ARIZONA Training Camp (Feb 12-21)
Hello TEAM,
On February 12th, Coach Chris and chaperon superstars, Matt and Paige Links, took 13 Laser athletes south to Arizona to escape the winter icy tundra of Saskatoon, to train and race for 8 days in the Phoenix desert sun! What an adventure!
Goals of the Camp: Leading into this camp Coach Chris and Coach Ryan discussed what we wanted to achieve with the athletes over the week. We landed on a 5 points; 1) Raise our Aerobic Floor (and Ceiling), 2) Level up our Kicking, 3) Build Better Pushoff/Kickout habits, 4) Perform 'True Speed' work, 5) Explanation before Activation (know the goals of the practice before we activate/warm up). Overall we wanted to continue to build and create a "Culture of Excellence", something that we have committed to building with this program. After the week I can honestly say this group did an outstanding job with the training and executed very well.
Swim Meet: We touched down on Thursday afternoon, swam Friday morning, did a flush out swim, then hit up the ASU (Arizona State University) Pool in the afternoon, to prime the athletes with a little speed work and then we spent the next 3 days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday racing YARDS for the first time. It was short, fast and super fun! We had a full racing program and everyone got the opportunity to race at finals which was cool to see. Overall the meet was very well run and a great experience for our LASERS to race some American age group athletes in an outdoor meet environment.
Training: After our 3 day meet we went into 3 and a half days (7 workouts) of training. We didn't waste any pool time and ended up swimming around 47,000yards over the week, not including the yards we swam Saturday, Sunday, Monday. When taking into account the yards swam at the meet, including warm-up/cool down and the racing events, and after doing the conversion from yards to meters, it works out to almost 50,000 meters (50 kilometers) of swimming! #BigWeek #BuildThe Engine The best part was how well the athletes handled the mileage, minimal complaints and they executed set goals with confidence and control. I'm very proud of their effort this week and I'm very excited to see them all race this upcoming month as we take on our championship meets.
Camp Debrief: Thursday afternoon (our last full day) after practice we all assembled in the great room (at our awesome Rental house) and did our TEAM camp debrief. We reviewed the camp goals, and all our wins, we went around the group and shared our favorite part of the camp as well as what we are most looking forward to for the rest of the season. We then presented our classic, much anticipated 'FUN AWARDS' along with a gift of an ASU (Arizona State University) lanyard to attach to their swim bag, to remember all the great times;) We then went and climbed a mountain...seriously...we hiked Squaw Peak, and yes, it was EPIC!!!
Looking ahead there's lots of exciting racing on the horizon, including; Junior A Championships (Short Course), Man/Sask Championships (Short Course), 2nd Annual Bridge City Classic (Long Course) and the 1st inaugural Best of the West Fest (Long Course). Let's lock in over the next couple months and put all our great training to work. Let's go LASERS!!!
As we said in Arizona; "The Engine is Built, Now lets DRIVE!!!.....(and I'm a Surgeon!)" (IYKYK)
#OutTrainThem