(S)wim, (S)unscreen & Ocean(S)ide!

Hello readers, I am very excited to share my experience at the Race Club swim camp with you. For the camp, my family and I traveled to a city near San Diego called Oceanside. It is a beautiful city, and I would love to visit again. At the Race Camp, their mission is to transform your swimming experience. The coaches refine your technique to match that of elite swimmers. Before I share my Race Club experience, I want to give a special shoutout to my parents for making this experience possible. I am truly thankful for how hard both of you work to help make my dreams come true.

On December 26th, I woke up to the sunny California sky. My parents and I went to a popular breakfast spot in Oceanside called Beach Break Cafe. Unfortunately, I only had the chance to visit this wonderful restaurant once during our trip. I ordered a waffle, and it only took me 10 minutes to finish it, leaving the plate spotless and clean. After breakfast, we went to Buccaneer Beach. As I was staring out into space, I wished I could stay there forever. For the rest of the day, I was feeling a little sick because of the climate change, but after some rest, I felt much better and was ready to learn at camp the next day!

On December 27th, I woke up bright and early, very excited for camp. The drive from our Airbnb to the pool was 15 minutes. While driving, I was in awe of the mountains and palm trees I saw along the way. Once we arrived at the pool, I received a training equipment bag with tools I had never used before. I found a seat on the bleachers and put on these really cool headphones that connected to a walkie-talkie used by the coach. The best part was that we could wear these underwater, and as we swam, we received real-time feedback. Our coach was the one and only Coach Gary Hall Sr. He participated in three Olympic Games representing Team USA in 1968, 1972, and 1976, winning two silver medals and one bronze. Along with him, I got to meet 2 other awesome coaches: Coach Richard Hall and Coach Mike Eastman!

Coach Gary shared the five disciplines of swimming: Dryland (workouts and stretching), Training, Nutrition, Recovery, and Mental Toughness. That day, we focused specifically on training. Here’s a summary of what I learned about training: Your overall training structure depends on two main factors: physiology (your body's energy) and physics. The three common physical properties that affect swimmers speed are drag, inertia, and lack of propulsion. Drag is caused when your movement is inefficient. Inertia means an object in motion staying in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Propulsion is the act of pushing or driving forward. In swimming, these properties are interconnected. For example, when swimming butterfly and you lift your upper body to breathe, you create drag. This drag disrupts your rhythm (inertia), making it harder to reach the other end of the pool because there is no propulsion. The most common causes of drag are the kick and pull, but there are strategies to reduce it. Coach Gary shared nine different techniques that I wasn't aware about at all. Another concept I learned was the coupling motion. These are more than one movement to fix a specific struggle point, like rotation or overbending knees. In our first session, we focused on flip turns and low-octane freestyle technique which is designed for long distance freestyle events. I got to try new equipment different from my usual training tools. We used an alignment kickboard, shaped like a rounded triangle with a slit for one hand and the other hand on top. We also used a snorkel with the board to help align the body. Another tool I loved was the tempo trainer. It has different modes, and I set it to a stroke rate, which measures our tempo. It had a constant beep, which was annoying to my friends and I initially and then we got used to it. We also did various flexibility exercises, and one of the coaches would give us a score from 1 to 10. On the first day, we worked on freestyle and butterfly stretches. I think I scored pretty well. The first exercise was called planar ankle flexibility, which helps with kicking propulsion. I scored a 6/10, which I think is good. Then we did shoulder extension exercises, mainly for butterfly, and I scored an 8.5/10. My shoulder flexibility is high. Lastly, we did an intra-shoulder test to see how far each hand could go up on my back. I scored 7.5/10 with my right hand and 8.5/10 with my left.

