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.
2019 is going to be an exciting summer for swimming fans. With so many major meets on the horizon, there will be no shortage of fast swimming around the world. The first of those major international meets is the World University Games in Naples, Italy, which starts on July 5. That means for Americans, taper is now. Luckily, the Texas men were kind enough to let us sit in on one of their taper workouts, where they were doing a little pace work.
In the main WUG group there was John Shebat (200 IM), Austin Katz (200 back), Dean Farris (400 free relay), Tate Jackson (100 free), and Jeff Newkirk (800 free relay), as well as Townley Haas who is prepping for World Champs (200 free, 400 free relay). Everyone did about the same thing for their morning work after warm up: somewhere between 2-3×50 @ 1:30, pacing for your event. Among the highlights:
A. Katz, 26.8-27.2 50 backstroke
J. Shebat, 28 low 50 back, 34.5 50 breast
Dean Farris, 24 low 50 free
Tate Jackson, 24.4-24.6 50 free
Townley Haas, 25 high 50 free
A surprise WUG competitor in Austin was Zach Yeadon, who trained at UT over the summer so he could race many of his WUG teammates as well as the UT distance stars such as Clark Smith and Chris Yeager. Yeadon had a set of 8×100 @ 1:20 strong with 2×50 EZ in between, holding 1:00-1:01 on the 100’s.
Will there be a WUGs preview? BTW this article and video was awesome!
WUGS Predictions (only for these guys): Dean: splits 47.8 flying start, 48.2 if he leads off. Tate: 48.1 100 free. Katz: 1:55.2 200 Back. Newkirk: 1:47.4 flying start. Shebat: 1:58.2. Yeadon: 3:47.9.
great bunch of talented swimmers …..the list is so long
Okay all good except Dean is faster cause he is Dean. 47.3 flying
Not really atypical of his post-swim reactions, but look at Haas at the end of his “pace” 50. He looks tired and a little defeated. At this point in the taper, I wouldn’t expect that look.
huh? This is like probably the very first day of taper for him he’s 4 weeks out. He’s swimming at World’s
Is it really necessary to show narrator eating and talking at same time? Just crass.
What? Watching him talk while eating the pancakes was the best part!! It was hilarious!
Coleman dares being different than the Usual ” Impeccable video vlog ” …loved it too .
I would watch Coleman do anything while eating pancakes.
I REALLY want to see Townley break 1:45. Since the 2013 WCs, only A SINGLE person has broken 1:45 from a flat start, and that’s the defending Olympic and world champion Sun Yang. I counted using the world rankings, and between 2014 and 2019, 28 guys have been 1:45 something. I really hope that NCAA’s was just a miss for Townley. He should be able to do it; as he is the second fastest since 2013 with his 1:45.03 from 2017 national champs. If he can go that 1:43 from a rollin start, he can go 1:44
Long story short, really think haas can break 1:45 and get silver or higher. I think there is a chance, if Haas is… Read more »
No facts wrong… but “ncaas Haas” is still amazing. He had one bad race… broke the ncaa record in the 500, split 1:29/40. Something so don’t worry, ncaas Townley is going to blow your mind at worlds
That’s completely fair. 4:08 is nothing to scoff at. I more meant that if he had a swim in the 200 like his 200 at NCAA’s. Should have specified. But in that case, he would have something to worry about. I suspect that something came up that impacted his swim, and he didn’t really fully recover until Saturday finals, as he didn’t have a great prelims but won the B final and had a great split on the 400 free relay. but if that swim is the result of something recurring, then I would be worried.
I think NCAA Townley was wasted after his 500 and you can’t really infer much from his 200.
I have a feeling that Seliskar will break 1:45 before Haas does.
Seliskar can change gears and Townley just tries to maintain his momentum
totally right
I absolutely love these videos, especially any that have Eddie in them!
One surprise for me, and I have not coached at this level in ages, is that they are doing “pace” work finishing to the hand. I always have my kids do any kind of pace work “feet to feet”. so that you are getting real race simulation, and comparing apples to apples (I Love apple pancakes Coleman!), unless we are working “finish” 50 paces, which then go to a hand touch.
In my view, if pace work is to “train the body to feel/know how fast to go” in an upcoming race, you want as accurate a time on the practice stuff as you can get, so you… Read more »
I’m surprised the WUG kids are still in town. Swimming starts in a week. Unless Coleman filmed this like a week ago
Coleman, I’m surprised you like your pancakes Burnt
The team leaves Saturday the 29th
I guess only the big teams do a two week(ish) training camp overseas before worlds and Olympics?
I think USA Worlds team is only doing a one week camp in Singapore this summer.
Here are the details: https://staging.swimswam.com/team-usa-training-camp-to-be-held-in-singapore-ahead-of-world-championships/
burned & voice blocking ….LOL
This video was nice- it’s great to see the times and see whole chunks of them swimming instead of the videos dominated by B roll stuff. I wish there was more dialogue- some of the greatest value in these videos comes from hearing what the coaches or swimmers are saying and I find it really interesting. Keep up the work- I think having insight on practices is both very valuable and very interesting.