It takes guts to be a distance swimmer - and a tolerance for boredom.
The hours and hours logged in the pool, preparing for races that last between five and 12 minutes give distance swimmers a mental toughness that is hard to achieve.
Ohio coach Greg Werner said he considers the distance events to be the 500, 1000 and 1650-yard freestyle events as well as the 400 individual medley and 200 butterfly because of the pacing and endurance that swimmers must have to compete. Distance swimmers always follow a different training regimen because of those factors.
Ideally what we try to work with the distance swimmers is a little bit more upper body than a sprinter
Werner said. A sprinter would do more lower body training i.e. more kicking for a sprinter whereas a distance swimmer would do more pulling. We isolate the arms so it's more endurance training and breath control work as well.
With all of the time spent in the water, it is no surprise that swimmers' minds wander from the task at hand. Ohio distance freestyler Jonathan Palmer, who swims all of the distance freestyle events, said concentrating in a race is easy because of competition, but in practice, it is much more difficult.
Yeah
I admit it
I get bored. But that's the difference between a distance swimmer and a sprinter - stronger mental capability
I guess you could say
to take a lot of that
Palmer said. It's fun
though
because you can make up little games like 'count the tiles on the bottom' or just see how many times I can lap my teammates.
Ohio will need that stronger mental capability if it is going to stay close to Division-III powerhouse Kenyon College. The Lords and Ladies have sat atop NCAA swimming prominence for almost 25 years. The men have won 24 consecutive national championships, while the women have 19 titles to their credit.
Kenyon coach Jim Steen said he expects a good meet from Ohio on both the men's and women's sides. He said that year after year Kenyon seeks out Division-I teams like Ohio because they are close to Gambier.
We try and do two things - we try and swim teams that are well coached and teams that are spirited
Steen said. Ohio has both of those. Their strong diving means we have to be a little bit better on the swimming side.
Ohio travels the 102 miles to Gambier to take on Kenyon at 4 p.m. today at the Ernst Center Natatorium.
