So, people ask – with some trepidation – how’s the swimming been going, Mrs. Coach?
Well, I reply, not half badly, thank you for asking. Mr. Coach and I have settled into a viable situation where he writes workouts for me and occasionally wanders through the pool area when I’m swimming to make sure I’m not violating any fundamental rules of the sport.
The workouts he writes keep me moving in a forward direction with my acquisition of both fitness and swimming competency. And Mr. Coach and I have agreed after intense negotiations (including but not limited to the continued availability of my sausage calzones) that what I need most for now is to "refine my feel for the water" and that’s just going to take a couple hundred thousand flip-turns. That’s because in many ways, I’m still the equivalent of an 8-year-old in the water but, as I like to remind Mr. Coach, that’s an 8-year-old with a full range of cooking skills.
So, as I was saying, most of the workouts that Mr. Coach writes for me are productive. Many of them involve coaxing me into doing more backstroke for more laps because, as we have discovered, I’m not bad at this stroke (Mr. Coach says I have "good natural body position in the water," but I know that’s just coach-speak for "doesn’t totally suck").
However, there occasionally pops up a workout which is not to my liking (and mind you, I am a woman whose motto during my track career was: "Go Anaerobic, Early and Often," so it’s not like I’m a wuss). These workouts fall into two categories. I call one of them the "Honey, Do We Need to Talk?" workout. These usually involve creatively varied sets with diminishing amounts of rest. Crossing the anaerobic threshold is fine. Anything where the line on the bottom of the pool starts talking to me is not.
(Although, to be fair, the only time that’s happened was during a race when I didn’t realize that Mr. Coach’s parting words "...and don’t breathe," were more of a suggestion than a mandate.)
The other type of objectionable workout is the one that ends with me getting a cramp in the arch of either foot. Toe cramps, I can handle. Arch cramps, no dice. So when that happens, Mr. Coach knows he’s got some serious choices ahead of him that night. Thin crust or original. Pepperoni or extra cheese. I call this category the "Get Your Own Damn Dinner" workout.
Which reminds me. Eating. The gargantuan appetite that goes with doing Mr. Coach’s workouts does not, in and of itself, bother me. I enjoy eating. I drink whole milk with impunity. My idea of heaven is a big bowl of Cheese Jax, a glass of pinot grigio and a new episode of "Top Chef." (Hootie!) But the greedy leap that my appetite took after I began swimming Mr. Coach’s workouts took even me by surprise.
"Why am I eating so much more now than when I ran?" I asked Mr. Coach one day.
"Well," he replied, "you burn more calories swimming because you’re biomechanically inefficient in the water."
Guess who made dinner that night.
(and here's the first blog about Spouse Coaching:
http://mrscoachchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/09/spouse-coaching.html)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
A quick update
Hey and hi and thanks to all who've visited the site this week. The response has been amazing and much appreciated.
In answer to a question I've gotten a few times, I'll be adding a new blog each Sunday morning. Just a little something fun to go along with reading your Sunday paper and gearing yourself up for the week to come.
Cheers and thanks again!
In answer to a question I've gotten a few times, I'll be adding a new blog each Sunday morning. Just a little something fun to go along with reading your Sunday paper and gearing yourself up for the week to come.
Cheers and thanks again!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Earning the Perks
Hopefully other coach families out there won’t mind if I dish on one of my favorite coach-family perks – having the keys to the pool. It’s not exactly a secret but it’s not exactly something that non-coach families love to hear about. Understandably so. When other families live at the mercy of the pool-scheduling gods, they don’t want to hear about me working out in lanes 3, 4, 5 and 6 if I feel like it.
But you know what? It makes up for a lot. Let me just give you one example of why having the keys to the pool is a perk you should never begrudge a coach family. That example would be my most recent New Year holiday.
This year, the Little Coaches and I didn’t travel down to Florida with the team. So, on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day, we bid Mr. Coach and his sun-hungry swimmers a cheery adieu as the bus headed out. Three hours later, I was reading in the living room when Little Miss Coach went sprinting past me to the bathroom. The sound of vomiting ensued.
