Olympic Swimmer to Watch

[Erin Feldhausen]

Hey guys - Jamie O'Sullivan (TriWI member and co-worker of mine) passed along this article about Alex Meyer, our long-distance swimming hope competing in the Olympic 10K open water swim.  The women's race is tomorrow and the men's is on Friday.

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8191821/usa-olympic-long-distance-swimmer-alex-meyer-one-watch-london

 

Also wanted to pass along the fact that Jamie's going to be taking over the master's swim at the Y.  He's got a bunch of experience coaching master's swimmers in North Carolina before he moved here last year.  He's also very into triathlons, so he's sure to be a good help for all those looking to get in some good workouts and looking for some help with your swimming.  As we've said he's got some big flippers to fill, but hopefully we can all get back in the pool more regulary and push each other in some great workouts.  I'm planning to get back into a regular pool routine at the end of august.  Join me maybe?

 

Jamie can probably pass along some more info about himself if you're wondering.

 

GO USA!

[O'Sullivan, Jamie]

Erin and members:

Thank you for the introduction.  I hope you enjoy the article below, as the event is one of those “under the radar” events that often don’t get reported.  The story is a little tragic, but worth reading.

 

I will “officially” start as the Masters Coach on Monday, August 13.  I will probably arrive 15 minutes early and Preston will introduce me to many of you.

 

Here is a brief amount of my background:

 

I was afraid of the water until about age 8.  This was due to an unfortunate incident of falling in a pool as a child.  Then, with Mom’s gentle prodding I took swimming lessons and just loved the water.  From 9-18 I swam both competitively on a USS team and on the recreational summer team in my hometown in rural Northern California.  The USS team was an interesting experience for me, as I was a breaststroke specialist and nothing else.  Two-day meets with only three events are cause for some boredom.  What I did gain from that time was observation of the swimmers and their techniques, which led me to coach my local team my last two years of high school.

 

Through college I remained a tennis player (make fun of me…I deserve it) and started really doing my first biathlons (this was before the real name of duathlon took hold) and triathlons.  After college I threw away my tennis gear, biked a lot in endurance races and ignored the pool.  Finally, five years ago, I embarked on my current craze for tris.  I will say this emphatically: swimming training for triathlon is different than for swim team.  I also saw that many adults who became interested in triathlon were intimidated by the pool.  This is understandable.  Imagine if you had water covering your face in your whole run leg.  That is what prompted me to help a lot of our local swimmers in the Triad Tri Team (Greensboro, NC) on swimming, as well as re-train many competitive swimmers in the different art of tri swimming.  I have completed over 25 triathlons to date, and plan to increase that number as time goes by.

 

My goal is to make the workouts as custom as possible for each of you.  Your race matters to what you do in the pool.  Your style matters as well.  Also, I am more than willing to customize somebody’s workout if they are taking the plunge in a Master’s meet. 

 

Most importantly, I am truly focused on creating comfort in the water.  This is an important aspect for even the most talented swimmers.  Comfort comes from focus on technique and truly effective workouts.  We are all at different levels of swimming, and that is fantastic.  Coaching, like teaching is about identifying those levels and finding opportunities for gain.

 

I truly look forward to meeting all of you.

 

Please use this email to contact me about any swimming related question at any time.

 

Cheers,

Jamie O’Sullivan

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