Ashland = Winter Wonderland

What do you get when you mix swimmers starting to taper with an uncharacteristic Virginia snowstorm?

Fun times, of course.

Most of the team gathering for a post-practice photo op.

Several swimmers' attempts to make snow angels in their suits.

This will make for good storytelling down the road: "When I was a college swimmer, we had to walk to practice, in the snow, in the dead of winter, uphill both ways, in our swimsuits!"

DISCLAIMER: No swimmers were harmed during the making of this post. All swimmers pictured voluntarily chose to make the ill-advised trek out into the snow.  

Turning the Corner

We're close. We're not there yet, and there's still some work to do, but we're getting there. As time passes and we move from early January to mid/late January, I can see our swimmers starting to come out of the performance sapping fog that annually results from the heavy training loads of mid-December through mid-January. Now that the training peak is behind our swimmers, and volume is starting to come back down, I'm seeing all the signs that point to fast swimming in the near future. Bodies seem to be recovering better, morale is rebounding, and practice performances are starting to be more indicative of what our swimmers are capable of. Meet times aren't quite there yet, but they will be soon. Our swimmers are on the verge of looking sharp once again. Late January and early February dual meets are frequently where many swimmers put up their best in-season efforts, and I'm expecting this to hold true for our team in the last dual meet of the season, and the last chance to gear up for championships, next Saturday.

Here's to fast swimming in late January and February. It's not a matter of 'if' it will happen. They're already turning the corner. The only question is 'when.'


My educated prediction: Soon. 

Buckley Earns Conference Honor

Lizzy Buckley became the second swimmer R-MC swimmer this year to grab the ODAC Swimmer of the Week distinction on Monday. The award follows Lizzy's performances at the Hollins meet over the weekend, in which she won two individual events and took part in a first place relay (that swam exhibition). Individually, Lizzy won the 50 freestyle in 26.30 and then made her debut in the 200 fly, winning the race in 2:26.57. She also teamed up with fellow sophomores Virginia Mauch, Ellie Shea, and Sarah Almond to finish first in the 200 freestyle relay to close out the meet.

R-MC's Lizzy Buckley Named ODAC Swimmer of the Week

Next up for the swimmers is a 1 pm matchup against Bridgewater this Saturday, January 16th. With just two more home dual meets before the conference championships, we're looking to sharpen up the performances and improve upon some season bests/seed times.

Winter?

As Virginia and much of the rest of the east coast was getting pummeled by one of the biggest winter storms in recent memory over the weekend, our team enjoyed beautiful weather in south Florida all of last week. Here's the view from the short course pool at the Deerfield Beach high school just as the sun sets:

A practice setting I could get used to.

Training Trip Day One

Day one of our trip is in the books. We're actually not down in Florida yet though. It's a two-let trip from Ashland to Deerfield Beach, and the first leg brought us to Savannah, Georgia tonight. We got into our hotel just outside of Savannah earlier than expected, and so we decided to drive into downtown Savannah to find a place to eat. This turned into quite an adventure. First, I'll say that downtown Savannah looks very charming, with a really cool restaurant/shopping district, narrow cobbled streets, and some picturesque homes within walking distance of the waterfront.

I'll also say that finding downtown parking for two 12-passenger vans on a Saturday night is an almost impossible task. On street parking wasn't going to happen for us, and the narrow cobbled streets were pretty much off limits. We did find two parking garages...with a maximum clearance of just over 7 feet. Unfortunately, our van (with a bike rack on top) clears 7 feet easily. We found this out the hard way, twice, backing up traffic as we backed out of the cavernous garages that did not want to house our oversized vehicles. We didn't make too many friends in doing this. I'm pretty sure our team is no longer welcome in downtown Savannah. In the end, we were forced to retreat to a more suburban Applebee's for a late dinner. It was quite an ordeal, but I'm glad we were able to venture into town during our brief stay here in Savannah.

Hitting the tarmac again at 7 am. Next stop: Deerfield Beach, Fl.

