By David

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with “Google Analytics”, its near cousin “StatCounter”, or any other web stats / analytics package. I’d never heard of them until Jane visited Florida in September. However the void in my computer knowledge was not particularly surprising. A few years ago when we were setting up Swimwatch, Edward Yardley, the technical brains behind the venture, nearly wet his new corduroys when I called Google “Goggle”. For a swim coach I thought it was a perfectly understandable mistake. With his degree in computer science, Edward thought I’d helped Noah build the ark.

These statistics and analytics programmes tell you all about the visits to your website each day – how many, where from, how often and what they put into their computer to end up at Swimwatch. I have say, it is bloody amazing what some people ask Google to find. I mean most visitors are sensible and stick to “Swimwatch” or “swimming news”. You probably don’t know that Swimwatch ranks on page one of Google for “swimming news”. How’s that for SEO status, right up there with the BBC, ESPN and the New York Times. And if you don’t know what SEO means, you were probably helping Noah as well.

However there are some strange buggers out there who Google all sorts of stuff. Someone wanting “Ian Thorpe naked” arrived at Swimwatch the other day. They weren’t looking for our story on Thorpe’s swimming feats. Instead they were after a site that boasted a picture of Thorpe’s head on the unclothed torso of Mr. Puny America.

It is a mystery what anyone finds on Swimwatch to justify looking for “sexy swimmers team girls pictures” or “uploaded images female swimmer” or “the seven hottest female swimmers of all time“ or even “naughty Indiana girl pictures”. Those four occur quite often from all over the world. The four most recent inquiries using those referrals came from the United States, or to be more precise Cambridge, Massachusetts, Westport, Indiana, Union, New Jersey and San Diego, California. Our reader in San Diego must have found what he was after. He spent a constructive 21min and 49sec reading two of Jane’s posts. Sadly he appears to have had little interest in my literary efforts. I do not want to give the impression that the United States has a monopoly on strange Swimwatch searches. Just today someone from Lane Cove in New South Wales, Australia felt the need to find out about “swimmer red Speedo hard photo”. I doubt there is anything on Swimwatch that would satisfy this Australian fantasy.

Some of our swimmers get more than their fair share of attention. Rhi Jeffrey and Jane Copland are the most popular. Both have personalities well suited to managing their internet attention. In fact their popularity on a swimming website, well after both of them have retired, speaks volumes for their larger than life personalities. While searches for Rhi and Jane may be understandable and even normal, there are some strange ones as well. For about a week recently our best female swimmer was Googled every day by someone in Maryland. The swimmer has never been to Maryland, doesn’t know anyone in Maryland, but clearly has a determined admirer up there somewhere.

There is one interesting national characteristic. Google searches for “coach yelling at athlete” almost always come from the United Kingdom. There is obviously a whole lot more distress about this subject in the UK than anywhere else. The Brits clearly have a thing about being yelled at by swimming coaches. Americans, who revere their swim coaches, initiate very few searches on the subject. It seems that the most concern in the UK is centered in the south. For example, today’s inquiries came from Bristol, Coulsdon in Surrey and Martock in Somerset. Parents and swimmers north of Manchester and in Scotland are not nearly as concerned about a few poolside verbals.

I was delighted to see that a Google inquiry for “Ohura Beacon Wanganui New Zealand” was directed straight to Swimwatch. The Ohura Beacon is a flight navigation beacon on the west of New Zealand’s North Island. It played an important part in my life. Twenty six years ago, at 9000 feet almost directly above the beacon the engine of my Piper Arrow burst an oil pipe and stopped. A little south of Ohura I found a friendly paddock and managed one of my better landings. I wrote about the incident in a Swimwatch story. It looks like Google enjoyed the story and are now directing all aviation inquires about the beacon to our blog. I wonder how many Air New Zealand captains have discovered an Arrow’s forced landing instead of the technical details of the Ohura Beacon.

Other fun searches that have ended up at Swimwatch include “empty pool” from someone who lives in Gin Gin, Queensland, Australia: a strange request from a strange town. A search from New Delhi, India asked “is it possible to swim in New Zealand in May?” Someone from San Jose, California wanted the opinion of Swimwatch on “cotton chicken candy nuggets”. None of these are as odd as the reader in Valdosta, Georgia in the United States who wanted our opinion on the “monte food mart in Wellington New Zealand”. It would not be fair for us to comment. We left New Zealand before Del Monte arrived. I have relations however who tell me the stores aren’t too bad: where I come from that’s pretty high praise.

