Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
T
his is the first edition of the Swim Nova Scotia Masters Newsletter “Lane Lines”; we hope
to have this newsletter available four times per year to provide our members with the
latest information on masters swimming in Nova Scotia & in Canada!
Swim Nova Scotia Masters National Representative: Nigel Kemp- [email protected]
N
igel is currently coaching with the Halifax Trojan Masters Swim Club; he has been
coaching for over 30 years. He is the past Head Coach with the Dalhousie Tigers Swim
Team and Halifax Trojan Aquatic Club. Nigel’s technical expertise and knowledge in the field of
Human Kinetics is an asset to swimming in this province. Nigel represents Nova Scotia on the
Board of Directors for Masters Swimming Canada and Chairs the Coaching and Leadership
committee. He is one of 12 candidates who are seeking election to the new eight member
2006-07 MSC Board. The election takes place at the end of April. Information about the
candidates is available at www.mymsc.ca.
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Representative: Alanna [email protected]
A
lanna is a former swimmer with the Wolfville Tritons Swim Club; she still holds four N.S.
Provincial age group records!! She is currently a member of the Halifax Trojan Masters
Swim Club. Alanna represents masters swimming on the Board of Director’s for Swim Nova
Scotia and is the Province’s nominee to the new MSC Council of Representatives for 2006-07,
two of whom will become representatives to the MSC Board.
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Registrar: Leslie Neate- [email protected]
L
eslie is a former swimmer with the Dartmouth Whalers Masters Swim Club and
Shearwater Bluefins Swim Club. Leslie has been our provincial registrar for over 10
years!!! Compiling and maintaining the registration database and disseminating all communiqué
to the membership throughout the year.
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
S
pecial thanks to the Dartmouth Whalers for hosting this year’s provincials at the
Dartmouth Sportsplex! This year we had a record of 114 swimmers registered!!! Thanks
to the meet manager Robert McNamara for running another fabulous Provincials! And of course
thanks to Lori Collins for being the meet recorder!!! Awards are being mailed to club contacts
through the month of April.
Mixed Relay:
• 200m Freestyle Relay (Josh Ballem, Mike Murray, Chris Stewart, Aaron Maszko) (Dal)- 1:36.4
• 200m Medley Relay (Jamie Wildsmith, Chris Stewart, Josh Ballem, Aaron Maszko) (Dal)- 1:48.41
25-29 Female:
• Barbara Sochanski (Unatt)- 50m Breaststroke 36.87, 100m Breaststroke 1:20.56
25-29 Male:
• Aaron Maszko (Dal)- 50m Freestyle 24.17, 100m Backstroke 1:00.41
• Jamie Wildsmith (Dal)- 200m Backstroke 2:17.64
• Josh Ballem (Dal)- 50m Butterfly 25.54
30-34 Female:
• Amy Woodworth (Trojans)- 200m Backstroke 2:37.51, 200m I.M. 2:36.14, 800m Freestyle 10:14.17
35-39 Male:
• Brent MacNeil (Unatt)- 50m Freestyle 25.42, 100m Freestyle 56.37
• Duane Flowers (Trojans)- 50m Butterfly 27.83, 100m Butterfly 1:03.49, 200m Butterfly 2:33.50
45-49 Female:
• Sue MacLeod (Dal)- 100m Freestyle 1:07.99, 50m Butterfly 34.31
• Veronica McMillan (Truro)- 1500m Freestyle 22:52.47
45-49 Male:
• Don MacLeod (Dal)- 100m Backstroke 1:16.34, 100m I.M. 1:15.05
50-54 Female:
• Linda Hunt (Trojans)- 100m Freestyle 1:16.51, 200m Freestyle 2:50.54, 100m Breaststroke 1:38.31,
• Paulette Sarsfield (Unatt)- 50m Butterfly 38.56
50-54 Male:
• Peter Webster (Unatt)- 50m Freestyle 27.62, 100m Freestyle 1:01.26, 50m Breaststroke
34.27, 100m Breaststroke 1:17.37
• Mike Brown (Truro)- 50m Backstroke 38.25, 200m Backstroke 2:52.99, 400m I.M. 5:43.90
55-59 Female:
• Ewa Gawlik (Trojans)- 800m Freestyle 14:00.75, 100m I.M. 1:40.87, 400m I.M. 6:57.45
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
60-64 Male:
• Mike Rockwood (Truro)- 50m Breaststroke 41.26, 100m Breaststroke 1:33.07
70-74 Male:
• John Farley (Veligers)- 100m Breaststroke 1:40.72, 200m Breaststroke 3:41.79, 100m I.M. 1:36.41
• Peter Grant (Truro)- 400m I.M. 9:50.49
M
asters Swimming Canada has launched its "My MSC" site which offers online registration
and new fitness programs. The site includes features for competitive swimmers and for
fitness oriented swimmers and is a new service that comes with your MSC membership. Visit
www.mymsc.ca
The Million Metre Challenge is a Masters Swimming
Canada program designed to promote swimming for
health and fitness. The program encourages regular
participation through tracking of cumulative distance
swum and recognition as the swimmer reaches
various milestones.
Registered swimmers record the distance swum in
each workout and the system tracks their overall
progress and calculates various statistics. When a
swimmer reaches a milestone distance they receive
the award for that distance. Paul Girard (Halifax
Trojans Masters) is currently 10th in the Million
Metre Challenge!!!!
