Friday, June 26, 2015

CSS Results, June 2015

Dear Swimmers

This week we've had exactly 100 of you participate in the 400m / 200m CSS Test Set out of 277 of you whom have registered an interest in swimming with the Swim Smooth Perth Squad this winter. Granted, some of you are still awaiting the call up for a spot whilst you reside on the wait list and others of you don't attend the nominated CSS Test Sessions of Wednesday 9.30am, Thursday 6.15pm and Friday 5.30am and 6.30am. Furthermore, some of you wrote to me with legitimate reasons why you could not attend too. 

However, if you haven't completed one and wish to do so, please refer back to the instructions at http://swimsmoothperth.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/to-time-trial-or-not-to-time-trial-that.html as I strongly recommend doing one at this stage, irrespective of what level of fitness you're at - it's just a line in the sand remember. Please note, if you do complete your own test, I won't be able to add your results to the official listings below (as you'll see it's quite a monumental amount of work to input and then analyse this data, so apologies but adding in drips and drabs makes life quite challenging once I've officially published the results) but by all means drop me a quick note and let me know how you got on!

Here are the results:


I'd like to make special mention of the following swimmers who I believe had really good results this week:

  • Andrew Graham
  • Cyndy Hetrick
  • David Serich
  • Elliott Cross
  • Glenn Morrison
  • Graham Crocker*
  • Jesper Jensen
  • John Edwards
  • Jonney Sammut
  • Lindsay Dodd
  • Lisa Luckin
  • Matt Cousins
  • Mike Scott
  • Paul McVey
  • Ray Steffanoni
  • Renee Waller
  • Simon Hazeldine
  • Vaughan Davies

*take note everyone - Mr Crocker is soon to turn 66, and is still cracking out a 1:31.5/100m CSS pace! Unbelievably incredible AND he's training full on for various Ironman and 70.3 races around the world. Legend. Nothing more to be said. OK, well just one thing then - this is still a 4s/100m improvement on his last test back in October - who says you can't look age square in the eye and say "I will not relent!" - "Croc" has been swimming with me since 2002 (13 years!) and he never ceases to amaze me with his youthful energy and gutsy performances when they count. He's also an exceptionally nice person who proves that you don't need a huge ego to perform well in this sport - so very proud of you Croc, you inspire me and many, many others! Thank you.

So, what do the above 18 swimmers all have in common? That magic "P" word - they paced themselves out really well in the 400m swim! I am sure that Andrew and Mike won't mind me saying that this is not in their natural inclination to do this (nor is it mine!, but they've taken onboard my advice and have been rewarded with excellent results - nice work lads! The only time I have ever truly raced really exceptionally well is when I've got this one "simple" aspect right. When you look at your own results, make sure you note whether or not this is one of the key things holding you back - you'll see that this applies to a good majority of you. Take a leaf out of my book - get this right, pay attention to it, be diligent about it and you will be rewarded. Doing it consistently in every session is even more beneficial not simply because you're refining the skill of pacing, but because you're consistently tapping into the correct energy systems which elicit the biggest bang for your buck!

So is that all there is to it? Pace well, get a fancy CSS result and have your name plastered up on this squad blog in front of 750+ viewers? The sceptics might say so (read here if this is you: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2014/08/strange-css-results-and-gaming-system.html ) but quite simply, good pacing brings good results in endurance events, otherwise over 90% of all the world records in the pool and on the running track wouldn't have been set this way!

Here's how I graded your pacing, where the numerical values represent the seconds difference between your first 100m of the 400m and the average of the remaining 300m:


What I've also taken the liberty of doing is having a deeper look at your results and tried to demonstrate (let's call it "reconciliation" or even "placate") everyone's results based on where I know you to be at this point in time. Not everyone had a stellar result of course (as predicted even more so this time around given the last 2 week break), so this is how I've tried to do that:


Finally, I've also tried to give you a recommendation of what session I'd recommend you do to bring yourself back up to speed if you were to add an additional solo swim to your program, perhaps at the weekend - this is based on the ratio or drop-off in speed between your 200m and your 400m:



If you have access to our fabulous new app, you can tap into a whole host of sessions in these categories from this link to really assist when you're swimming solo: https://app.swimsmooth.com/section/bW/cEZ/sessions/ - equally if you're trying to tune up your stroke technique, you might like to check out these cool fault fixers: https://app.swimsmooth.com/section/bX/dY/fault-fixers/ or even the full Swim Type Guides as well if you'd managed to ID yourself from the recent squad questionnaire: https://app.swimsmooth.com/section/bX/cFs/swim-types/

Anyway, hope this all helps get you back off on the right foot leading you through the winter with focus and purpose!

Cheers

Paul




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