It is off the subject but you may be interested to know that in the past four days Swimwatch has received 500 visits from 40 different countries. That number, spread around the world is bound to result in readers with all sorts of emotions and motives. I even heard of a reader last week who said we had insulted some of her friends. Of Course that’s not true: just Google it – “insulted my friends” – see, I told you, no mention of Swimwatch.

By David

I got three emails today, one from Singapore, another from Monte Carlo and the third from a local hospital here in Delray Beach. The one from Singapore was from Clive Rushton. He has just resigned as New Zealand’s High Performance Director or some similar title. He’s taken up the position of Head Coach at the exclusive and successful Singapore Sports School. When I was leaving New Zealand to coach in the US Virgin Islands Clive called to wish me well. He concluded our conversation with a never to be forgotten quote, “Coaching” he said, “is always best done under a palm tree.” He has, at last, followed his own advice. New Zealand swimming is a vastly better place for the years Clive spent there. I can’t remember the exact details, but at one Junior World Championships while he was in charge, New Zealand actually lead the boy’s point’s competition.

I coached three swimmers who represented New Zealand during Clive’s years there – Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth and Jane Copland. His contribution to their careers was always positive and fair. You can usually tell more about a person’s character when things go wrong. When Jane swam in the Pan Pacific Games in Yokohama one or two New Zealand swimmers took their last night celebrations a little too far. Nothing on a Tiger Woods scale; just a few not so delicate moments over various Japanese toilets. I know of many an official who would make a mountain out of such indiscretions. Clive chose to write to all the team and simply said, “I know what went on. I will not put up with it. Don’t do it again or the wrath of God will be inadequate to explain the consequences”. I thought it was brilliant. Any swimmer who did not understand the fairness of this last warning deserved more than the wrath of God.

On the same trip Jane was not coming back to New Zealand. After the meet she was heading off to the USA to begin her University education. Many a coach would have required her to return to New Zealand with the team before flying to the USA. Clive recognized it was much cheaper to fly from Japan to America and that’s what he arranged. It’s that sort of common sense that makes for good coaching and good administration.

I’m not at all sure that Swimming New Zealand always appreciated the value of their High Performance Director. Achieving anything in an environment sated with regional politics must have required the skills of a Clinton or Blair. The fact Clive got so much done is exceptional. He once came to dinner at our place. It was a most enjoyable evening, good wine, good food and good debate over things swimming. I’ve had similar evenings with Arthur Lydiard, Lincoln Hurring, Ross Anderson, Arch Jelley, Duncan Lang and a few others. In all cases I’ve left knowing more and feeling better for the contact. Good luck in Singapore Clive and thank you for what you did for swimming in New Zealand. An endorsement from Swimwatch may be the last thing you want. Bad luck, on this occasion you’ve got it anyway.

The second email was from the Mare Nostrum organizer in Monte Carlo. The subject was just to let everyone know they have changed their email address. Last year our Club had four swimmers in the competition. Since then some pretty negative changes have resulted in the team only having one swimmer qualified for the 2010 series and she wasn’t even there in 2009. Her name is Nicole and she joined the team to swim in the masters program. She has a doctorate in physical therapy and doesn’t have all that much time to practice. She can swim though. After two weeks training and in her first competition she swam 50 meters in 28 and 100 meters in 1.04. It never ceases to amaze me how a good swimmer leaves and is always replaced by another. Certainly that’s what’s happened on this occasion. I’m going to try and talk Jane into swimming at Mare Nostrum with Nicole. We will go to Font Romeau for a week’s training again and then drive to Monte Carlo, Barceloma and Canet. It will be good to be back. It is a good series and with these two sane and sensible athletes should be a heap of fun.

The third email was from a swim team parent. You may remember the story we wrote about him. He’s the parent who used to be a leading Fords model. He is in hospital with a collapsed lung and one or two other complications that fortunately seem to be coming right. He’s been in an isolation ward and the ICU for two weeks now but appears to be on the mend. He is hoping to be on his way home in a couple of days.

I’ve called in to see him three times. I was interested to visit an American hospital; the pride of capitalist medicine. From all I could see the facilities were good but no better than New Zealand’s socialist Hawkes Bay hospital where I spent three weeks once while they got my blood pressure under control. The capitalist $5000 a day hospital was clean but no cleaner than the Hastings free version. I am not qualified to comment on the standard of care but the profit motive version here appears to have done a good job of fixing Martin’s problems but no better than Hawkes Bay hospital did fixing my blood pressure problem.

