Further thoughts.

I think the ideas listed in the article I just posted are interesting ones. Particularly, the approach of taking a long term look at a sport and a career. It is very easy to lose sight of our long term successes in order to, as they say in article, "peak by Friday".

My brother sent me this the other day and I really enjoyed it. The basis is that it does take 10 years or 10,000 hours to develop a skill or to reach a level of excellence. (As a side note, remember that excellence is individual. In other words, MY success as a swimmer is reaching MY potential. Comparing that to ANY OTHER athlete is short sighted. Our skill sets are different.) How we develop those skills has much more to do with training and practice than it does with racing and competition. Competition does not have that much of a place in young athletes, but as we get older it becomes more and more important.

I took away from the article that a long term, patient approach is the way to go. Pushing for success and winning young has its costs later because typically, technique and growth are cast aside in order to win. It stunts the development of athletes. I've watched it in my own program and in others and have been very guilty of it myself. The goal at RACE is to avoid that. It is not a system that all people agree with and it is not for everyone, be we are happy with.