"This better not be bulimia," I muttered as I headed up the stairs. Thankfully it was just a nasty 24-hour stomach flu that took another 24 hours to recover from. Little Miss Coach recovered and then, a day later, I came down with it. (Spectacularly, I might add.) Here’s where it gets a little poignant.
You see, most collegiate and many large-club coach families don’t live near family. That’s just the nature of the job: You go to where there is a job. And though the people in your community very often become your family, you still have to be very self-sufficient. The Coach Family has relied on the kindness of some amazing friends when kids have been born, new houses have been moved into, or the family patriarch ends up in the ER because his bike is a magnet for idiot truck drivers. But stuff that involves a toilet? Sorry – but that’s immediate-family territory.
So the Little Coaches and I hunkered down and got through it. As I was recovering, though, I found myself thinking, "Dang, that molar hurts." About 12 hours later, when I couldn’t see straight on account of the shooting pains in my head, I called my dentist – whom I found on a day cruise off the coast of South Carolina. The long-distance diagnosis was that a root canal was needed. But it couldn’t be done until the following Monday, three days later.
So I got through it all and I recovered with such admirable speed that by the time Mr. Coach returned home, he was able to insist that I didn’t look at all like I had lost and regained five pounds (the hard way) since he last saw me.
Yes, this year finally trumps the year that I spent six days snowed in with a 5-year-old, a 6-month-old and half a bottle of cooking sherry while Mr. Coach was, again, in that lovely land called Florida.
So do you get it now? Hearing that the Coach Family makes selfish use of the keys to the pool might make you seethe with jealousy, but we’ve earned it.
Oh yes, we have earned it.
But you know what? It makes up for a lot. Let me just give you one example of why having the keys to the pool is a perk you should never begrudge a coach family. That example would be my most recent New Year holiday.
This year, the Little Coaches and I didn’t travel down to Florida with the team. So, on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day, we bid Mr. Coach and his sun-hungry swimmers a cheery adieu as the bus headed out. Three hours later, I was reading in the living room when Little Miss Coach went sprinting past me to the bathroom. The sound of vomiting ensued.
"This better not be bulimia," I muttered as I headed up the stairs. Thankfully it was just a nasty 24-hour stomach flu that took another 24 hours to recover from. Little Miss Coach recovered and then, a day later, I came down with it. (Spectacularly, I might add.) Here’s where it gets a little poignant.
You see, most collegiate and many large-club coach families don’t live near family. That’s just the nature of the job: You go to where there is a job. And though the people in your community very often become your family, you still have to be very self-sufficient. The Coach Family has relied on the kindness of some amazing friends when kids have been born, new houses have been moved into, or the family patriarch ends up in the ER because his bike is a magnet for idiot truck drivers. But stuff that involves a toilet? Sorry – but that’s immediate-family territory.
So the Little Coaches and I hunkered down and got through it. As I was recovering, though, I found myself thinking, "Dang, that molar hurts." About 12 hours later, when I couldn’t see straight on account of the shooting pains in my head, I called my dentist – whom I found on a day cruise off the coast of South Carolina. The long-distance diagnosis was that a root canal was needed. But it couldn’t be done until the following Monday, three days later.
So I got through it all and I recovered with such admirable speed that by the time Mr. Coach returned home, he was able to insist that I didn’t look at all like I had lost and regained five pounds (the hard way) since he last saw me.
Yes, this year finally trumps the year that I spent six days snowed in with a 5-year-old, a 6-month-old and half a bottle of cooking sherry while Mr. Coach was, again, in that lovely land called Florida.
So do you get it now? Hearing that the Coach Family makes selfish use of the keys to the pool might make you seethe with jealousy, but we’ve earned it.
Oh yes, we have earned it.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Schnipke Effect
That’s not what Mr. Coach really calls it. What we’re going to call "The Schnipke Effect" here, in real life goes by the last name of the real swimmer who prompted its naming. (Schnipke is really a last name on a mailbox that I’ve run past many a time, and every time I run past it, I chuckle to myself and say "Schnipke." It’s just a fun name to say.)