Meet Recap - YJ Invitational

Our swimmers competed in the 8th annual Yellow Jacket Invitational over the weekend, held right here at R-MC. Six women's teams competed, plus two men's teams. Our Yellow Jacket swimmers came out on top on the women's side, with a 94 point margin of victory over second place Mount Saint Mary's University. This meet comes at a busy time of year for our swimmers, falling on the weekend in between the last week of classes and final exam week. To say that student-athletes are under stress at this time of the semester is an understatement. Nevertheless, we did have several highlights from the weekend:
- Rebecca Stevenson claimed Co-Individual High Point Award honors by winning all 3 of her individual events. Rebecca took the 500 free and 200 free on Friday, then dominated the 1650 on Saturday.
- Tracy Spurrier had 3 solid swims in the 500 free, 200 back, 1650 free combo. The 200 back on Saturday was a lifetime best.
- Sarah Almond anchored the 200 free relay with a 24.19 split on Friday, while playing safe on the relay start. Might have been sub-24 with a quicker relay exchange.

Race videos will be posted shortly. Complete results of the meet can be found here.

I'm looking forward to getting our women some quality yardage in Florida next week. The 10-day forecast is looking good for Deerfield Beach!

Time is Flying by at the Pool

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this season is really flying by. It's almost hard to believe that our Yellow Jacket Invitational is this coming weekend, but here we are at the symbolic (and almost literal) midpoint of the season. Our swimmers are working hard as the semester comes to a close, with classes ending this week and final exams next week. Before they know it we'll be heading down to Florida, which will hopefully be sunny and warm (it was when I was down there just a few weeks ago).

For now, I'm looking forward to some good competition and fast times at the invitational. The women have put in some quality yardage this fall, and it'll be exciting to see how they can swim.

Big Weekend

Last weekend was a busy one for your Randolph-Macon swimmers. Friday was an away dual meet against St. Mary's of Maryland, and Saturday was a home meet against Washington and Lee. The team came away with two losses on the weekend, but it was a huge success for two reasons: the team learned some valuable lessons about what it means to compete on Friday, then showed some serious heart in putting those lessons to practice on Saturday.

In Saturday's meet, our swimmers competed in every race and ended up taking 8 out of 14 against W&L, including both relays. This marked the second straight year R-MC has taken both relays in this meet. Our 400 free relay team of Lizzy Buckley, Rebecca Stevenson, Cat Ware, and Sarah Almond also broke a pool record en route to their win.

Next up for the team is our own Yellow Jacket Invitational on December 4th and 5th.

Most of the races from Saturday are now posted on YouTube. Check out our channel on YouTube to see them.

Our First SOTW

FYI, SOTW = Swimmer of the Week for the ODAC. How many acronyms can I cram into this post?

Congratulations to our very own R-MC freshman Cat Ware (VA Beach / ODAC), who picked up the first conference swimmer of the week award for the 2009-10 season based on her performances against NCAA D1 Radford last weekend. Cat won all 4 events (100 fly, 200 fly, 400 MR, 400 FR...see previous post for more details)against RU, in what was her first collegiate dual meet.




In case you were keeping track, 11 is the magic number of acronyms. In order, they are: SOTW, FYI, ODAC (Old Dominion Athletic Conference), R-MC, VA, ODAC (Old Dominion Aquatic Club), NCAA, D1, MR (Medley Relay), FR (Freestyle Relay), RU. If I knew how to, I would have typed the answers upside down as on a cereal box.

Radford Meet Recap

Last Friday night we took a smaller group of Macon swimmers out to Radford to go up against their D1 program in our first meet of the year. The flu knocked several of our women out of action for the week, and so we had just 13 swimmers in the lineup for the meet. The key to winning any dual meet is placing first in more individual events than the other team (it's not rocket science), as scoring is 9-4-3-2-1 for individual events. Obviously, when you have fewer swimmers to snatch up those 2nd-5th spots, it is especially crucial.

So the team knew what they had to do, and they went out and did it. R-MC won 137-121 by taking both relays and 7 out of 12 individual events. Freshman Cat Ware led the way for us with 4 wins in 4 events. Individually, Cat took both butterflies (1:02.44 and 2:20.53). She was also a part of the winning 400 medley and 400 freestyle relays. Fellow freshman Rebecca Stevenson did her part by going 3 for 3 on the night, taking wins in the tough 1000/500 combo. Rebecca was also on the 400 freestyle relay team. Joining Rebecca and Cat on the 400 freestyle relay were Lizzy Buckley and Sarah Almond. The 400 medley relay consisted of Caitlin Proctor, Kellianne Mullin, Cat, and Sarah. The other 3 individual winners for R-MC were Sarah in the 50 free, Lizzy in the 200 free, and Kellianne in the 200 breast.

In addition to the W, the team also gained valuable racing experience in the same pool where they'll be finishing the season in February, as Radford will once again host the ODAC Championships for 2010. It was a good meet for the team and a good way to start off the competitive phase of the season.