But today I found a difference. Martins “dinner” arrived while I was there tonight. For $5000 a day he got a pathetic, limp hamburger, a small salad that had seen better days and a couple of very small cookies. It was awful. A very small portion of the hospital’s capitalist income had been spent preparing this culinary masterpiece. The worst hamburger joint in the country can do better than this. A potato top pie bought in a New Zealand gas station is a delight in comparison. The food I got in Hastings hospital was a million times better – no contest. The socialist’s food is not only edible, but when I was there I looked forward to its arrival. So if you are thinking of getting sick anytime soon head to the socialist system in New Zealand; at least the foods worth eating. If President Obama’s public option results in a better hospital food service, I’m all for it.

By David

Thanks to swimming, I’ve met some strange buggers. There may be a few poor souls who do not appreciate the full measure of being a “strange bugger”. I feel for your burden. Clearly “no child left behind” has failed to provide you with an important life skill. Not being able to determine who in this world is a strange bugger could cost you dearly one day. Let me take a minute to explain something you should already know.

Where I come from, a “strange bugger” is a gentle derogatory term used to describe someone who’s a bit odd; an individual with few social skills; someone you’d avoid having lunch with between preliminaries and finals. There are a few swim coaches I know who are strange buggers. One of them was a New Zealand Special Olympics National Coach. He always seemed angry about something. He was one of those unfortunate souls who got far too nervous for his own athletes, developing a predilection towards beating himself on the bum with a rolled up meet programme while his swimmers were competing. Two hundred pounds lighter, on a horse in the Melbourne Cup, his behaviour would be entirely appropriate. But as a coach at a swim meet, it comfortable qualified him as a strange bugger.

One of the guys Swimming New Zealand had as their CEO was a strange bugger. He was a short fellow who displayed all the unfortunate characteristics commonly attributed to those physically challenged in the height department. I had a couple of run-ins with him. Most memorable was the occasion he threatened to have Toni Jeffs and I banned for bringing the sport into disrepute when Toni accepted sponsorship from Brian le Gross, the owner of Wellington’s Liks strip club. Brian now owns New Zealand’s largest strip club, The White House, in Auckland. Their VIP lounge features dark blue Oval Office carpet, a US Presidential Seal and is called Monica’s.

Swimming New Zealand took an extremely dim view of the Liks’ sponsorship. Their strange bugger called me and recited a list well worn clichés: “family sport” and “disrepute” featured prominently. I was summoned to a meeting with Swimming New Zealand’s Board the following morning. Things were looking pretty black until I explained to the meeting that the idea of approaching Brian for financial help came from an advertisement promoting Liks that I’d seen on the back page of Swimming New Zealand’s monthly magazine. The strange bugger had accepted Brian’s money before Toni. She just got more. The charge of disrepute was dropped.

One of Swimming New Zealand’s long time National Coaches was a strange bugger. He ripped into Jane in a Sydney hotel once; told her she was not good enough to be swimming in World Cup events and should go home. A week later at a World Cup meet in Berlin she broke the 15 year age group national record for 100IM. Two years later, he had to present her with the medal for winning the NZ Open women’s 100 Breaststroke title. The same guy may actually qualify for the superlative, “bloody strange bugger”. Toni told me he asked her and several other national team members to sit in a circle and hold on to a broom handle he held in the centre. They should then close their eyes and think about their race because, he said, “Out of touching comes strength.” Now that’s a bloody strange bugger, if you ask me.

The current New Zealand National Coach is a strange bugger as well. In a country too small for such a rule she imposed a FINA 900 point cut off standard for swimmers wanting to qualify for this year’s World Championships. The qualifying time had to be swum in the final of the New Zealand Swimming Championships being held this past weekend. Melissa Ingram just missed the 900 point time in her event. Now, I must tell you, I sat through all last year’s World Cup meets in Europe and watched Melissa Ingram take on and beat most of the world’s best swimmers. She made me proud to be a New Zealander. There she was, no manager, no coach, no massage therapist in tow, on her own, taking on the world and winning. In everything she did, she upheld the best traditions of Snell, Loader, Walker, Halberg, Quax and Dixon. She’d be one of the first I’d have on my team. Apparently New Zealand is so overwhelmed with talent just now they’re leaving her at home. Let’s wait until Rome. We may have another National Coach candidate for title of “bloody strange bugger”.