Anyway, the Schnipke Effect was discovered back at the start of Mr. Coach’s collegiate head-coaching career. That first year he had a guy show up at the start of the season who had been a lacrosse player but, for his senior year, decided he wanted to "try swimming." Seeing as how he was about 6'3" and had the wingspan of a pterodactyl, Mr. Coach said, "Sure, let’s see what you got." A few laps later, he asked the guy – let’s just call him Sam Schnipke – if he ever swam much before. Sam said, "Not a lot, but my grandmother was a national champion in the backstroke." (He wasn’t kidding either. She really was.)
As it turned out, Sam was very fast, too – when he was actually in the water and moving in a forward direction. It was all the little stuff that kept Mr. Coach up nights.
For example, Sam’s starts. Let’s just say there are five-year-olds who get more distance off the blocks than he did.
Then there were Sam’s turns. I dubbed each one "a turn in five parts": It was like looking at a cartoon drawing of a flip turn, panel by panel.
And then there were Sam’s finishes. How he escaped traumatic brain injury because of his inability to judge where the wall was remains a mystery.
And yet, in between the starts, turns and finishes, Sam was fast. Insanely, blindingly fast. He narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAAs in the 100 free his one and only year of collegiate swimming. But he did get to go to The Show on a couple of relays.
Most of Sam’s success, Mr. Coach realized, was because he just didn’t know any better. See, that’s the fun thing about freshmen or first-year swimmers. Because they don’t know any better, you can often get more out of them than you can out of the hyper-experienced, hyper-analytical athletes who will hyper-think themselves into muscle lock. Sam didn’t know that a six-second drop in the 100 free was huge. He just knew that if his coach told him he could do it, then he could do it. And he did.
So ever since that one year of Sam Schnipke, Mr. Coach has waited and watched for the Schnipke Effect to happen again. Some years it happens and some years it doesn’t. But when it does, like when you get a freshman who drops 37 seconds off her lifetime best in the 500 free, Mr. Coach and I just look at each other, nod and say, "The Schnipke Effect."
Anyway, the Schnipke Effect was discovered back at the start of Mr. Coach’s collegiate head-coaching career. That first year he had a guy show up at the start of the season who had been a lacrosse player but, for his senior year, decided he wanted to "try swimming." Seeing as how he was about 6'3" and had the wingspan of a pterodactyl, Mr. Coach said, "Sure, let’s see what you got." A few laps later, he asked the guy – let’s just call him Sam Schnipke – if he ever swam much before. Sam said, "Not a lot, but my grandmother was a national champion in the backstroke." (He wasn’t kidding either. She really was.)
As it turned out, Sam was very fast, too – when he was actually in the water and moving in a forward direction. It was all the little stuff that kept Mr. Coach up nights.
For example, Sam’s starts. Let’s just say there are five-year-olds who get more distance off the blocks than he did.
Then there were Sam’s turns. I dubbed each one "a turn in five parts": It was like looking at a cartoon drawing of a flip turn, panel by panel.
And then there were Sam’s finishes. How he escaped traumatic brain injury because of his inability to judge where the wall was remains a mystery.
And yet, in between the starts, turns and finishes, Sam was fast. Insanely, blindingly fast. He narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAAs in the 100 free his one and only year of collegiate swimming. But he did get to go to The Show on a couple of relays.
Most of Sam’s success, Mr. Coach realized, was because he just didn’t know any better. See, that’s the fun thing about freshmen or first-year swimmers. Because they don’t know any better, you can often get more out of them than you can out of the hyper-experienced, hyper-analytical athletes who will hyper-think themselves into muscle lock. Sam didn’t know that a six-second drop in the 100 free was huge. He just knew that if his coach told him he could do it, then he could do it. And he did.
So ever since that one year of Sam Schnipke, Mr. Coach has waited and watched for the Schnipke Effect to happen again. Some years it happens and some years it doesn’t. But when it does, like when you get a freshman who drops 37 seconds off her lifetime best in the 500 free, Mr. Coach and I just look at each other, nod and say, "The Schnipke Effect."
