Pool Renovations

So work is continuing on the pool and coming along nicely. The pool walls have been re-grouted and the pool area walls have been repainted. We are waiting for the delivery of the bulkhead and the construction should take about 2 weeks. After that, we will fill the pool and enjoy our new facility! Just in time for our 2008 camps.

I am off to Glacier National Park starting Wednesday, so posting will be limited over the next week. Of course I am a little behind anyway!

Enjoy!
DA

Athletic Department Award Ceremony

Hmmmm - modern technology - this post should have been put up in May, but somehow it wasn't (couldn't be my fault!) Anyway, here is information about our awards ceremony in May!


Last Wednesday the Department of Physical Education and Athletics hosted it's annual Awards Ceremony for the Athletic Department. Each team has awards that are handed out at the ceremony.


The Swimming and Diving Team have 2 awards. The Noll Newcomer Award that recognizes a new member of the team for the significant contribution to the team.


The Ann C. Cummings Award recognizes the athlete that has contributed the most to the team.


Sophomore, Sarah-Brady Stack won the Noll Newcomer Award this year. She was a new swimmer this year, since she entered in the spring semester last year.


Senior Grace Bauer won the Ann C. Cummings Award.


Grace also was awarded the highest honor in the department, winning the Scholar-Athlete Award. This award is sponsored by the Alumnae Association and is given to a senior that represents the best of the meaning of the student athlete.

Pool Update

So the pool is now drained and under improvements. PC way to say construction. The tile has been wash and new tile is being laid in for new lane markers today and tomorrow. They will then re-rout the entire pool. The bulkhead should be arriving in the next 10 days. We are working hard to order all the equipment we need to get the pool up and running.

This includes new blocks, lane lines, timing system and scoreboard! The walls should also be painted in the next 2 weeks.

I am really excited to see all the work finished! It will be revitalized and top-notch facility in a couple of weeks!

Best,
DA

Quick Update

Hi All,

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. Finals just finished and it has been a busy time of the year. We had our annual team bar-b-q on May 4th and the Athletic Department Awards Ceremony on May 7th. I have also been very busy with writing and correcting the final for Sport Pedagogy as well as the last assignment, which was developing a list of drills for their individual sports.

More later!
DA

Swimming Faster - Stroke Rate

Looking back on our season, one of the best techniques we worked on was stroke rate. In hind sight, we should have done even more with it. I know we tapped into the potential, but we didn't utilize it to it's full potential.

Basically stroke rate is how fast you are moving your arms. It is the same as RPM (rotations per minute, but we call it strokes per minute, SPM). The more SPM you take, the faster you will go. Typically swimmers will tend to have too low of a SPM or the SPM will break down during a race. There is also a break point on the high end as well. When your stroke rate goes up too high, you start to lose the feel of the water and your speed will decrease.

The key is first making sure you have good technique established before you work on SPM. The best tool for the job is the Tempo Trainer by Finnis. It is basically a waterproof metronome. You set it for the tempo you want and either clip it on your goggle strap (with a clip provided) or tuck under your cap. We found it is easier to tuck it in the cap. From there the idea is to match your SPM to the beep of the tempo trainer. We found that the swimmers were able to increase their SPM and maintain that tempo during races.

If you don't have a tempo trainer, but have a metronome, you can always use that at the end of the pool. Just make sure to keep it dry!

More on this later.

DA

Pool Upgrades

We are in the final planning stages of of a number of upgrades to our pool. Mount Holyoke's pool was built as a 25-meter pool and a separate 40' X 60' diving pool. The diving pool has been great for our divers with a separate and dedicated pool for their practices. It is also kept a couple of degrees warmer than the swimming pool.

The one challenge was the swimming pool was 25-meters, which is counter to the NCAA swimming in yards. This is now going to change shortly. Thanks to a very generous donation, we will now have a fixed bulkhead to make the pool 25 yards. In addition to the bulkhead, we are also installing new Paragon blocks, replacing our Colorado Timing System and upgrading our scoreboard to a 10 line LED board. We are also painting the walls during the project.

We will start draining the pool on May 7th, the day after classes end. We expect to have all of the work completed by the middle of June, just in time for U S Sports Camps swim camps to begin.

This is a very exciting time for the team and college. We are also looking forward to hosting a number of meets for outside groups!

These renovations will make Mount Holyoke's auditorium the premier facility in Western Massachusetts.

All the best,
DA

Relay for Life

The Team participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life on Friday and Saturday, April 18-19th at Amherst College. The relay is the 6th annual event for the 5-colleges. Over 1,000 people participated and the event raised over $125,000 for the ACS! Our team of 11 raised $1,600l.

We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather for both Friday and Saturday and everyone had a great time.

Certainly, one of the most poignant was the survivor lap at the beginning of the event. Watching a couple of students participate in that lap certainly puts life and all of it's challenges in perspective!

I hope to post some pictures from the event in the next couple of days.

DA