Strange buggers are not the sole property of New Zealand. The US has its share. The former President of Florida Gold Coast Swimming sent me a letter complaining about my behaviour – I think I called a spade a bloody shovel. At the same time he was apparently misbehaving with an underaged girl and emailing pornographic pictures of young boys to his mates. He’s a real bad strange bugger. The thing I never understood about all that was one of my swimmers told me about the girl a few months after I arrived in Florida. How on earth did the people who elected this strange bugger President not know about it? I guess those closest to the problem often miss the obvious.

Next week I was thinking of writing a piece on another group of swimming people; those who qualify for the superlative, “bloody dag”. This is a very different group from strange buggers. I hate to have to explain what a dag actually is, and it is surely a reflection of what strange places Australian and New Zealand are that only the very best and most respected of people qualify for that honorific.

By David

Last week, an American swim coaching magazine spent several pages discussing distance. In case you’re not familiar with the concept of distance, I’ve used the mathematical formula as the title to this article. I happen to be a strong supporter of distance: not the formula, but distance training. No one who has been an Arthur Lydiard disciple for as long as I have could be anything else.

Our team has just completed their ten week aerobic conditioning build up in preparation for the 2009 summer season. The table below shows the distances several swimmers covered each week and their total for the period.

Skuba’s 880 kilometers is a long way to swim. It’s not the best I’ve seen. Both Toni Jeffs and Jane Copland got through 1000 kilometers in the ten weeks. Jane did it on several occasions [Editor’s note: I think it was only twice :)]. However, 880 kilometers is certainly world class distance conditioning. The lost 50 kilometers in week five, when Skuba was ill with a flu type bug that went around the team, cost him the chance of a build up in excess of 900 kilometers. This build up was Skuba’s first attempt at a full tens and was a very good effort. It will yield beneficial physiological changes that will result in faster swim times; but more of that later.

Just as impressive was the build up by 12-year-old Jamie. An average of 66 kilometers a week for ten weeks at 12 is the best I’ve seen from a swimmer of her age. An average of 58 kilometers by the other twelve year old, Catalina, is the second best I’ve seen. Whoever said young swimmers couldn’t swim these distances never saw these two girls. Part way through the build up Jamie’s Dad was officiating at a local swim meet. One of the officials from another club asked him how far his daughter swam each week. Jamie’s Dad said, “About 70 kilometers.” The official said that was clearly a mistake. No 12 year old could swim that sort of distance. Our incredulous friend probably does not read Swimwatch, but if he does, she sure as hell can.

On the final Saturday of each season’s build up I set the team a 600 meter time trial as a test of their aerobic conditioning. Obviously, after all that long distance training swimmers are in no shape to race fast. They should however be aerobically fit enough to swim 600 meters at a good pace with even 100 meter splits. I look for two things in this trial session. Has the overall time improved from the same swim last season and are the splits for each 100 even? The table below shows the total and split times for the last three 600 trials swum by three of the swimmers.

It may be of interest to see the result of a 600 meter breaststroke trial that I thought was pretty impressive. Jane swam it at the end of a 1000 kilometer build up and about twelve weeks before she won her first New Zealand national championship and broke her first New Zealand open record.

When it comes to distance conditioning, obviously I agree with Councilman and Lydiard. For those who may have doubts consider these factors:

1. In Jane’s 600 meter breaststroke trial she swam 2.38 for the first 200 meters and 2.39 for the last 200 meters. That’s a pretty good sign of sound, deep seated aerobic fitness.
2. A 12 year old female whose best race times before this build up were, 100 meters 1.12, 200 meters 2.35 and 400 meters 5.08 swam these distances during this 600 trial in 1.09, 2.25 and 4.57. That’s another pretty good sign of improved aerobic fitness.
3. Skuba swam his first trial a year ago after having three years away from the sport. Two more build ups and this trial was 3% faster. That too is a pretty good sign of improved aerobic fitness. Faster race times will certainly result.

As you can see, although the swims are aerobic they are not exactly slow. Lydiard is often credited with being the father of the “long slow distance method” of training. He was not. Just try and swim 600 meters in 6.30 or 600 meters breaststroke in 8.00 minutes after completing 1000km in ten weeks. These times are not slow. And yet, to well-conditioned swimmers, they are still aerobic efforts. To their anaerobically over-trained peers, swims such as these would be impossible aerobically and maybe anaerobically as well. In this principle lies the reason our runners can’t get anywhere near the African athletes. It’s called aerobic conditioning. You get it by long, fast aerobic effort over many, many miles. Hold on to that idea, it might make you a champion one day.

