestyle (sprints) now, I still don’t train just for freestyle. I mix in a lot of IM work.”

Kaitlin doesn’t like the “specialization” tag because she feels some swimmers might be limited by it.

“I still think, even at my age (22), that I might want to try some new events,” Kaitlin said. “I think especially as an age grouper you don’t want to focus on just one event or even one stroke. You could be a 100 fly standout and end up being a great 100 freestyler. Or maybe you have a 400 in you that you’ve never thought of until you try it.”

November Birthdays

Aldrete, Carla D 11/3

Portilla, Rodrigo 11/3

Holcomb, Rachel M 11/7

Ramos, Jennifer 11/9

Martinez, Rene 11/10

Navarro, Xavier 11/11

Ruiz, Sofia 11/12

Snyder, John 11/18

Calvillo, Elliott A 11/26

SWAT Board of Directors

President: Manuel Quiñones / maquinon3@aol.com

Vice-Pres: Rosalba Bazar / rosalbabazar@sbcglobal.net

Secretary: Angelica Castrejon / acastrejon@elp.rr.com

Treasurer & Officials Chair: Tom Lore / tlore@handgards.com

Fundraising: Laura Nicli / laurapnicli@elp.rr.com

Entries Chair , Team Roster, & USS Registration: Jose Alcoreza / alcoreza@att.net

Team Equipment & Border Rep: Kerry Lore / klore@epelectric.com

Safety Chair: Jim Holcomb / jholcomb@utep.edu

Newsletter: Hugo Blancas / hugoblancas@hotmail.com

Events: Armando Licon / ALICON2@elp.rr.com