Training pays off for Saints
It didn’t take anything special for St. Charles East’s boys swim team to get ready for Saturday’s College Events Meet. The Saints swim an absolute ton of yardage in practice.
But of course every team swims a lot of workout yards these days. The thing is, the Saints have taken heavy training to an extreme this year. And the payoff came Saturday when St. Charles East won the six-team meet 380.5-267 over second-placed Highland Park.
“The kids have got 360,000 yards in already this year,” St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. “We’re going to go well over 650,000 this year.”
Those totals, just to be clear, are per swimmer. There are many approaches to modern training, many involving dry land work combined with in-water workouts. This year, due to a variety of things, the Saints have gone back to basics and piled on the yardage. The college events format features 200-yard races in each stroke as well as a 1000 freestyle and a 400 individual medley. Each of these is twice the normal distance contested in high school — and 100-yard races are swum in each stroke as well.
“We’ve been a little pressed for time, so we haven’t spent as much time on some other things,” Cabel said. “It’s paid off for us and they’re in great shape.”
One of the complicating factors this year for the Saints has been the continued reconstruction of their Norris Center pool. Saturday’s meet took place at St. Charles North’s pool, which has been host to all the team’s home meets and practices this year.
And some of those practices have been extremely taxing. Take for example New Year’s Eve, when the team swam 100 100-yard workout sets, taking around two-and-a-half hours to complete.
“It’s good that we get that yardage in,” St. Charles East’s Shaun Seuschek said. “Not only does it help us swimming, but we talk a lot during the practices and it helps us with team bonding. We help each other get through it.”
And if the Saints have complained at all this year about their workload, they haven’t mentioned it to their coaches.
“They get in and get working before I even ask them to,” Cabel said. “They’re just a great bunch of guys. They like what they’re doing. They enjoy the sport, and it shows.”
There was plenty to be pleased about on Saturday. Seuschek had perhaps the most successful day of any Saints swimmer. He won the 200-yard butterfly, the 100-yard butterfly and swam legs on the Saints’ victorious 400 medley relay and 800 freestyle relay.
“I think we all did our part,” Seuschek said. “A lot of the swimmers showed up for the meet. We put in a lot of yards so we have that extra ‘oomph’ at the end of the race. It’s not who touches first during the race. It’s about who touches first at the end. The yardage helps us get that endurance.”
Of the other Saints winning swims, Nick Watts’ rousing finish in the 1000-yard freestyle stood out. Trailing late in the race, he surged in the final 100 yards, including a 28.47 split his last 50 yards, his second-fastest split in the race. That surge allowed Watts to win the race by 2 seconds.
“That was an impressive cardio move,” Cabel said. “I think he felt confident about how he felt at the half-way point.”
Other Saints winners included T.J. Bindseil in the 100 backstroke and the 200 backstroke and Will Shanel in the 500 freestyle.
“We had a couple of ups and downs, but we bounced back,” Cabel said. “We looked good today.”