The Weekly Splash

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This weekend marked the last two dual meets for the women’s team. The men will travel to Cambridge on Friday to face Harvard for their final dual meet of the season.

Though dual meets might be over, we still have nearly a month left of training before Ivies.  The swimmers who are not a part of the Ivy team will journey to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for an invitational meet Feb. 15-16.

For those who are not familiar with the training regimen for a swimmer, I shall explain.  Basically, we swim nine times a week, with seven to eight of these workouts being extraordinarily challenging.  Also most of the team lifts weights in addition to swimming three times a week, those who don’t lift, distance swimmers (such as myself) do a cardio circuit and run during that time.  Lastly, the women’s team also participates in a spin class once a week.

This brutal schedule begins Oct. 1 and continues throughout the season until about two weeks before a swimmer’s final meet.  At this point we cut out all activity outside of the pool, eliminate morning practice, and begin to cut back our yardage significantly.  This process allows the muscle a swimmer has built up all season to recover and prepare for high performance at championships.  It is known as taper and is swimmers favorite time of the season!

So, we are approaching taper and some of those not on the Ivy squad have already begun this glorious time of year.  Waiting for taper is like counting down the days until Christmas.  The end is near and we could not be more ready to see all our hard work pay off!