BigPapa - only one men's relay made it - the 200 free relay.

I'm pleased though with our entries. We finished the season with fast times. Denisyako was a huge addition to the team.

It is great to see a sophomore like Strange in the mix!

okay......what kind of workouts are the women and men doing with one and two weeks before the national championships?

Spicewood, the Ags can make up 200 & 400 medley and 400 free relays with the people already automatically at the meet...just because they aren't on the psyche sheet doesn't mean they can't hodgepodge with the people already there...I can promise you the Ags will swim four relays and hopefully score in several of them

LOB - that's excellent. I thought the psych sheet showed all entries.

the men could also swim the 800 relay, since they do have the B cut, but i would guess they would not swim it so that they can focus on the other events/relays that will score more points.

Since Denisyako & Bergstrom made the meet, both Medley relays that will be swum at the meet will be the fastest combination. Unlike 2 years ago, when the ags didnt qualify a backstroker to the meet, and Gardner had to swim backstroke on both medley relays.

...I confess, I'm a rookie when it comes to swimming! My middle schooler (been swimming for 3 years) is interested in the workouts leading up to the big show.

[This message has been edited by bogustrumper (edited 3/14/2008 1:02p).]

Bogus - I have no idea what A&M's swimmers are actually doing right now. But a typical "taper" for a major championship meet could reduce the training volume over a 2-3 week period by 50-60%. The content of the workout will change too. Long aerobic sets go away and are replaced by sets of faster swims with longer rest intervals. Details - like starts and turns - are worked too.

The interesting workouts would be for those that tapered for Big12s, but have to try to peak once again for NCAAs. A double taper is difficult to pull off. Look at our girls last year at NCAAs. They really did not swim well.

The textbook double taper says to resume hard work for several days to a week then taper again.

Spicewood, it's inaccurate to make a blanket statement that all the girls did not swim well at NC's at year...half of them set season best times and several school records were broken...

I know what you're trying to say, but to the casual, uninformed observer it sounds much worse...that said, I hear they have trained differently this year leading up to Big 12's and NCAA's so let's wait and see what happens...

LOB - I don't want to sound negative. But I looked at last year's results. Out of 37 races, we swam season bests in only 7. 4 of those best times were in two events/two swimmers. Of the girls that reached the A final, only 7 swam better than they did in prelims. Only 1 of 5 relays swam a season best time.

A few swims were slow enough that I'd say the girl was conserving energy for another race later in that session. Some our swims were far off best times. The 400 medley relay was +4 secs.

Triin's 50 free and Heiss' 200 back were standout swims. Those two events produced season bests in prelims, then improved once again in finals. These are probably the team record swims you mentioned.

I am not a casual observer. I am also not faulting anyone. Anyone that REALLY looks at the results will see many others that did not swim well at NCAAs. Stanford, Cal, and other top teams had swimmers not perform at their best. Many swimmers likely peaked for their conference championships. Some really just don't deliver at the big meet. The very best however, come through in finals.

Texas' men swam relatively poorly at NCAAs last year. The truly great Eddie Reese somehow did not get his team prepared. And they did NOT have to taper for the Big12s. It happens.

I expect our girls this year will swim much faster. They didn't have to peak at Big12s this year to beat Texas. They are more experienced and should be ready for the pressure of the NCAAs.

I'm looking forward to it!

Meghan Nebera's 200 fly and the 200 free relay were also considerably faster school records...there were also several swifter-than-Big 12 relay splits littered in there as well