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Are They Human? Or Are They Swimmer?
If you’ve ever lived with a cat and a dog, then you know that one of them eventually starts thinking and acting like it’s the other type of animal. And if you’ve ever lived with a cat and a dog, then you know it’s the dog that almost always loses this identity battle. Fido will start trying to move lighter and slinkier than he really is. He may even curl up on the couch with Tinkerbell. And if he’s really gullible, Fido will try jumping up on table tops and window sills. Even if he’s a 100-pound golden retriever with arthritic hips.
Swimmers often remind me of dogs that have been living in the company of cats for too long. They think they can move quickly on land, even nimbly, and they therefore persist in trying to move quickly and nimbly. They try to vault over starting blocks. They try to skip up and down bleacher steps. They try to skitter away after yanking a teammate’s swimsuit off him. They try.
I’m not sure whether the mental disconnect comes from being around non-swimmers who can walk without tripping, or if it comes from thinking that because they move quickly and nimbly through the water, they can also do so on land. Either way, like watching a dog that thinks he’s a cat, it’s a little strange. Funny, but strange.
And dangerous. In all the years that I have now known swimmers, I have got to say there are very few things left I have not known a swimmer to fall off of or into. Starting blocks, bleacher steps, pool gutters and guard ladders are just the obvious things. Chairs, tables, bookshelves, shrubbery and urinals are the less obvious things. Not a season goes by without somebody on Mr. Coach’s team getting stitches and having a really stupid story to go with them. He even had a set of identical twins who managed to get matching forehead gashes, several days apart and for completely different reasons. Seriously. (I got a little excited when the first one got his gash because it gave me a way to tell them apart. You can imagine my disappointment when Mr. Coach came home and told me the other one had just gotten a gash in the exact same place.)
And taper is probably when the stupidest stitch stories happen. It’s like the workouts drop just one lousy thousand yards in distance, and the entire breaststroke lane decides there’s never been a better time to brush up on their skateboarding skills.
And it’s not like it gets much better, even after their competitive careers are over. Exhibit A: Mr. Coach. Who was a college swimmer. A sprinter in fact. He now does triathlons. Every decade, whether he needs to or not, he and his bike go mano-a-mano with a moving vehicle. And guess who loses? Well, the last time it was Mr. Coach’s left collarbone and his bike frame which both ended up with hairline fractures, so he got a sweet new set of wheels out of the legal settlement.
But that’s not my point. My point is that swimmers are not cats. And you know what? They’re not even really dogs either. If anything, they’re fish and you don’t see fish riding bikes on ice, taking skateboards down the front railing of the library, or falling out of their closets. You just don’t.
Swimmers often remind me of dogs that have been living in the company of cats for too long. They think they can move quickly on land, even nimbly, and they therefore persist in trying to move quickly and nimbly. They try to vault over starting blocks. They try to skip up and down bleacher steps. They try to skitter away after yanking a teammate’s swimsuit off him. They try.
I’m not sure whether the mental disconnect comes from being around non-swimmers who can walk without tripping, or if it comes from thinking that because they move quickly and nimbly through the water, they can also do so on land. Either way, like watching a dog that thinks he’s a cat, it’s a little strange. Funny, but strange.
And dangerous. In all the years that I have now known swimmers, I have got to say there are very few things left I have not known a swimmer to fall off of or into. Starting blocks, bleacher steps, pool gutters and guard ladders are just the obvious things. Chairs, tables, bookshelves, shrubbery and urinals are the less obvious things. Not a season goes by without somebody on Mr. Coach’s team getting stitches and having a really stupid story to go with them. He even had a set of identical twins who managed to get matching forehead gashes, several days apart and for completely different reasons. Seriously. (I got a little excited when the first one got his gash because it gave me a way to tell them apart. You can imagine my disappointment when Mr. Coach came home and told me the other one had just gotten a gash in the exact same place.)
