Swimming Shenanigans

Throughout my swim season we do a lot of fun things together as a team or individually. Here’s some that I can think of off the top of my head:

Chair Relays: You throw two or three chairs (depending on how many relays you want) down to the bottom of the pool and center them at the very bottom in the middle of the lane. When the race starts, the first person dives down and sits. Once the coach gives the second person the okay (which is given upon when the person ahead of them sits down and stops moving) they dive down, tag that person, and then sit themselves down. This continues until everyone in the relay has had a chance to go. It’s really fun and scary at the same time.

Donut Relays: We usually do this on a Saturday practice. The entire team gets split in two so there are two relays. The first person dives in, swims down, gets out, eat a donut as fast as they can, swims back, and then the next one goes. The goal is to try and get your whole relay finished before the other relay does.

Winter Palace (Water Polo): I’m not really sure why water polo is also referred to as winter palace but it is. Basically we play water polo in the deep end with the goals on either side. It’s usually caps VS no caps. We play this only if the coach lets us after our workout.

Rope: This happens to people who taper (which will be a different post I will talk about). A belt is put on a person who is tapering and they get ready to dive off the block. A rope is connected to the belt and when they dive off the coach pulls the rope and fast and hard as he can and it shaves about 4 seconds off that person’s normal time. It’s so fun to swim that fast.

Team Parties: Our team is very close and we really act as a family to each other. We have about 4 or 5 scheduled swim parties a season where the swimmer and their family comes and brings food as well and we all eat and hang out. The swimmers also hold impromptu parties the nights we don’t have scheduled ones.

Senior Night: Every season on senior night about 6-8 girls get together and sing the Star Spangled Banner equipped with movements. The varsity also makes up a dance to a song and performs it after diving and they all jump in the pool after it’s finished.

Scavenger Hunt: One Saturday practice a season the entire team gets together and the seniors and juniors drive about 3 to 4 people (their group) around the city looking for things to take pictures of on the scavenger hunt list. Afterwards, we all meet up and eat at Perkins.

I had a really good one in mind earlier but I totally forgot it… Shoot. I’ll try and think of what it was though.

But even though we do work really hard we make sure to find some fun every now and then during practices.