By David

On December 19, 2008 Swimwatch published a story called “Much Ado About Neoprene”. The article discussed the implications of a meeting FINA was scheduled to have with 16 swimwear manufacturers. The purpose of the meeting was to recommend amendments to the “FINA Requirements for Swimwear Approval”. Amendments, FINA thought, were needed to control the technology being applied to swimsuit manufacture. The recommendations would then be considered by the FINA Bureau at its March meeting in Dubai. That Bureau certainly does themselves well in the exotic locations department.

Arguably the suit that started it all, the Speedo LZR Racer

The meeting with the 16 manufacturers has been held. The recommendations have been published. Here is what the delegates in Dubai will consider.

• Swimsuits shall not cover the cover the neck nor extend past the shoulder or ankles.
• The material shall have a maximum thickness of 1mm; it will follow the body shape and shall not create air trapping effects.
• The swimsuit shall not have a buoyancy effect of more than 1 Newton.
• Any system of external stimulation is prohibited.
• Swimsuits must not be modified for individual swimmers.
• Swimmers can only wear one suit at a time.
• FINA will establish a swimsuit control/testing program.

I have no idea whether these controls ensure swimsuits are fair and honest. They seem sensible, but then I don’t even know what one Newton means. There is a certain irony in the rule demanding suits do not cover a swimmer’s arms. It was not so long ago that the same organisation insisted girls cover those extremities. In the not-so-distant-past, this organisation would have had swimmers wearing men’s shorts like this for the 100 butterfly, and women’s bloomers along these lines for the 200 IM. This does not cheat former swimmers out of their achievements; it is simply the natural progression of the sport and its technology.

The recommendations conclude with a statement from FINA President, Mustapha Larfaoui that says, “While we need to remain open to evolution, the most important factors must be the athlete’s preparation and physical condition on achieving their performances.”

Larfaoui does not explain himself very well. Preparation and physical condition are just as much evolution as new swimsuits. However, if he means what I think he means, then he is quite right. Preparation and physical condition should be foremost in determining the quality of a swimming performance. If the seven recommendations coming out of Switzerland help ensure that is the case, then we can be well pleased. What I don’t understand is why the clearly stated efforts of some companies to push the technology envelope come in for such suspicion. Pushing technology is not necessarily cheating – it’s not even maybe cheating.

Take Rocket Science Sport for example. Their CEO is a guy called Marcin Sochacki. He’s quite open about his goals. Here’s what he says, “Our Company has pushed the edge of technology and perhaps designed a suit that is ahead of its time. The swimsuit complies with all the proposed regulations including buoyancy and thickness except for the length of the sleeve. I do not see this as a set back but proof that our company walks on the razor’s edge in pursuit of technology and innovation. We have a sleeveless version that we look forward to seeing on swimmers in Rome.”

I like that attitude. It’s the way progress is made. Equipment manufacturers do the same thing all the time. Anti-turbulence lane lines, the new Omega starting blocks, improved pool water flow characteristics, deeper pools – there are a million things that give 2009 swimmers a technological edge over their 1960 mates. Thanks to people like Marcin Sochacki, we make progress and that’s a good thing. A favourite hobby of mine is pouring over the US Swimming rule book searching for a rule that might give a clue on how to steal an advantage – not an illegitimate advantage, just an advantage. Upward fly kicks in a breaststroke kick, fly kicks after a turn, delayed breaststroke kicks, track starts and a dozen other innovations are all the result of someone being ahead of their time. So if Rocket Science Sport is trying to do the same thing for swimsuits that I’m trying to do in the pool, then all power to them. That’s not cheating; that’s just “the pursuit of technology and innovation.” It is change that should be welcomed and embraced.

Some dinosaurs, Craig Lord for example, see perils in just about every innovation. He even called the new swim suits “steroid swim suits”. He appears to go to some lengths to exclude Speedo and Arena from that label. I’ve never quite understood why. Why are the suits made by those companies any different? Did they take him to the Ritz for lunch or something? Fortunately Lord’s respect, and hopefully traffic, is declining faster than the New York Stock Exchange. I too hope Rocket Science has swimmers in Rome wearing their suits. I hope I have swimmers in London wearing them. That would certainly be better than some who wish is to see us all in bloomers and black stockings again.