WHAT's MY TIME - DID I DO ANOTHER TEAM TSC PB???It was another truly impressive weekend for TEAM TSC as some 47 swimmers from the club competed in the Leinster Distance & Graded Competition in the MAC. A dominant and powerful sea of Red hats was present throughout the day in the NAC on Sunday showing the strength we have in the TEAM (FYI new hats have been ordered so here's an idea of what they will look like)
The day started with a proud moment as TEAM TSC coaches watched Martha O'Donoghue, Ciara Feighan and Ciara Robinson stand on the clock for their first ever 800FC. It's fantastic to think that we have so many athletes enthusiastically looking to swim that event and is a sign of things to come when we have that many athletes interested in and capable of swimming so well. In the next heat we saw an unusual event with Grace Branagan giving Ian Thom a run for his money (ha ha!!) in the second heat of the 800FC which allwed both of them deliver great swims within points of their PB's for the event.
After a strong volume of work over Christmas and the New year it is normal and expected that athletes are tired. Both Parents & Swimmers need to understand that at this time of the year tiredness in training and racing is a GOOD sign that your training is working. (You do need to monitor yourself to ensure you don't get overtired and taking and recording your daily resting heart rate is the best indicator of how your body is reacting to training - talk to Brian or your coach if you do not know how to do this.) You should expect to get close to PB's and continue to post strong performances whilst being tired and there were many examples of PB's and strong swims in a lot of events last weekend. It's critically important that swimmers are racing tired at this time of year and it's normal that swimmers who have been training hard are tired when they race. You have to stand up and race, focus on skills & tactics when in the race, and learn how to get the best from yourself every time. Worldwide at this time, swimmers are working hard, training hard and racing hard and being tough and learning how to get results when they least feel ready to do it. When you are given time to taper and rest in the latter part of this cycle (i.e. for Dave McCullagh & Irish LC Championships) it is at that time when you will see yourself perform at an even faster level as all your hard work pays off.
The need for swimmers to be able to stand up and race tired and get close to best times was shown in spectacular fashion by Brian Feighan as he demolished his PB's (7 seconds on a 200FC to a 2:11., and 48 Seconds on a 1500FC to finish in 18:28) in EVERY swim having been tired and having trained twice on Friday and twice on Saturday as he should have (how many of you who swam PB's last weekend took Friday or Saturday off to rest!!! - There was no need to as you would have swam well anyway !!!). Brian's committment to training is matched too by Ian Thom and Niamh Murphy who also swam close to PB's whilst tired (Ian's 400FC PB is a 4:13.11 and he split 4:13.9 to his feet on the 800FC, Niamh too swam some tough IM and Breastroke swims to post strong medal winning results). Conor O'Keeffe's efforts too were all inside his season's best so far and Conor has one of the best attendences in the squad. Well done to all of you.
For the rest of the team the work was paying off with PB's from the likes of Dylan Farrell who returned to competition having had a few good weeks back in the water since Christmas. also welcome back to Deirdre Murray who raced for the first time this season having used the Christmas period to catch up on some training. After a short illness Eoin Mongey got back to seasons best in his events and as expected our younger age groupers swam to PB's with strong performances from AnneMarie Finn, Alison O'Driscoll, Grace Branagan & Dayna Clegg in the Middle distance and distance events. Dayna Clegg's 100% PB set of swims demolishing her 200FC (2:16.99) & 400IM (5:27 , a PB by over 10 seconds) were the best swims of the day for her. Grace Branagan took over 5 seconds off her 200FC (2:20) and was matched by Alison O'Driscoll's 5 Second PB in the 400FC (5:08) and Anne-Marie went a little better with a 6 second PB on the 400FC (5:04). Michael Gray, Gemma Houlihan, Cian Murphy and Aoife Newe swam too to seasons best times in some of their events and watched on with smiles as Liam O'Neill impressed us all with his 400FC swim producing a "near death" result and a PB for him.
