Thursday, August 15, 2013

ThrowBack Thursday: Halloween Practice

With swim season upon us, its time to take a look at yet another Haven Swimming favorite: The annual Halloween Practice. This practice always seems to come at the exact correct time of the year, when the team is exhausted from Phase 2 workouts (some of the hardest of the season.)

The Halloween Practice is also famous for a few things; apple bob, eating candy while your friends have to swim butterfly, and of course belly flops.

This practice is a favorite of former Head Coach Andy Waeger, who before passing it along to me brought it with him from his former coaching digs at Slippery Rock University.


The original post is located below
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November 1st 2011



Record breaking again this year.  Each year seems like I 'invest' more and more in what might be one of the more fun 'workouts' of the season.  This year a shade under 100 bones was spent on the treats...(don't worry parents, there were some apples in there too).  Recently we started having our special practice the day after halloween b/c the candy get's marked down to 50% off at wal mart the day after thanksgiving...and when pinching pennies, this is the best deal around! (so yeah, the 100 bucks was at the 50% rate)



The concept is simple.  Draw a slip of paper from the bowl, where there could be anything ... the team favorite is 'candy' ... this is where the team his the 'pumpkin'(aka gatorade jug) for their candy.  There are also such mini sets, such as a 200 im or a few 25's AO from a dive.  Some of the more recent favorites include "pick 4 people to do a 100 fly with you, everyone else Candy!" ... or "pick 5 people to do a 100 fly, not including yourself and you can't pick yourself, to do a 100 fly, everyone else Candy!"  .... I picked up on that one by watching Survior.  There is also the Square butterfly ... (fyi: no lane lines for halloween practice) where the team swims length / width / length / width of the pool butterfly ... 


Then there is the Apple Bob ... of course we don't put in the same number of apples as women on the team.  We put a few less in ... if you make it back to the shallow end wall with an apple you can enjoy your apple while those who didn't make it back with an apple enjoy some butterfly swimming.

Then the all time favorite ... belly flop contest.  Most of the team usually "opt out" but there are few brave souls.





This is a great reward practice for all the hard work the women have been putting into the season so far...we are back at it tomorrow before 6am!  No time to rest!  Go Haven.

 # 1 swim fan

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