And taper is probably when the stupidest stitch stories happen. It’s like the workouts drop just one lousy thousand yards in distance, and the entire breaststroke lane decides there’s never been a better time to brush up on their skateboarding skills.
And it’s not like it gets much better, even after their competitive careers are over. Exhibit A: Mr. Coach. Who was a college swimmer. A sprinter in fact. He now does triathlons. Every decade, whether he needs to or not, he and his bike go mano-a-mano with a moving vehicle. And guess who loses? Well, the last time it was Mr. Coach’s left collarbone and his bike frame which both ended up with hairline fractures, so he got a sweet new set of wheels out of the legal settlement.
But that’s not my point. My point is that swimmers are not cats. And you know what? They’re not even really dogs either. If anything, they’re fish and you don’t see fish riding bikes on ice, taking skateboards down the front railing of the library, or falling out of their closets. You just don’t.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
25 Random Things I Have Learned about Swimming
1. I’m pretty sure the reason I don’t need to use whitening tooth paste is because of the chemicals in the pool water.
2. I’m pretty sure the reason why Mr. Coach’s Max VO2 has dropped is because of the chemicals in the pool air.
3. A tough track workout makes you feel jack-hammered. A tough swimming workout makes you feel steam-rollered.
4. The lack of gravity-based pounding gives swimmers an undue sense of immortality.
5. There are more nerds and flakes per capita in swimming than in any other sport.
6. If you learn how to do the butterfly at a young age, it’s like riding a bike – you’ll never forget how. If you try to learn as an adult, it’ll be paint-by-numbers at best.
7. All the rule changes in breaststroke technique need to stop until I can do it.
8. Humming in order to learn how to not snork up water during a flip turn is an urban myth.
9. The wiggle-butt off the wall is the funnest thing about swimming.
10. Swimmers are more comfortable with nudity than they perhaps should be.
11. Being able to figure out splits in your head does not translate into marketable math skills.
12. You can’t completely zone out during a swim workout because then you lose track of where you are.
13. The day after doing yoga, you definitely take fewer strokes per lap.
14. Men cannot resist the urge to try and keep up with a woman.
15. A new swimsuit takes 10 years off how old you feel.
16. Yoshi is a freak of nature but we all respect and admire him for it because he clearly isn’t one of those "get a life" masters.
17. All 8-year-olds will tell you they’re going to the Olympics.
18. When their parents tell you the same thing, then you know the kid will be done with swimming by age 13.
19. Boys’ 8-and-under butterfly is comedy gold.
20. The best swim parents don’t know what their kids’ PRs are.
21. Some of the best swim parents are Australian: They won’t even cheer for their own kids in public because of TPS (Tall Poppy Syndrome: "tall poppies are made to be cut down").
22. Swimming will never get as much media attention (or the kind of media attention) it thinks it deserves.
23. But swim meets would definitely be more interesting for the inexperienced spectator if it borrowed some ideas from ice hockey – specifically, enforcers and relay power plays.
24. Swimmers who studied dance or the martial arts as kids generally take corrections better than those who didn’t.
25. It never gets easier to get in.
2. I’m pretty sure the reason why Mr. Coach’s Max VO2 has dropped is because of the chemicals in the pool air.
3. A tough track workout makes you feel jack-hammered. A tough swimming workout makes you feel steam-rollered.
4. The lack of gravity-based pounding gives swimmers an undue sense of immortality.
5. There are more nerds and flakes per capita in swimming than in any other sport.
6. If you learn how to do the butterfly at a young age, it’s like riding a bike – you’ll never forget how. If you try to learn as an adult, it’ll be paint-by-numbers at best.
7. All the rule changes in breaststroke technique need to stop until I can do it.
8. Humming in order to learn how to not snork up water during a flip turn is an urban myth.
9. The wiggle-butt off the wall is the funnest thing about swimming.
10. Swimmers are more comfortable with nudity than they perhaps should be.
11. Being able to figure out splits in your head does not translate into marketable math skills.
12. You can’t completely zone out during a swim workout because then you lose track of where you are.
13. The day after doing yoga, you definitely take fewer strokes per lap.
14. Men cannot resist the urge to try and keep up with a woman.
15. A new swimsuit takes 10 years off how old you feel.
16. Yoshi is a freak of nature but we all respect and admire him for it because he clearly isn’t one of those "get a life" masters.
