Region Reflection and Taper Time

Hey guys! Sorry, it has been a while since I last posted, but I’ve been extremely busy with high school swimming. I don’t think that I have mentioned anything about high school swimming in my previous posts, mainly because I don’t like it, but we recently attended Region X Championships. The meet has a really fancy name, but only three teams attended since we live in a wee little region. 

To get everyone all psyched up, we had a team hair and tie dying party along with a dinner. I got a strip of my hair dyed red, even though it barely showed up and immediately came off in the pool the next day, which was pointless. Our team colors are black, red, and white, but somehow the black tie dye ended up looking more like blue. I had never tie dyed before, and lets just say that I do not see a professional tie dying career in my future. My shirt was pretty much all red, with a small dot of “black” here and there. At school the next day, our team looked like we went to war because our hands were red and our shirts were not the prettiest.

Finally, it was time to swim! My coach, Mike, had set some goals for the meet, and they were quite lofty if I might say so myself. He wanted us to win every single solitary event. That is sure a good way to create a stress and nerve free environment, *cough cough* not. Everyone ended up swimming really well, and we went one-two-three in a couple events. The only race that we lost was the Men’s 100 Butterfly. After twenty two events, I think that is kinda a major accomplishment, but Mike, being his usual self, still wasn’t one-hundred percent satisfied. I guess the lesson learned is that there is always room for improvement.

Accepting my medal from this jolly fella

Now comes the sometimes glorious yet frustrating time of year, taper. During taper, your yardage is supposed to be dropped for your body to recover and rest to prepare for optimal performance. For most swimmers, taper is seen as a excuse for everything. Often one jokes about not having to walk up the stairs or getting up from the couch to get food because of the fear that it will ruin their taper. This is why I got in little bit, okay maybe a lot, of trouble when I confessed to my coach about hitting the slopes. My question is, how can one hour of riding chairlifts and skiing through slush (Shoutout to Mother Nature) do any harm to the body?

At Park City, we do taper differently. There is this set called pace. Throughout pace, you have a goal time that you are expected to meet for each distance depending on your personal best in that race. Mike often jokes that if you can talk in between rounds or haven’t thrown up, that you are not going fast enough. Pace is one of the hardest workouts, but it is also the most rewarding. By sprinting with perfect technique, we are mimicking both race quality and race speed.

That is all that I have for y’all today! Be sure to comment below on how your high school season went and how you taper. Thank you for reading and check back soon for a post on 3A state! 

XOXO

Siena