That's Why They Call It Trials

We are coming to the end of a terrific week of swimmimg in Omaha. There have been many ups & downs, many learning opportunities, many celebrations and comissirations.

Coach Pike said to me, that's why they call it trials. How true is that statement. That's what the swimmers and coaches have been doing here this week, trying ourselves, see where we are at and more importantly where we need to go.

Myself I know we do a lot right, but I don't think we were ready mentally to handle 8 days of competition and the mental energy we need to stay focused and relaxed. We have to prepare our athletes better. It's great to get into the meet, but now we need to learn to be in the meet at night (Finals).

We have 4 years to do that and I'm ready to go for it

Trials - USA will need this man

Well last nights finals had a cool story line. In the semi finals of the men's 100 Fr on Thursday, the great Jason Lezak was 9th. He is 36 years old and coaches himself (I don't recommend that for obvious reasons).
He is down and out, but wait Ryan Lochte scratches, so he is in.

Last night lane 8 he steps up, races and gets 6th, good enough to make the Olympic team. Some people just have that uncanny instinct to make the most of an opportunity.

Go back four years, the men's 400 Fr Relay at the Olympics. Michael Phelps going for 8 Gold Medals, he needs help in the relays. The French are overwhelming favorites for Gold in the relay, in fact add up their individual times they are almost 2 seconds faster than any team. As the race progresses the French have a body length lead going into the last swimmer. Up steps Lezak against the French champion. Well I hope you all know the outcome of the race. It was the best relay ever.

The USA need athletes like Lezak on the team. They bring leadership to the newbies and it's great publicity too.
But more importantly we should all learn to take opportunities when they arise and make the most of them. Most opportunities only come along once in a while, so always be prepared for them

Trials - Mistakes Happen

Well the highs and lows keep coming in Omaha. On a bright side we have started to relax and swim better. We had several solid time trials on Thursday.

Our lone swim was from Bryan, our most decorated athlete in our history. Well even a professional can make mistakes, at the wrong time and place. In the heats of the 100 Fr, they march the swimmers out in heat 8 and there is Bryan, ready to go. He tightens his googles and they BREAK. He has no spare pair, he can't go back and get a pair. So being this great sport of swimming, someone throws him a pair from the crowd. He rushes to put them on, gets on block, starts race and......... They come off when he dives in.

Bryan still swims within 0.5 of his best time, but fails to make the semi finals.

You would think he would be crushed, we were. But no he comes to warm down and says my fault, I made a mistake, I should have had a spare pair with me. This is the biggest stage of our sport, I should have been prepared.

That was one tough learning experience. I guarantee he'll have a spare pair of googles when he marches out for the 50 Fr later in the meet.

Mistakes do happen, but it is how we respond to them, that is most important.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Well Coach Ron's boy Charlie did it, he made the team, Wow was that a lot of fun. One tough swim, especially after his let down in the 400 on Monday night.

Watching finals last night made me think what goes into making this team, maybe there is one or two common threads. One that came to mind was all these Olympians go pass their comfort zone not on occasions, but every day. They have that uncanny ability to push past the physical, but more importantly at this level the mental comfort zone.

The legend Stanford coach Skip Kenney said "get comfortable being uncomfortable". Great words of wisdom for our athletes, but what about us adults?

When we were young didn't we try everything until we found something we liked to do? Personally now I'm older I very rarely do anything new, so I am very comfortable. As a goal for the future, I am going to do something that gets me out of my comfort zone, something challenging (not to much), but something I would not normally do. I challenge all that read this to do the same. It will be like reliving our youth.

Finals Wednesday Night

Well I'm sitting in the athlete section tonight at trials and the energy is awesome. Oh to be young

Looking forward to seeing Coach Ron's swimmer Charlie Houchin in the 200 Fr. If he makes the top 6 he is in on the team. Would be great for him, but also Coach Ron and well deserved

Trials Wed Morning

Last nights swimming was cool. The swims in most events are not fast, but the racing is excellent.

Competition means to compete "with" not against. You see this in every race at swim meets. Not many sporting events have competitors congratulate, hug or hi 5 each other after a tough race, but swimming is different.

