By Julia Cunningham, Swimming World College Intern
Instead of going away for Spring Break, I stayed on campus my sophomore year to gear up for my first shot at NCAAs. I was the only one at my Division III school who qualified, so I had the pool all to myself. I also had all of my coaches’ full attention. Sets, intervals, even the practice schedule were all specific to my needs. As stressful as it was, it got me in the best shape I have ever been in for competition. It certainly played a big role in making me an All-American.
Since the end of the collegiate season in mid-March, I’ve had to train on my own. Due to NCAA rules, my college coaches aren’t there to write or structure my practices or to push me through them. The years of training that come after USA and club swimming present an entirely new challenge: an “off season.” For many DIII, and some DI swimmers, April to September is mostly shapeless.
Forrest Davis, a Division I swimmer, spent his summer preparing for Nationals, and shooting for a Trials cut with every chance he had. But without his collegiate regimen, it was hard to keep his training consistent. As he put it, “it is much harder to stay focused on a goal when you’re also trying to get used to unfamiliar club practices.”
The summer of a DIII athlete such as myself, on the other hand, is spent figuring out the corporate world. A 9 to 5 workday – first as a lifeguard, later as an intern – is not the best way to stay in shape. As my college coach often says, the best way to stay in shape for swimming is to swim.
It only takes a few days to get out of shape, but working also eliminates a chance to swim with teams that practice in the middle of the day.
When a career as a professional swimmer isn’t an option, and with the ‘real world’ looming closer every year, what is the best use of that off season as a student-athlete? Another DIII student-athlete, Katie Fago, found herself in a similar situation. Before she accepted a position as an intern at Reston Hospital in Virginia, she could easily practice with her club team.
Photo Courtesy: Nicholas McMillan
After beginning the internship, “I was kind of upset because I thought that doing this would minimize swimming, and I really wanted to stay in the pool this past summer to prepare for senior year,” Fago said. “So I thought I would have to go to a pool on my own and train after work.”
We agreed that you lose steam quickly when swimming alone, without a team or coach. Fago ended up finding a USA team, Machine Aquatics, that held practices from 4:30 to 6:15 a.m. It worked out, and at the Futures Championships in North Carolina last August, she swam best times!
After some hunting, I also found a local team that practiced in the morning, though not quite as early. I was able to swim with them four times a week before going to my job. I worked out on my own the rest of the week at a local health club.
There was another hurdle. The club coaches had their own year-round swimmers to look after. When I went to Futures with that same team, I wasn’t sure if I could discuss my races with them in detail when all the information they had to work with was my best times on paper and some splits.
I learned differently. After a decent 200 fly swim that qualified for finals, one of the coaches let me know that my kick was off. I was kicking only once, instead of twice. I made sure to pay attention to my legs during warm-ups that night. After a best time, I immediately let her know that her tip had been 100 percent right. As it turned out, she didn’t have to intimately know the history of my strokes to fix them.
This summer has certainly been a test of patience and willpower as I navigated my way through my first office job as a corporate intern, while at the same time preparing for the upcoming college season. As I pack my bags to return to school, I’m excited about returning to my own team, coaches, and regimen. Getting ready to enter another year of competitive swimming, I feel that I’ve been able to use this summer to prepare for a promising season.
Zoe McIlmurray