SAISA SWIMMING 2013

The swimming season began on the 16th of August. The same time as Girl's and Boy's Volleyball. This is the 4th SAISA Swimming that I have been involved in. When training for swimming there is a certain system of coaching/training which splits the group up. There are 6 lanes in the pool. Lanes 1 and 2 are the "advanced lanes" which are mainly for those who have been training for many years and are practicing skills rather than technique. Lanes 3 and 4 are the "intermediate" lanes. Usually where the swimmers go who know how to swim each stroke but have weaknesses with techniques. And finally, lanes 5 and 6 are for the "beginners." These two lanes have a separate coach who focuses on teaching them the techniques and the method of doing all four strokes to prepare them for the various races. The training schedule has three mandatory trainings as well as two optional ones. The mandatory practices take place on Tuesdays from 3:00-4:45PM, Fridays from 3:00-4:45PM, and Saturdays from 8:00-10:00AM. The two optional practices are Mondays from 3:00-4:45PM and Wednesdays from 7:00-8:30AM. I usually attend Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and occasionally Wednesdays. I am in Lane 1 seeing as I have been doing swimming since 7th grade. We begin our training with a warm up, followed by about 3 mains sets and ending with a cool down. On saturdays we end with a team activity which helps our team spirit and bonding. 
This is usually what one of our training schedules looks like 

Advanced

Warm Up: 100 Choice of Stroke 100 Kick 100 Pull 100 IM drill  (25 drill/stroke)                                                                                     400

First Set: IM 200 IM drill 50 free ez 100 IM 50 free ez Rest 45 seconds                                                            350

Stroke Set: Free and Back 150 free drill (drill 1) 150 free 100 flutter KOB 100 free Rest 30 seconds 100 back drill (drill 3) 100 back 100 flutter KOB 100 back Rest 30 seconds                                                      900

Fin Set: Back and Free 50 free sprint 20 second rest 50 back sprint 20 second rest With fins working on fast turnover (speed and number of arm stokes)     X6                                                         600

Main Set Kick/Sprint 25 each of Free Back (No board-streamline on back) X8                                                        400

The events that I am involved in for local tournaments and for the SAISA tournaments and the times that have been recorded for me so far are: 
50m-Freestyle - 34.58 seconds
50m-Butterfly - 40.13 seconds
100m-Freestyle - 1:20.66
100m-Backstroke
100m- IM (all strokes)- 1:31:98
200m- Backstroke - 3:28.48
200m- IM (all strokes)- 3:26.34
200m- Medley Relay
200m- Freestyle Relay 
400m- Freestyle Relay

The SAISA tournament will take place in ASB, American School of Bombay, starting the 9th of October and ending the 11th of October. The tournament will be a duration of 3 days. My goals for SAISA are to be able to medal in my strongest events such as 50 free, 50 fly, 100 IM, and perhaps even 100 back. I hope to come back having improved all my personal bests even if i do not earn any individual medals. 
I have also taken a leadership role during swimming which counts for my creativity aspect of CAS. This involved me getting assigned a certain stroke or technique with a certain distance and creating a work out for the rest of the team. This helped both others and myself because it gave me an opportunity to observe the weaknesses and flaws of other's techniques which helped both me and the other swimmers improve on that specific fault. 

Travel Team SAISA Swimming 2013