I know I've raved about Steve Mathe, the plucky freshman on our team. But I'm here to tell you he can be (and was) beaten ! By a 38-year old no less. So it was about his 20th swim in the Hour of Power, so maybe it was breaststroke - his worst stroke, and maybe his opponent happened to be wearing a banned body suit (or two). Whatever the case - the Mighty Mathe couldn't match the 33.29 put up by this guy in the 50 breaststroke today.
But seriously, the energy created by the teams (not to mention the other students participating) from Hour of Power was inspiring enough to make ME want to swim, and that's just what I did. We set up the timing system for 6000 yards so the kids could see their splits after each swim and with about ten minutes left, we'd exhausted the timing system. Doing an event like the Hour of Power isn't something I would have done earlier in my coaching career, but the teams did a great job, and the event became more meaningful considering it was held almost 12 years to the day when my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, and a day after learning that one of my dearest coaching mentors was also diagnosed.
That said - Mathe had better get after it so that he doesn't get beat by his coach again. Nobody else in the pool was able to beat their age and next year I'm going under 30.0.
But seriously, the energy created by the teams (not to mention the other students participating) from Hour of Power was inspiring enough to make ME want to swim, and that's just what I did. We set up the timing system for 6000 yards so the kids could see their splits after each swim and with about ten minutes left, we'd exhausted the timing system. Doing an event like the Hour of Power isn't something I would have done earlier in my coaching career, but the teams did a great job, and the event became more meaningful considering it was held almost 12 years to the day when my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, and a day after learning that one of my dearest coaching mentors was also diagnosed.
That said - Mathe had better get after it so that he doesn't get beat by his coach again. Nobody else in the pool was able to beat their age and next year I'm going under 30.0.