Winhawk swimmers enter the black magic stage of the season

The Winona Winhawk Swimmers (3-5, 2-5) enter the land of the unknown this week. With the first big end-of-season meet, comes the first TAPER group. Tapering in swimming talk means a calculated reduction in the workouts for a desired high energy output. Or, as has been quoted, “A progressive nonlinear reduction of the training load during a variable period of time, in an attempt to reduce the physiological and psychological stress of daily training and optimize sports performance and enhance training adaptations during the taper period.” (Mujika et al. Sports Med. 34:891-927,2004; Thomas & Busso Med. Sci. Sports & Exerc. 37: 1615-1621, 2005) For more information on it you can reference the USA Swimming Website http://www.usaswimming.org/ViewMiscArticle.aspx?TabId=1781&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&mid=7898&ItemId=5173 . As indicated in the article, tapering by some is considered as much black magic as it is sports science.

Bottom line, at Saturday’s Big 9 Conference meet, the first group of tapers will come into play. Due to entry limitations at Sections in two weeks, there are some swimmers that will be tapering for this Saturday’s Big 9 Conference Championship. This is their final meet and time to swim as fast as they can. Not that they haven't been trying to up until now, but that was trying to swim fast while swimming 4,000 yards the days before a meet, or even having multiple meets in a week on top of the yardage. Here, they are rested and the muscles have had a chance to re-generate.  

The Big 9 Championship is just that, a conference contest. While having no bearing on a swimmer or team progressing further, it can be an indication of how the swimmers are setting up their end-of-season. What it is, is pretty much a bragging rights affair to reinforce or perhaps clarify the results of the dual meet season. The Dual meet season is more for the swimmers and relays to practice meet conditions and try different events. Unlike other sports, the dual meet record of each team has NO bearing on anything at the end of the season.  Conference does not determine anything about or toward Sections. In fact, half of the Big 9 Conference teams are Class A schools, the other half are Class AA schools.  So when it comes time to compete at Sections with a chance to qualify for the State meet, the Big 9 schools will be split. Mankato East & West, Faribault, Austin & Albert Lea will all head to the Twin Cities to compete at the Section 1A Championships. Rochester Century, Mayo and JM, along with Winona,Owatonna and a few other schools will be in Rochester for the Section 1AA Tournament.

So Big 9 is all about bragging rights and either clarifications or vindications of the dual meet season records.

Big 9 Final Standings

                                                     Overall                        Big 9      

Teams                                    W        L          T          W        L          T

Rochester Century                 9          0          0          9          0          0

Owatonna                              7          1          0          7          1          0

Mankato West                        6          2          0          6          2          0

Rochester Mayo                     5          6          0          4          5          0

Mankato East/Loyola             4          4          0          4          3          0

Rochester John Marshall       4          6          0          4          5          0

Faribault                                3          7          0          3          5          0

Winona H.S.                          3          5          0          2          5          0

Austin High School                1          8          0          1          8          0

Albert Lea                              0          9          0          0          9          0

( No report found for the last Albert Lea vs Mankato East meeting on 2/3)

The Big 9 Meet will be held at Minnesota State University – Mankato, Home of the Men’s & Women’s Maverick Swimming Teams.  Diving will be held Friday Evening at 5:00 PM. This is mainly to help run the meet with fewer time constraints. The MSU-M pool is a six lane pool, and the diving boards are located at the end of the swimming competition pool, rather than a separate diving well. That means two things; first that swimming has to stop in order to having diving competition and with only 6 lanes there will need to be more swimming heats (vs an eight lane pool like the Rec Center). The swimming competition is Saturday. The Winhawk Team will get to Mankato around 10:00 AM. Their warm-ups are scheduled to accommodate the number of swimmers versus pool space and Winona starts their warm-ups around 11:40 AM.  The swimming competition starts on Saturday at 1:00 PM. The Bleachers are HIGH above the pool deck and typically quite warm from being as elevated as they are. For this meet the parking lots and stands will be packed so I would suggest getting there early both for parking issues as well as to not only get the seat you want but get a seat period. The bleachers are at a steep angle so pictures are easy to take if you have a telephoto lens setting.

Good luck Winhawks!