Great too to see Jonah Clegg, Oisin Phelan and Cilian Phelan swim the 400Fc in strong times and big PB's and we all watched as our other TEAM members swam to some excellent times. Jonah too posted a full set of PB swims over the day taking a MASSIVE 81 seconds off his combined swims (averaging 16 seconds in each event) so well done to him. Ciara Feighan knocked some 12 seconds off her 200FC and was matched by her younger brother Eoin and Anastacia Kychigina as they too knocked over 12 seconds off their 100FC and 100BS times respectively. A hugely impressive 9 second PB from Niamh O'Keeffe in the 200FC coupled with other good results across her events proved to be a great day too for Niamh. WEll done !!
The times continued to tumble as throughout the graded event we saw substantial numbers of our athletes get up on the block and post best times. It was great to see Emma Butler and Kate & Niamh Lyons return to competitive action this year with some great results and also a big congrats to Jenny Flaherty on her first competition. (For those of you who do not know, Paula Flaherty, Jenny's mum was a long time National competitor with an impressive set of results under her belt and both Age Group and Senior Nationals - She was one of the best Breastrokers the country had seen back int he good aul days !!!! - oops i'm in trouble). Well done to Jessica & Rebecca Burke, Jason Cosgrave and Maeve Crossan who posted strong results to build up their competition experience. A big well done to Kieran Hayes & Kathy McGrath who swam a number of 100M events and swam PB's across those swims. Joe Fitzpatrick, Oisin O'Neill and Daniel and ELi McGrane-Maher continued to show how much the hard work is paying off as the boys either took seconds off times or raced events they haven't swum before.
Michelle Larkin posted 6 event swims over the day demonstrating her versatility across a range of events and a big well done to her as she was the ONLY club swimmer to race this number of 100M + events. WEll done Michelle for being a tough competitor. Katrin Kychigina too stepped up on the block for the first time this year and like Rachel and Alex McGrane-Maher showed how the girls can keep on racing to best times over a number of events in the day. WEll done girls.
Tiarnan Murphy showed what a promising backstroker he is with an 11 second PB in the 100BC. All we need to do now is get him up early enough to race the Tallaght Gala (Joke Tiarnan!!!) Martha O'Donoghue put in a phenomenal swim in the 200BC to swim a 19 second PB and also to show her brother Luke O'Donoghue how it should be done as he too raced in one of his first ever competitions. Naoise O'Driscoll hepled to continue her improvement this year with three strong PB's and a strong result in 4 swims so a great day for her.
All in all it was a hugely successful day for the TEAM and just reward for all the efforts from the swimmers.
Check out the results section of the TM online on the website to see all the details. The picture above shows just how enthusiastically our Athletes are looking for their NEW PB times!!!
After a strong volume of work over Christmas and the New year it is normal and expected that athletes are tired. Both Parents & Swimmers need to understand that at this time of the year tiredness in training and racing is a GOOD sign that your training is working. (You do need to monitor yourself to ensure you don't get overtired and taking and recording your daily resting heart rate is the best indicator of how your body is reacting to training - talk to Brian or your coach if you do not know how to do this.) You should expect to get close to PB's and continue to post strong performances whilst being tired and there were many examples of PB's and strong swims in a lot of events last weekend. It's critically important that swimmers are racing tired at this time of year and it's normal that swimmers who have been training hard are tired when they race. You have to stand up and race, focus on skills & tactics when in the race, and learn how to get the best from yourself every time. Worldwide at this time, swimmers are working hard, training hard and racing hard and being tough and learning how to get results when they least feel ready to do it. When you are given time to taper and rest in the latter part of this cycle (i.e. for Dave McCullagh & Irish LC Championships) it is at that time when you will see yourself perform at an even faster level as all your hard work pays off.
The need for swimmers to be able to stand up and race tired and get close to best times was shown in spectacular fashion by Brian Feighan as he demolished his PB's (7 seconds on a 200FC to a 2:11., and 48 Seconds on a 1500FC to finish in 18:28) in EVERY swim having been tired and having trained twice on Friday and twice on Saturday as he should have (how many of you who swam PB's last weekend took Friday or Saturday off to rest!!! - There was no need to as you would have swam well anyway !!!). Brian's committment to training is matched too by Ian Thom and Niamh Murphy who also swam close to PB's whilst tired (Ian's 400FC PB is a 4:13.11 and he split 4:13.9 to his feet on the 800FC, Niamh too swam some tough IM and Breastroke swims to post strong medal winning results). Conor O'Keeffe's efforts too were all inside his season's best so far and Conor has one of the best attendences in the squad. Well done to all of you.
