Caitlin Daday - (Author)

Motivational Monday: Swimming with Teens Helped Make Swimming Fun Again When I came home from college in May, I was burned out. I knew that if I wanted to hit the goals I set for myself for my senior season, I had to train often this summer. However, I was so emotionally, mentally and physically dra...

Wellness Wednesday: How to Stay Healthy to Prevent a Sinking Season As the NCAA dual-meet season continues to ramp up, and we approach midseason, we are also heading into cold and flu season. While it is important to stay on top of our training program, it is also equally important to take care of ....

Tracking Food: Where My Protein Comes From - Source and Location Over the summer, I began seriously tracking the food I eat. As my junior year of college concluded, I realized  my athletic career was rapidly approaching its inevitable end. With that realization came a determination to get serious ab...

Finishing Strong: The Power of ‘Last One, Fast One’ Every swimmer knows the popular phrase, "Last One, Fast One." You can hear it echoing across the pool at the end of the main set at any practice. It helps swimmers rally for the final session of multi-day meets. For all of us, "Last One, Fast One,"...

The Importance of Grit: Possessing this Trait Can Promote Greater Success Something my college coach talks a lot about is grit. Elite swimmers are not purely just the most talented swimmers. They tend to boast the most grit, or ability to reach down for something special. The swimmers who can grind ...

How Swimming Helped Me Manage My ADHD: 3 Key Focal Points I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) when I was in second grade. ADHD is usually characterized by inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, and is one of the most common childhood neurodevelopmental disorder...

The Final 15 Meters: Where Races are Won Something the Olympics has made abundantly clear is that races are won and lost in the back half. Over and over again, we saw races where a swimmer had what seemed like a bulletproof lead over the rest of the field, only for someone to blast home the last 10 ...

A Farewell to Club Swimming: You Will Be Missed I was a child who had endless energy, loved to feel the water on my skin and after my first race, wanted more. The pool was mine. I jumped in and poured all that energy, escaping into a place very few go.  Even though I played several other sports alon...

Motivational Monday: Rest is Needed - Learning the Hard Way Growing up, I was taught that taking time off to rest was a bad thing. I believed that all my hard work and progress would go to waste if I took a day off. Before Covid-19, the most time I took off from swimming in a year was a week for spr...

Wellness Wednesday: Injury Survival Tips (Physical and Mental) to Make it Through the Aches, Pains and Worse A swimmer's worst nightmare is being told that they are too hurt to swim. That an injury requires rest or rehabilitation in order to prevent it from creating further damage. This scenario mea...

U.S. Olympic Trials: A Collaboration of the Past, Present, and Future Something that made watching the Olympic Trials a little more special this year was seeing all the familiar faces. I’m not talking about the well-known stars that everybody knows. I’m talking about the swimmers I grew up racing ag...

As someone who’s favorite event is the 100 butterfly - to swim and watch - the women’s final of the 100-meter butterfly at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials did not disappoint. It was a thrilling race from start to finish. What I find to be most fascinating about this race is the fact that the top three ...

End of Career Reflections by a Rising College Senior As the 2024 Division III NCAA Championships drew to a close this past March, and I watched my senior teammates swim their last races ever, I was struck with an unimaginable thought.  My career is almost over.  After devoting almost my entire life ...