The Longest Day (aka City of Leeds National Qualifier Meet)
Head Coach Jordan took a handful of National Squad Athletes, tagging along were a couple from Regional Squad to the extremely high level City of Leeds meet held over a full weekend at John Charles Centre.
As usual the meet was hugely oversubscribed, meaning the organisers needed to reject a lot of entries. As licencing for level 1 meets dictates, only the fastest entries survived so there was some tough competition for our Dartes superstars. 54 clubs competed over the three days and it was our third Long Course meet in the NQ Window, our second in two weeks and in hindsight a mistake; but a weekend of great results nonetheless.
As always around this time in the season our athletes are right in the middle of some heavy training with meets coming up thick and fast. Our coaches have been setting some grueling sets and as most of the swimmers found out (those with more experience were prepared for it) it was hard to swim fast in such a beaten up state. Tired bodies don't make for fast racing machines, but the more tired they are at this stage of the training cycle, the faster they're likely to be when tapered. Those attempting to self-taper are unlikely to swim fast when it really counts - so don't do it, trust your coach's experience!
Despite the tiredness, those prepared to race tough had some cracking swims. The usual suspects like Phoebe Weatherill (edl) and Jessica Hubery (drn) brought out something special. One 14 year old girls Dartes records in 50m Butterfly with Phoebe taking 2nd and Jessica moving up one spot to 5th in the 13 year old Girls 1500m Freestyle, although just a smidgen outside her PB from 2023 it was a swim that took us all by surprise, definitely attitudes to copy for any budding young swimmer. Both setting times in 100m Butterfly and 1500m Freestyle that we think gets them into the English Summer Nationals. Phoebe was celebrating her Birthday weekend in style, with 3 fantastic demonstrations of how to swim the Butterfly events and being the only 14 year old to compete in the Open Age 50m Butterfly final. She also won a Gold Medal in the 100m Butterfly.
It's rare for anyone in National Squad to set huge PBs at this time in their career. Lexie Goddard (drn) managed it though, with a 13 second PB in 200m Butterfly, alongside the huge PB’s was Ruby Wakelin (dode) with a 6 second PB in the 50m Breaststroke and Adam Robinson (dode) taking 8 seconds off 100m Backstroke (albeit over a 2 year period)!
Millie Dey (arm) and Lucas Lee (dode) were enjoying a good swim out with the National Squad with Millie racking up 5 PB’s, 2 finals she also took 5 seconds off her 200m IM time set only 4 weeks ago. Meanwhile Lucas enjoyed success of his own, claiming 3 PB’s, taking a huge chunk of time off the 400m Freestyle with a very consistent race.
Finals went to:
- Freya Cooper (adw) 100m Backstroke, 200m Freestyle & 100m Freestyle
- Millie Dey (arm) 100m Butterfly & 100m Freestyle
- Alexander Eggitt (dode) 100m Butterfly
- Lexie Goddard (drn) 100m Butterfly & 200m Individual Medley
- Jessica Hubery (drn) 100m Backstroke & 100m Freestyle
- Phoebe Weatherill (edl) 50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly, 200m Butterfly
Next up, a very good demonstration of how difficult PBs become as you get older. By the time you reach 15 or so, the days of knocking seconds off your best times at every meet are long gone. If you knock a second off over 12 months you're often happy. For this weekend Kiera Binns (adw) didn’t set a single PB - hard training, growth spurts and unfortunate injuries from the season prior does that to you. It's hard to understand for younger athletes who improve every time they get in the pool, but with the extra muscle mass gained by your late teens, you're only likely to PB when tapered. The rest of the time, you race hard and tough it out among the other tired bodies. For the Mighty T-Rex Kiera, a Silver in 200m IM and a more consistent race plan in her No.1 event were her rewards.