For the rest of the team the work was paying off with PB's from the likes of Dylan Farrell who returned to competition having had a few good weeks back in the water since Christmas. also welcome back to Deirdre Murray who raced for the first time this season having used the Christmas period to catch up on some training. After a short illness Eoin Mongey got back to seasons best in his events and as expected our younger age groupers swam to PB's with strong performances from AnneMarie Finn, Alison O'Driscoll, Grace Branagan & Dayna Clegg in the Middle distance and distance events. Dayna Clegg's 100% PB set of swims demolishing her 200FC (2:16.99) & 400IM (5:27 , a PB by over 10 seconds) were the best swims of the day for her. Grace Branagan took over 5 seconds off her 200FC (2:20) and was matched by Alison O'Driscoll's 5 Second PB in the 400FC (5:08) and Anne-Marie went a little better with a 6 second PB on the 400FC (5:04). Michael Gray, Gemma Houlihan, Cian Murphy and Aoife Newe swam too to seasons best times in some of their events and watched on with smiles as Liam O'Neill impressed us all with his 400FC swim producing a "near death" result and a PB for him.
Great too to see Jonah Clegg, Oisin Phelan and Cilian Phelan swim the 400Fc in strong times and big PB's and we all watched as our other TEAM members swam to some excellent times. Jonah too posted a full set of PB swims over the day taking a MASSIVE 81 seconds off his combined swims (averaging 16 seconds in each event) so well done to him. Ciara Feighan knocked some 12 seconds off her 200FC and was matched by her younger brother Eoin and Anastacia Kychigina as they too knocked over 12 seconds off their 100FC and 100BS times respectively. A hugely impressive 9 second PB from Niamh O'Keeffe in the 200FC coupled with other good results across her events proved to be a great day too for Niamh. WEll done !!
The times continued to tumble as throughout the graded event we saw substantial numbers of our athletes get up on the block and post best times. It was great to see Emma Butler and Kate & Niamh Lyons return to competitive action this year with some great results and also a big congrats to Jenny Flaherty on her first competition. (For those of you who do not know, Paula Flaherty, Jenny's mum was a long time National competitor with an impressive set of results under her belt and both Age Group and Senior Nationals - She was one of the best Breastrokers the country had seen back int he good aul days !!!! - oops i'm in trouble). Well done to Jessica & Rebecca Burke, Jason Cosgrave and Maeve Crossan who posted strong results to build up their competition experience. A big well done to Kieran Hayes & Kathy McGrath who swam a number of 100M events and swam PB's across those swims. Joe Fitzpatrick, Oisin O'Neill and Daniel and ELi McGrane-Maher continued to show how much the hard work is paying off as the boys either took seconds off times or raced events they haven't swum before.
Michelle Larkin posted 6 event swims over the day demonstrating her versatility across a range of events and a big well done to her as she was the ONLY club swimmer to race this number of 100M + events. WEll done Michelle for being a tough competitor. Katrin Kychigina too stepped up on the block for the first time this year and like Rachel and Alex McGrane-Maher showed how the girls can keep on racing to best times over a number of events in the day. WEll done girls.
Tiarnan Murphy showed what a promising backstroker he is with an 11 second PB in the 100BC. All we need to do now is get him up early enough to race the Tallaght Gala (Joke Tiarnan!!!) Martha O'Donoghue put in a phenomenal swim in the 200BC to swim a 19 second PB and also to show her brother Luke O'Donoghue how it should be done as he too raced in one of his first ever competitions. Naoise O'Driscoll hepled to continue her improvement this year with three strong PB's and a strong result in 4 swims so a great day for her.
All in all it was a hugely successful day for the TEAM and just reward for all the efforts from the swimmers.
Check out the results section of the TM online on the website to see all the details. The picture above shows just how enthusiastically our Athletes are looking for their NEW PB times!!!
~~~~~~~ GO TEAM TSC!!!!!! ~~~~~~~