Looking forward to more excellent races today too

Trials Day 2

Last night we saw some great races and a massive firework display between those races. This meet is a spectacle and USA Swimming does a great job with keeping the crowd involved for the whole 90 mins

Today at prelims we swam about the same. Not great but good. It seems many athletes here are not doing best times, even Phelps & Lochte haven't had one. The pressures just being here are enormous and the faster you are the bigger those pressures get. But that is why we compete at trials or any other big meet, we test ourselves to see our we can handle that situation.

It's all about learning to deal with pressure and to perform as best one can under pressure. I can tell you for certain we are doing that.

Day 1 Trials 2012

Well for us was a mixed bag today. Some good swims, but no best times.
It seems the whole meet was like that too with some very fast times, but overall slow swimming. Which coaches don't like one bit.

Could be nerves? Could be traveling? Could be about one million things, but that's why the cream of the crop will start to rise as the meet goes along.

Most impressive today was Ryan Lochte swim in the 400 IM. I predict a World Record tonight or in London. His start and turns and tech on every phase of the swim was near flawless.
Hope you all have a chance to watch and be a part of history.

Tomorrow our guys have the 200 Fr. I predict some fast swims

The Day Before It All Starts

Well its here after 4 years of work and play the USA Olympic Trials start tomorrow morning. We are lucky as a team to have 9 qualify and 8 competing for a chance to make the team that goes to London.

On the deck today you can feel a "lot" of nervous energy. Its contagious and its the only time I get that feeling. Its a natural high,  a giddy feeling and worth the wait. The last time I felt like this was waiting for my future wife to make that walk down the aisle.

First I hope the Trials live up to all the hype, there will be great stories unfold, not all uplifting, but all necessary to be told. It will be a week where everyone here will always remember.

Second I know the 8 athletes we have here will represent our team fantastically. They have all worked hard, but have had one great organization support them.

2012 Trials - General Thoughts

The RAYS will be sending 9 swimmers to compete for a place on the 2012 USA Olympic Team. This is not only a great individual honor, but a great honor for us all.

Without our organization from Mom & Dad, our volunteers, officials, sponsors, coaches and ALL swimmers, these individuals would not have had the tools to help them realize their dream.
Trials comes around every 4 years and only 1% of all USA Swimmers get the opportunity to compete. I know each one of them deserve this chance, so lets show our support to all of them.

2012 - Samantha Bosma, Kristine Polley, Shannon O'Malley, Melissa Postoll, Rebecca Postoll, Alec Cohen,  Bryan Lundquist, Marshall Seedorff, Jimmy Yoder

SC Sectionals 2012 Day 1

Well the RAYS arrived for Day 1 and were awesome in the 800 meter Fr.

The pool here at Greensboro is a beautiful Olympic size venue. Plenty of seating and a very fast tank. We started the night with Becca Postoll recording a best time and a 2nd place finish with a 9:01

SC Sectionals 2012 Day 1

Well the RAYS arrived for Day 1 and were awesome in the 800 meter Fr.

The pool here at Greensboro is a beautiful Olympic size venue. Plenty of seating and a very fast tank. We started the night with Becca Postoll recording a best time and a 2nd place finish with a 9:01 which qualifies Becca for Summer Junior Nationals. Then we had Melissa Postoll swimming a best time of 9:21; Lila Best with 9:30 and wrapping up the girls 800 Rebecca Justus with a 26 second drop 9:34. The Boys only had one swimmer compete in the 800 and we had a winner with Jimmy Yoder recording a 1st place and a US Open cut of 8:18.

The Men's 800 Fr relay placed 5th with all 4 swimmers recording their Best time or close to it. The relay of Jimmy Yoder, Michael Dugan, Chris Lohff & Nathon Burwick had the honors.

Sectionals Day 3 & 4

Well I found it hard to keep up the blog from day to day, wow coaching is such an emotional roller coaster.
The last two days of the overall went well, although we were a little flat on Day 3, but bounced back on day 4. As the RAYS coaches always say "Sunday is our best day"

Some of the many highlights was Becca Postoll finishing 3rd in the 400 Fr with a great race, then in the next final our Alum Alec Cohen finished 3rd in the same event. Then Jimmy Yoder was 3rd in the 1500 Fr and we finished with two more 3rd's with Melissa Postoll in the 200 Bk and our Men's 400 Medley Relay of Jarrod Blanton, Chris Lohff, Jimmy Yoder & Michael Dugan.

