| Derek's Email Blast for Week of April 2nd 2012 | |
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Apr 5, 2012 |
Wahoo Families,
I would like to welcome everyone back for the start of another Long Course Season. I hope everyone enjoyed their break from the pool and are rested and ready to go! I would also like to welcome our new families to the Wahoos who have joined us for the Long Course Season. It is great to have you all as a part of the Wahoo Family!
Last weekend Noah Cheruk, Robby Constantine, Connor Hunt, Emma Kauffeld, Brenna McLaughlin, Richard Nolan, and Kyle Wilson represented the Wahoos in the 2012 Eastern Zone Championship Meet in Webster NY. The Wahoos would like to congratulate these 7 swimmers on a great meet. I hope you all enjoyed your experience and were able to take away some great memories from the trip.
Please remember with the upcoming Holiday weekend that there will not be any practice on Friday April 6th and Saturday April 7th. I hope you all enjoy your weekend off spent with family and friends. We will start back on Monday April 9th with the spring practice schedule as it appears on the Wahoo website. The Super Bronze and Super Squad teams will have their first practice for the Long Course Season on Tuesday April 10th.
Reminders
- Spring and summer long course practice schedules are posted on the website for you to review.
- The tentative Age Group long course meet schedule is posted on the website for you to review.
- The first day of long course season for the Super Bronze and Super Squad teams will be Tuesday April 10th.
- Please log on to the Wahoo Website and sign your swimmer(s) up or out of the WYW Summer Invitation (May 4th-6th), the Zeus 8 & Under Meet (May 5th), and the CDOG Distance Meet (May 11th)
- Wahoo Recognition Day will be held on Tuesday May 1st at the Continental Manor in Norwalk. This event is for all swimmers who participated on the Wahoos for the 2011-2012 Short Course Season. There will be no practices held that day.
Important Dates
Friday April 6th & Saturday April 7th
Due to the Holiday weekend there will be no practice for the Maroon and Gold teams today. Have a great weekend off!
Tuesday April 10th
Today is the first day of long course season for the Super Bronze & Super Squad teams. Welcome Back!
Parent & Swimmer Information
From the Speedo Tip of the Week Archives
WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD SWIMMERS
This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from sports psychologist Aimee Kimball. Dr. Kimball offers some advice on what to do when bad things happen to good swimmers.
Kimball's
Tip:
You’ve trained forever. You’re on the blocks, ready to
win, and… your goggles snap. Or you slip off the blocks. Or
you false start.
How do you deal?
First of all, don’t freak, says Kimball, director of mental training at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Sports Medicine.
“Sometimes bad luck happens, and that’s part of sport,” Kimball says. “The important thing for swimmers is to keep from getting any more anxious than they are about the situation so they can still go out and swim well. To do that, you need to prepare for the worst, even before a competition starts.
“A lot of athletes are somewhat superstitious in that if they think about something going wrong, that will make it happen. But your thinking about your goggles snapping certainly isn’t going to make it happen.”
One problem she sees with a lot of swimmers is when they’re swimming in multiple events and the first race doesn’t go as planned.
“They think the rest of the day is going to be a bad day,” she says. “Just take it one event at a time and let go of the other ones.”
What if somebody is distracting you?
“You have to almost have tunnel vision,” says Kimball. “You can say, ‘Yeah, that girl is being really loud or that parent in the stands is being really loud, but this is my lane and this is what I need to focus on.’”
What about when coach says, “We’re counting on you, you have to win this one for the team.”
“You just say, ‘Thanks, I appreciate you have that confidence in me,’ and go back to concentrating on what you need to do to swim well,” Kimball says.
A lot of athletes have pre-race routines, but Kimball encourages them to also have post-race routines so they process good races and bad races the same way.
“That way, you’re not putting too much emphasis on what went wrong,” she says. “That can soften the blow.”
Thank you and have a great weekend!
Derek Farrar
Associate Director of Competitive Aquatics
Wilton Y Wahoos
