I never go into a swim practice without having a specific workout planned out for that day. What we do depends on many factors such as: the time in the season, work done in previous workouts that week, what I feel my swimmers need to improve on, etc. Today I walked into practice and a couple of my swimmers begged me to do 20 x 100s @ 1:30 (20 times through 100 yards beginning every minute and thirty seconds). This also happens to be the test set in which swimmers need to pass in order to move on to the next level on the team. Now, I didn’t plan a very aerobic workout. My plan was to do more drills to clean up strokes with the longest set only being 800 yards or so. But when kids beg you to work hard (this doesn’t happen very often, believe it or not), it’s hard to say no. The right mix of kids were there to do it so I had everybody in my group attempt the grueling set. And I was shocked at how well everybody did. Everybody made more of the 100s than I thought they would. They were cheering each other on, congratulating each other, and they all worked their tail off. It was beautiful. Now, we didn’t do one thing in my original workout plan and it turned into one of the best practices of the year. Everybody left feeling good about themselves and motivated to do better next time. Man, I love coaching! 
April 25, 2008