Fall season of 2009

The Fall season is over for RallySport Aquatics and I have been pondering the up and down. I was reading a friend's (Greg Keller) website tonight www.mudandcowbells.com and he did a season wrap up of his cross year. A look at the good and bad for 2009, I would do one for cross racing but it would included a lot of bad and one good (switching to single speed). So I decided I would do one for what I do well , coaching.

We had a good fall. I told you the goal at the start of the year was Junior cuts. We got one more. Two more guys fell desperately short, but they swam well.

I think we did some things really well. We did more sustained efforts and the distance and mid-distance reaped the rewards. The new cut was in the 200 back and our sect swims were in the 200's. I think that the kicking we did is reflected in that as well. We did well in our pace training and we did well in some regards with team building.

What we need to better is simple. We need to race more. We need to race in workout, in meets, to the car, whatever, but the boys who were the most successful were the ones that hammered each other every day. The ones that layed back or tried to save themselves had no shot. I think we need to bring back Friday Night Lights with regularity. I sometimes avoided getting up on the blocks in favor of more "training" but that time is over. We need to line em up and go at it. I did not do many Wednesday Worlds this cross season and I was much worse off for it.

We need to find a way to get the girls to challenge one another. The boys do it, but the girls don't go there. A couple do, Anna challenges the boys and Heather is a huge racer, but they are High School a lot these days.

Once again I tried the road of convention and found some success there. I must thank Jorge for a lot of that. However, there is a road that we have gone down before at RallySport. It is a lonely one and one that I have been criticized for a lot, but we need less yardage and more intensity.

I'm pretty excited for it. I hope they are too.

Let's get it on!