SwimSwam wants to give you an inside look at what a normal day-in-the-life looks like for any given swimmer, and how that differs from team to team or city to city. We send our head of production, Coleman Hodges, to be a fly on the wall at practice, then relay what he discovered back to you over pancakes. Or at least breakfast.
After getting pancakes in Berkeley with the Cal men, we couldn’t resist heading down to Palo Alto and seeing what the Stanford men were up to. First, let’s give this practice a little context. It occurred on a Monday, and Stanford started their finals the previous Thursday, meaning that the men had been finishing up their quarter and studying for finals throughout the weekend while also competing in Santa Clara at the TYR Pro Swim. To say they were busy would be an understatement.
There were 11 men in attendance at this practice, but with how many workouts were being run (4), it felt like the whole team was there. Let’s go from long to short:
True Sweetser (who at this point is a practice + pancakes regular) and Johannes Calloni resresented the distance group, but were still swimming out the meet. They had a main workout of:
3×300 @ 3:15 hold between 2:54 – 2:58
3×500 @ 5:30 descend from 4:55 to no faster than 4:45
5x (200-100) w/ paddles, buoy, and tube: 200 white @ 2:40, 100 red+ @ 1:20
Grant Shoults, Matthew Hirschberger, and James Murphy were in the Mid-D group, who had a similar workout with not quite as much yardage:
3×300 @ 3:15 hold under 3:00
3×300 @ 5:00 Descend
300 EZ @ 5:00
3×400 paddles, buoy, tube 3-5-7-9 @ 5:20
The Breaststroke group was working skills and speed. They had everything from fast drills, buckets, pulling with tube, and of course 50’s fast:
16×25 BR-FLy drill @ :40 FAST
100 EZ
3×100 @2:00 3 kick-1 pull
3x Dive+1 UW Pull for distance (see who can go the longest)
8×25 Buckets pull w/ Paddles + Fins @ 1:15 COUPLED WITH 4×100 Breast Pull w/ tube @ 2:30
4×50 Breast FAST @ 1:30
Love the setting of the pool. Looks like it’s in a park.
There’s a reason why they call it “The Farm.”
Then saying they went 4:40 and 4:37 in practice in warm up makes me sad
what the heck does sweetser have in his face?
Sunscreen..
no way to prove that..
No way to disprove it either.
Condensed exhaust fumes from Ledecky.
Oof
There is a severe dearth of True Sweetser and his gorgeous flow in this video
Do these guys have PTSD from being destroyed by Ledecky?
I dunno but I have PTSD from when my coach had me use those donuts that they have on their ankles.
Among the most evil of swim equipment.