Overall a 4th place finish was an excellent result from us. We took 19 swimmers and 17 scored a great team effort. Kids were great, atmosphere great and the parents behaved :)

Sectionals Day 2

Well things got better with some amazing RAYS swims. We had 10 swimmers make finals tonight and they represented us amazingly. For starters we had two new Olympic Trials qualifiers today which runs our total to nine.

The Postoll sisters are both heading to Omaha in June. Melissa made the 200 Bk cut with a 2:17.1 & then tonight her sister Rebecca set a new 13/14 GA Record in the 200 Fr with a 2:02.7. Finalists tonight include Gabriel, Jimmy, Nathon, Chris,  Alec, Michael, Taylor & Lauren.

To cap off the night the Men's 400 Fr relay finished 3rd. The RAYS are simply swimming great, with great support from the parent group too.

SC Sectionals 2012 Day 1

Well the RAYS arrived for Day 1 and were awesome in the 800 meter Fr.

The pool here at Greensboro is a beautiful Olympic size venue. Plenty of seating and a very fast tank. We started the night with Becca Postoll recording a best time and a 2nd place finish with a 9:01 which qualifies Becca for Summer Junior Nationals. Then we had Melissa Postoll swimming a best time of 9:21; Lila Best with 9:30 and wrapping up the girls 800 Rebecca Justus with a 26 second drop 9:34. The Boys only had one swimmer compete in the 800 and we had a winner with Jimmy Yoder recording a 1st place and a US Open cut of 8:18.

The Men's 800 Fr relay placed 5th with all 4 swimmers recording their Best time or close to it. The relay of Jimmy Yoder, Michael Dugan, Chris Lohff & Nathon Burwick had the honors.

RAYS Swimmers Compete at College Championships

This time of the year is fun being a swim coach. It's the time when all the athletes hard work starts to pay off and we get to see that at the championship meets. What's also fun is watching the athletes, that have come through our program, competing for their University. Presently we have approximately 20+ such athletes doing that, this weekend. I love watching the results, sending good luck texts and above all seeing what our program does best. Helping dreams come true.

Stingrays does that about as best as anyone.

College swimming isn't for everyone, but it is one of our goals, that goes along with our philosophy of "Training For Life"

Final Days

Well we are in the home stretch at MVN and its been a really good eye opening trip.

Yesterday I had the honor to help Coach Bill with the Olympic group. They did a set 1x1500 @20 + 1x800 @11 x3 dec 1-3
The fastest 1500 guy was 16:03 Girl 16:57; 800 8:25 & 8:57. Pretty impressive to me that is.

We had a meeting with Siga Rose about their 8&under swimmers. Wow that lady is a fire ball. Great energy, great ideas and a great coach.

Today we get to talk about Olympic group, help with their workout today, I expect it to be recovery:) Then we are going to dinner with some staff members, then home to the ATL Saturday.

Then I'll be on the deck Sunday morning. I love my job

MVN Trip

Well the weather was excellent on Tue and it was nice to see the whole team in action.
MVN have the swim groups set up in Divisions, a very interesting concept. They have 8 & under, 10 & under, 11/12 and 13/14 swim together. Each division is broken into 3 groups. They move everyone up at the same time, twice a year depending on the swimmers birthday at the Championship meet for that season.

It works very well if 1. you have the numbers 2. the staff and 3. probably at one location.
The Senior division is based on time standards.

MVN Trip

Well I arrived at LA Orange County airport yesterday and it was pouring. Never seen it rain so hard in CA. I met up with my coach buddy Russ from Swim Mac Carolina and we headed over to Mission Viejo Swim team complex.

On arrival we met the staff and watched the Olympic group train for 2 hours. They did a set of 400's which I observed two girls end the last one under 4:20 LCM.

Russ and I then met with Coach Bryan Dedeaux who is their 10 and under division coach. We had an informative discussion about how they organize and coach their 10 & Unders and other various topics.

Today we are attend their staff meeting.