Champions Until Judgment Day

RACE CLUB MERCHANDISE IS HOT!

The Race Club SOLD OUT! ...of merchandise that is. We had to replenish the inventories, revisiting the well of creativity to drink from the good cup and come up with more cool designs. I think that you'll be dazzled by the new looks.


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And if you're into swimming faster sign up for your camp NOW! We have very limited space left for the holidays and the pool is chock full of Olympians going all out for Beijing. Get in on the action and be part of history in the making!

Click here to read what others have to say about their camp experience.

THE PEP TALK:

The litmus test for a great coach in the movies is how well they give the pep talk. A good pep talk should have a "holding back the tears" moment followed with a fire in the belly crescendo of yelling in the manner of "I'm angry and I'm not going to take it anymore!" thing that is followed with loud roars from the team accompanied by grimacing faces, lots of huzzah and fist pumps and then a sudden stampede towards the opponent, or starting blocks.

Coaches, it's good to take off your hat during the "holding back the tears" part and even though you're talking to the team you should seem like you are talking to your hat. As the crescendo builds start slamming your hat into your other hand like you're trying to throttle the life out of a baby kitten. Spit when yelling. Turn red. And that's pretty much it. You got yourself a winning pep talk. It's important not to spend too much time thinking out what you are going to say because it's not the words so much that make a difference. These are matters of the heart, not the mind.

TRAINERS AND RACERS:

There are "trainers" and there are "racers".

You can't tell me that a swimmer can do these sets coaches give like 30 100's descending 1 to 3, 1 @ 90% effort, 1 @ 95% effort, 1 @ 100% effort (repeat 10 times).

If you swim a 100 free at 100% you should be reeling in pain, seeing stars or blue dots, not physically able to push off, let alone swim another 100.

That's the difference between training and racing. Though both are swimming they are not the same. It is perfectly acceptable to be a workout swimmer. If you are a competitive swimmer it's one thousand times better to be a racer. It takes hard work in practice to be good at any level, so don't get me wrong there.

That ability to train day in and day out with the consistency of the tides is a quality that can be admired but what these tough workouts demand on your body is not very similar to what a race demands, physically or mentally. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what group you fall in with, we as swimmers are gauged by our race results.

Race results are what determine the difference between a rec swimmer and a great swimmer.

If I were a coach I would want one or two of those trainers on the team to be a rabbit for the racers. They'll always be out in front pushing the others to work a little harder, until race day where they will go the exact same time that they have been trained to go, the exact same time that they did repeats of all season long. Give me the racer every time. It's a lot harder to teach- arguably impossible. A good coach can motivate anyone to train a little harder.

Those trainers can get so damn snooty during the season. But when their career is over they usually carry a chip on their shoulder the size of a kickboard. They are champions until judgment day.

THIS IS IT. TODAY IS THE DAY!

The "Today is the day!" attitude should be practiced as often as you swim laps. If it's tried at a meet and it doesn't work it's because it hasn't been tried before.

A coach can push a kid through 10K practices for months, get to the meet and say's "Okay, today we do STARTS OFF THE BLOCKS!" The kid hasn't done a start all season long and the coach expects the kid to be equal or better than every one else off the blocks.

The only reason why this isn't a good example is because if you have a bad start in any event other than the sprints you can still win the race. If you don't practice that "Today is the day! It's time to throw one down! Step up or step off! I'm going to do this thing like it's never been done before!?" race mentality, you'll NEVER win.

So, how do you practice it? Get out swims. I'm not kidding. What do coaches say when kids do a get out swim? "Okay, this is it! A big chance to show us what you've got! Let's see it! Today is the day!" It's the same thing they tell the kid right before their race.

If you're the coach you can have them "get out" of a 400 that you were never going to give them in the first place and you're teaching them something more valuable than anything they could ever learn from that 400 at the end of practice anyway.

Or pair the kids up to swim their race. Winner gets out and loser swims the 400.

Signed with love and affection,
Racer Gary Hall Jr.