The Race Club Family,
Thank you for the tremendous opportunity that you’ve created for swimmers of all ages and backgrounds to train with The Race Club. We truly enjoyed our week in the Keys and the opportunity for our daughter to spend time with world-class athletes and coaches. We decided to bring Nadia to train with you because the values and mission you shared with us for The Race Club aligned with our family values and the type of coaching we wanted our daughter to be influenced by. As non-swimmers we were not clear whether she had the talent needed to pursue her dreams but we knew a week at The Race Club would definitely challenge her swimming abilities and her desire, will and confidence. While we were excited about her opportunity, we were a little nervous since she was only nine, and not sure how she would respond. We were amazed with her response.
For starters, you provided us with a “profile” form to gauge our expectations and we independently accumulated feedback from Nadia and her coach and then provided our own insights into our daughter. You arranged all of our accommodations and training schedule and then you picked us up, to the delight of both Liliana and Nadia in the van. Their time with you was great.
It was very clear that Coach Jon had read and processed Nadia’s profile. We observed Jon shift his coaching style between the swimmers that were training with her so that she could understand what was being coached and improve the technique she needed help with. Jon was patient, focused and challenging and injected humor and stories to get the swimmers to comprehend what he was teaching them. The focus on drills was terrific and he knew exactly how to get each swimmer to push themselves. What was also amazing is how the diversely aged swimmers that ranged from Olympian to Master swimmers to high school age to our nine year old bonded, focused and learned together. It was a wonderful balance of training; dry land, starts, flip turns, stroke technique, cardio, and gym. The Dartfish stroke analysis was priceless for Nadia and us. It’s been fun to refer to the video and have her hear Jon’s voice reminding her of what to do now that she is at home.
The facilities were amazing (we now have pool envy)! Nadia will say that “the big pool” was cold… but that’s Nadia and why we’ll come back in August when she will be thankful that the water is cooler. We like the balance between mornings in the Olympic pool and afternoon’s training with the local swim team. The diversity of location helped balance the training and energy of the swimmers. You also encouraged us to observe all of the training sessions so that we could soak in the knowledge and feedback we needed to ensure our daughter’s coaching would continue to be positive when she returned home. Her coach was impressed with the improvements that he’s seen and the new coaching he can give her on technique. As a result of our trip and her training, her coach has decided to move Nadia up earlier to train with the next level because she now needs to be challenged and coached in her “technique” at a more advanced level and she is thrilled.
In closing thank you for the wonderful extra touches; meeting your family, the friendly locals (parents and coaches of the swimmers who train in the Keys) and how comfortable they made us feel, Nadia’s time talking with Gary and his invitation to race, Jon’s willingness to let her try everything (including the bungee), the personalization of her Dartfish video, the accommodations that allowed us to have down-time and were beautiful and affordable… the list could go on. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience and we can’t wait to return. Thank you for sending us home with a feedback form, I am sending letter instead as I couldn’t eloquently fit our responses on it. Our first long course is this weekend, we look forward to sending Coach Jon exciting updates on how training resulted in success.
Many thanks from the Nabhan’s
UPDATE:
“You wouldn’t have believed your eyes with her performance this weekend in her first long course. Nadia was sick as a dog last week with a virus, but rallied for the weekend. She kept saying “What would Jon want me to do” and sure enough… 3 BB times in 50 fly, 50 back and 100 back, 2 heat winner ribbons… and just missed her 50 free by 2 seconds, she ran out of steam… no stamina left after being so sick and just completing her 200 free. I can’t tell you how excited she was and all she could talk about was emailing you and Jon with the results from this weekend. Best of all, she smoked kids on her team that were beating her in short-course, it was simply amazing her coach and other parents were floored. Her strokes were smooth, head down and the only goal she didn’t accomplish was her streamline “start” off the block but she did it under water. We’ve had to re-set all of her goals for long-course since she did so well in the first meet.”
