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Goals Lead to Success

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To achieve anything in life, a goal or direction is needed to define what you are working towards. Goals are dreams with a plan.  The best of swimmers always set goals for themselves in order to become better. At the start of every new season, I like to set goals for myself. Goals are always meant to push you past what you thought you could do. Goals are not supposed to be easy. Personally, I set myself one major goal with smaller goals that would work towards the main goal.  As I begin a high school season, I need to set myself some goals in order to have success this seasons . In order for me to have goals become successes, they need to have a deadline, be reverent, specific, and meaning to me. List of my goals:   I am breaststroker and last season I went a 1:08.13 in 100 breaststrokes. Plus I came in second in the state. This year, my goal is a 1:06.45 in the 100 breaststroke and becoming the state champ.  My plan in order to complete this goal is to work hard ev
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Thanksgiving Time is Time for High School Swimming

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When the turkey day is here, that means high school swimming is here as well. This time of the year is my favorite. For most people, it is their favorite time of the year because of the holiday season about to begin, but all swimmers alike, we have other reasons, high school swimming is about to begin. High school swimming is a lot different than USA swimming. Personally, I feel that I swim faster and is more motivated during high school swim. This is probably because I am not swimming for myself, but rather swimming for my teammates. High school training for my team is a lot harder than USA swimming because hard practices pushing into a few weeks without days of rest. The high school season is only between 10 and 12 weeks long depending on the level of meet you qualify for. However, it can be very stressful trying to balance school with swimming. Next, High school swimming is way more fun than USA swimming. On my team, we have spags (pasta dinners) the night before every night, team
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Championship Swimming = Tech Suits

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Championship swimming is what all swimmers work forwards. The goal at the beginning of the season is always to perform your best at the end of the season. To achieve this goal, it takes what all other goals take, hard work.  When I was younger championship swimming didn't matter because dropping time happen frequently. As you get older as a swimmer the less often you drop time.  For me, when I was 11, I drop 21seconds out of the blue in the 100 free. Now it is a struggle to drop even a .01 off my best. Currently, my championship meets occurs for short course during February and March. For long course, they happen in August or late July. A lot of preparation goes into swimming at a high quality at a championship meet. It all starts at the beginning of the season with intense training and meticulous corrections of the strokes. The intense training continues until a month or so from the meet where tapering begins. Tapering is when the yards beginning to decrease and is an imp
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Swim Etiquette

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The best way to tick off any swimmer well swimming is terribly lane etiquette and having the coach tell you this is the last set but it is not.  Lane etiquette is the set of unspoken manner and rules that all swimmers use to efficiency and safety swim practicing. Swimming in the lanes with others is like swimming driving cars. If cars are not following the rules of the road, then cars accidents and crashes will occur. The same goes as to swimming as well.  Last week, my friend, Nick didn't follow the rule of waiting five seconds to left the wall. The set was 8x100 breaststroke. Off the wall, he was doing a pull out as my friend, Alice was doing a pull out as well.  Nick's head ends up in the way on Alice's leg leading to Nick getting the kick in the face. Nick gained a bruised from not follows the proper lane etiquette. Examples of Correct Lane Etiquette: swimming on the right side of the lane waiting five seconds before leaving the wall touching ones feet to signal y
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Swim for Charlotte

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  I have been wanting to share you guys a cause that is near to my heart. When younger, I was on a summer swim team. There I learned my love for the water but also I meet some of my closest friends and role models. There I met Charlotte. Charlotte was fighting At/Rt cancer which is an extremely rare and fast-growing brain or spinal cord tumor that is found in children under 3. The surviv al rate is 60%. Charlotte was diagnosed at age 1. She always had a smile on her face and a love for crazy, colorful caps. Charlotte sadly passed away at the age of 6 1/2. In honor of her, my summer league holds a swimathon in to raise fro At/Rt research as well as for PMC and the Jimmy Fund. PMC is the pan-mass challenge is a bikathon to rise to find a cure for cancer.  The Jimmy Fund is an organization of  Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, raising funds for adult and pediatric cancer care and research to improve the chances of survival for cancer patients around the world.  If you can p
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What it takes to Become a Great Swimmer?

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Most people do not know what it takes to be a swimmer. The majority of the population thinks that to be a great swimmer takes practicing and being able to swim.  Becoming an amazing swimmer takes more than practicing and the natural talents of swimming, but it takes effort, mindset, and determination. Of course, practicing and natural talents are factors that play into the quality of the swimmer but they are not anything that makes you in a great swimmer. Practicing will only make you better if you are focused, determined, and willing to be in the effort to be better, but if you are not practicing is useless. The correct attitude toward swimming will lead to an improvement. A swimmer's mindset is the key to become a fast and best swimmer. All these following traits are required to become a great swimmer: Work Effort - is anything! what you are willing to out in is will determine what you get out.  Setting Goals - Swimming for a goal creates a focus and determined swimmer
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Home is the pool

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If you are swimmer than you know that swimming takes up your whole life. A swimmers life is swimming in the pool, thinking about swimming, talking about swimming, and trying not to smell like chlorine constantly. Basically, I eat, swim, sleep, and repeat. And that is the common life of swimmer at my level. I began swimming at the age of 8 at my local summer swim club. There I found my love for the water. When I was 10, my coach encourages and push me to join a USA club team, Southern New Hampshire Fins. There I learned the hard work and decides need to success in swimming. At Fins, I became a New England age group swimmers and breaking team records. After a couple of years swimming at Fin, I need to be challenged more to grow as a swimmer. Leading me to join Patriot Swim Club. Last year, I was a freshman at Westford Academy, I joined my High school while still continuing to swim at Patriot Swim Club.  As a freshman, I exceeded my coach's and my expectation by becoming the100 bre
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