Congratulations to 61-year old Halifax Trojan Masters stalwart PAUL GIRARD who in March
swam into 10th spot in Canada for metres swum by over 1,000 masters swimmers registered in
Masters Swimming Canada’s Million Metre Challenge. After a 66th placing in February with a
48,550m total Paul recorded a 79,550m total to claim 10th spot and eclipse the superb 12th
place effort of Trojan DIANA SMITH in February (75,950m). Collectively the overall metres
total of the 36 HTACM members who have registered on the MSC website at www.mymsc.ca
has increased every month (position amongst 94 participating teams is also indicated):
Sept. 06
Oct. 05
Nov. 05
Dec. 05
Jan. 06
Feb. 06
Mar. 06
65,300m
363,375m
467,500m
593,470m
875,663m
892,750m
901,460m
6th
7th
5th
3rd
6th
4th
4th
Since September of the 39 swimmers identified on the MSC website as having
passed the quarter million metre mark six are HTACM members: Diana Smith (398,
425m), Ken Kam (388,700m), Paul Girard (355,500m), Linda Hunt (313,200m),
Tricia Grant (281,800m) and John Whalen (277,300m). Congratulations!
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
Take a swim, plan to party - It's the 2006 Canadian Masters Swimming Championship in
Calgary, May 19-22!
W
ith generally nice weather, a big pool and a
pub crawl, Calgary is set to play host to the
2006 Canadian Masters Swimming Championship!
Hotels are filling up fast! Most of the hotels are
releasing their room blocks in the near future - a
complete list of hotels is available at the link below.
Forms can be downloaded from the competition website
http://www.cascadeswimming.com/2006CanadianMastersChamps/tabid/105/Default.aspx
Send completed forms to [email protected] or fax them to (403) 2633695 or mail to Cascade Swim Club C/O Talisman Centre, 2225 Macleod Trail South, Calgary,
T2G 5B6. If you have questions about the event please email Chris Wilson at the above email
address.
O
ne of the most notable improvements that we see these days is that athletes are taking
care of their hydration (drinking water). It is especially important to do this during
longer harder workouts as the body will begin to fail without the replenishment of fluids. Water
balance is very important for many bodily functions especially to an athlete who is performing
in a tough workout situation. Muscles deprived of water will essentially shut down and begin to
fail or cramp when swimmers get dehydrated. Top level swimmers who train for more than two
hours at a time can lose up to five pounds of sweat during a difficult workout. Try to encourage
your swimmers to hydrate well before practice and to continue hydrating during practice and of
course after. It is very common to see all kinds of bottles strewn across the end of a bulkhead
ready for those swimmers who need to take a drink. Swimmers should carry their own water
bottle as sharing bottles can be very bad for passing on illness. Mark your bottle well as many
bottles look alike. Water bottles should be cleaned regularly as you don’t want stale water
remaining in your bottle for to long. DRINK UP!!!!
O
ne of my first coaches drilled into me that the basis for long term development is to
teach young competitive swimmers the importance of swimming the individual medley.
He felt that by knowing and training all the four competitive strokes swimmers would be more
balanced and probably have a better overall fitness.
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
Although swimmers will most likely eventually specialize, learning to do all four strokes at a
young age is very important to the overall development of competitive swimmers. As a coach I
also believe in this philosophy. Swimmers who tend to specialize at a young age have a greater
chance to burn out and might be more susceptible to sports injuries. Keeping swimmers
interested in long term can be a difficult challenge to the best of coaches as swimming
becomes a very demanding sport as athletes get older and begin training countless hours to
master their craft. Having a good background in all strokes allows the swimmer and coach to
constantly change their emphasis on which stroke they need to work on next. This variety is
very good for keeping swimming interesting, and as most of us know that their will always be
times when swimming becomes a tad boring.
I also feel that mastering all strokes is a bigger challenge for most athletes and there is always
some weakness that can be worked on.
To be a successful IM swimmer, obviously we as coaches must try to make sure that each
swimmer is a good as they can be in each of the four disciplines. Most of the worlds best IMer’s
have very few weaknesses and equal work must be put into all four strokes. Because the
butterfly stroke is the most demanding I feel some extra work must be done with butterfly. It
is much easier to swim an IM if your fly is in very good shape. Many good IM’ers have good fly
speed but sometimes it takes too much out of them when it gets time to swim the other three
strokes. IM swimming is all about being able to change strokes quickly and not spend time
recovering from the previous stroke. I also feel great IM’ers have to have a strong breaststroke
leg as well. Breaststroke is the slowest stroke and therefore when it is your slowest stroke
there is a greater amount of time lost. I’ve seen some very good IM swimmers who have been
extremely successful in IM swimming by having a tremendous breaststroke while only having
moderately good other strokes.
There are so many types of training sets which an IM swimmer can do and it is probably the
easiest set for a coach to design. There are different approaches on how to best plan IM sets
whether its to stay with the IM pattern or to practice each stroke individually. I recently read
an article stating that a coach has had more success swimming IM’s by working on each stroke
separately. I personally think IM training should be very broad based and should encompass
both IM pattern swimming mixed with individual stroke training. It definitely is the iron man
event of competitive swimming and allows swimmers to be competent in all the strokes and all
the events. Michael Phelps the American super star is a fine example with his versatility. He
actually dropped one of his events in Athens (200 back) so he could concentrate mostly on his
IM and fly events. Although he did not swim it in Athens his best time would have won him the
silver medal. Here is a good example of an IM set;
4x 50 fly @ 1
4x 75 kick choice @ 1:30
4 x 100 IM @ 1:45
4x 50 back @1
4x 75 kick @1:30
2x 200 IM @ 3:20
4x 50 brst @1
4x 75 kick @ 1:30
400 IM@ 6:30
4x 50 free@1
4x75 kick@ 1:30
800 IM
Swim Nova Scotia Masters Provincial Newsletter Spring 2006
I
f you have a suggestion for future newsletters please email Alanna Mason with your ideas
& we’ll be sure to include them in future issues!
Our next newsletter will feature a masters swimmer & coach!