17. All 8-year-olds will tell you they’re going to the Olympics.
18. When their parents tell you the same thing, then you know the kid will be done with swimming by age 13.
19. Boys’ 8-and-under butterfly is comedy gold.
20. The best swim parents don’t know what their kids’ PRs are.
21. Some of the best swim parents are Australian: They won’t even cheer for their own kids in public because of TPS (Tall Poppy Syndrome: "tall poppies are made to be cut down").
22. Swimming will never get as much media attention (or the kind of media attention) it thinks it deserves.
23. But swim meets would definitely be more interesting for the inexperienced spectator if it borrowed some ideas from ice hockey – specifically, enforcers and relay power plays.
24. Swimmers who studied dance or the martial arts as kids generally take corrections better than those who didn’t.
25. It never gets easier to get in.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Coaching Girls vs. Boys, Round 2
It’s time for more anecdotal evidence that girls and boys are different, especially when it comes to coaching a swim team.
Observation #1: Nicknames. If girls on a swim team give each other nicknames, they’re going to be cute permutations of the girls’ given names. "Hope" becomes "Hopi," "Ashley" becomes "Sassily," and "Kim" becomes "Kimba." When boys give each other nicknames, the names are going to be a reflection of a boy’s physical, mental or moral shortcomings.
There have been several standouts from all my years of swim-coach spousing. There was "Cakes," a name which had some murky connection to the guy’s hindquarters. Then there was "Weest" which is short for the French word "Egoiste" which came from a TV commercial popular at the time for a men’s cologne where a bunch of angry women are yelling "Egoiste!" out their apartment-building windows at a departing guy who apparently is a cad. This swimmer wasn’t so much a cad as he was just a very driven individual who would gripe at anyone who wasn’t training as hard as he thought they should – and that included senior citizens and small children.
My favorite nickname, though, has been "Crow" which is short for "Scarecrow" which came from the Wizard of Oz character who said, "If I only had a brain." But the truly scary thing is that all of the gentlemen upon whom these nicknames were bestowed will still answer to those nicknames when you see them at alumni events.
Observation #2: Displays of Team Spirit. If you need it committed to posterboard, then you’re going to need a girl. If you need it in day-glo colors and embellished with glitter glue, you are definitely going to need a girl. What you will get with boys, when it comes to displays of team spirit, are things that can only be shaved off or measured in decibels. That’s because boys stopped making posters of any kind somewhere around the fifth grade. They also don’t make adorable name-tags in the shape of dolphins or flip-flops for hotel-room doors and lockers. And if boys create any kind of a "Countdown to Conference" display, it’s going to be on a dry-erase board and its subject matter will be R- if not NC-17-rated.
Observation #3: The Details. Boys often show a blithe disregard for the details of daily living – like "eat more protein than sugar," "speed limits are not optional," and "if you don’t stop touching it, it will get infected." But when it comes to obsessing over details in the pool, boys are more apt to do this than girls. A girl might cry if you give her a set of 384 50s, IM order, but she’ll do it. A boy will do it but then he’s going to want to compare his splits from this time to the last time he did the set. A girl might look at another team’s roster just to see if there’s anybody she knows from high school or club swimming. A boy will have pulled up the roster, Googled all the names on it, downloaded his opponents’ times from wherever he can find meet results, and then prepared recommendations for a dual-meet line-up.
And Observation #4: Gift Giving. If girls are in charge of picking out a season-end gift for a coach, it will be something thoughtful like a gift certificate to a restaurant and they’ll include free babysitting. If boys are in charge, it’s going to be a homemade calendar with team pictures like the one above.
(Incidentally, here was Round One: http://mrscoachchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/08/coaching-girls-vs-boys.html)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)