So yesterday, I realized for the past 5-6 months, I have not been receiving email replies to this address.

There was a miscommunication and… well it doesn’t matter, but I apologize to you if you have sent me a message and not heard back for a long time!

I’m working through replying to all of them, but it may take a few days.

Anyway, the good thing is I uncovered some really great email responses.

Jim let me know that his coach told him to smile when he swims. I think this is a brilliant idea, and goes right along with our slogan, “befriend the water”!

So this is part of your assignment for the day or week. Try smiling no matter what you’re doing in the pool. Drills? Smile. Sprints? Smile. Intervals? Smile!

Next, I got an email from Coach Jeff who has been a contributor in the past.

The subject was not focusing so much on JUST endurance or distance in swim practice.

He says:

“I wanted to get some of my Tri and Masters pupils out of the ENDURO rut. We cut the distance, and began adding speed by doing some ultra short distance threshold sets. (50s,25s) 800-1000 M sets

Then we took a little more time away from the rest, KEEPING THE SPEED.

If we fail, we begin again tomorrow. Further and further we get, day by day, and Voila! Within 3 weeks most all of the crew dropped their 800M timed swim by a minimum of 10 secs.

The record was 40 secs. (I went from 11:00 to 10:20 at New England SCM)”

In other words, everyone improved, and Jeff took 40 seconds off his 800m time!

So there’s your assignment #2 this week. Do some 25 and 50 sprints. You’re probably not doing them, so start off with just a few, and no need to do more than 1 sprint workout a week.

So in summary, smile & sprint. 🙂

Have a great weekend and week of training, befriend that water!