On December 28th, we discussed another one of the five disciplines, focusing today on nutrition. Coach Gary shared a story that left me amazed. In the early 2000’s, Coach Gary was in charge of training athletes who were preparing for the Olympics. The team had an excellent staff, including a strength and weights coach, a massage therapist, and a sports psychologist. These swimmers had four months to prepare before the Olympic trials. One month into their training, the head coach of the team burst into Coach Gary’s office. His face looked pale and white, and he told Gary that these swimmers weren’t going as fast as they could in practice. Coach Gary decided to visit their apartments early the next morning to interview the swimmers. When he and the coach entered the apartments, they saw sugary cereals, chips, chocolate, and fast food everywhere. Coach Gary then asked the swimmers what they usually ate in a day. They told him they had sugary cereal for breakfast, McDonald's for lunch, and fast food from another restaurant for dinner. Coach Gary immediately realized that their diet was the problem. For the remaining three months before the trials, they made sure the swimmers ate home-cooked, healthy meals and took all the junk food out of sight. When the coach visited again, his face looked much happier. The swimmers were training at their full potential. The results showed that out of 13 swimmers, 10 qualified for the Olympics, and 7 of them made it to the podium. The big takeaway for me is that eating junk food and sugar are toxins to our bodies and that affects our performance. There are five main components to a healthy diet: Protein, Fat, Carbs, Nutrients, and Minerals. I was very inspired by this story, and starting this new year I hope to make this food lifestyle into a reality. During our pool sessions. In the morning, we focused on high-octane freestyle, which is designed for sprint events like the 50 or 100 freestyle. In the afternoon, our main focus was on backstroke, and I learned many new coupling motions that are helping me a lot in the water.

On December 29th, Coach Mike shared his journey in the sport of swimming. While telling his story, he covered two of the five disciplines: Dryland (Exercise and Stretching) and Recovery. He explained that our dryland plan should revolve around our swim workouts. The most basic exercises and yoga poses do a lot to develop your body and help you improve in the water. Before every practice, warming up is really important. It helps your body open up and get ready to swim. If you skip warmup, your muscles may stay stiff, making it harder to move smoothly in the water. Recovery is just as important. Sleep is the number-one way to recover your body. Nutrition is the second most effective way —food helps repair and relax tired/torn muscles. There are also machines and tools, like massager guns and foam rollers, that can help recovery. The main stroke we focused on was breaststroke. I’ve never considered breaststroke to be one of my stronger strokes. We did some flexibility tests. The first one involved pronating our feet while sitting in a W position. This was very difficult for me to hold, and as expected, my score was 4/10. Since I can’t pronate or rotate my feet well, that explains why my kick slows me down.The second stretch involved going into a downward dog position and trying to reach my hands as far as possible toward my feet with my feet flat on the mat. I scored 5.5/10, which was expected because my lower hamstrings are very tight. The final stretch was a backbend, measuring lumbar flexibility. I could barely get into a backbend, and my score was 2/10. Throughout the morning session, I noticed improvements in my breaststroke, which made me feel more confident about my weakest stroke! In the afternoon, we focused on starts. Coach Gary loved teaching the Tandy dive, which is named after South African swimmer Brad Tandy. In the 2016 Olympic Games, Tandy had an incredible start that gave him a huge lead at the halfway point of the race. However, he did come 6th in the end because his speed was slow. This start was challenging for me to master because it involves many elements. There are three key coupling motions in the Tandy start: arm position, kick, and head lift. At the end of the day, we did a group relay, and I was thrilled to be a team captain! I loved how all my relay teammates cheered each other on and supported one another. After the afternoon session, we were invited to Coach Richard’s house to see the Race Club pro shop, which is located there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go, but I did receive an awesome Race Club T-shirt!

On December 30th, our final day at camp, it went by really fast! I enjoyed this a lot! Today we discussed the last discipline: mental toughness. Coach Gary shared four different tools to help us become more mentally strong. The first was setting and writing down your goals. Doing this increases your chances of achieving them. We all shared two or three events we competed in and our target times for each. Second, visualization. This is a technique used by many of the great athletes today. It involves mentally swimming a race and visualizing how you want it to look. During the week of your race, you should visualize every night. Coach Gary explained that when he coached elite athletes before big meets, he would use a stopwatch. When he said "go," the swimmers would close their eyes and imagine swimming their race. Afterward, they would open their eyes and check their time on the stopwatch. Repeating this process multiple times makes it more likely that you'll achieve your goal. Third, confidence. Sticking with your training builds confidence for race day. It’s important to use only positive self-talk because your mind is subconscious, meaning it absorbs everything you tell it. The more positive words you feed your mind, the better it will influence your daily life and performance. Finally, anchoring. This is a technique used by many top athletes. When you're about to get on the blocks and race, there's a final power move you can do to set yourself up for success. For example, Michael Phelps does his iconic arm swing on the blocks, and Caleb Dressel does a high jump and slaps himself. We focused on butterfly, dryland training, and spin turns today. I learned to do a long butterfly stroke just like Gretchen Walsh. I also realized that my body was quite weak and that I was losing a lot of energy during my dryland exercises. To end the camp, we did 50-yard races in each stroke, with heats arranged for people in our age group. In my butterfly, I gained time by a few milliseconds, but my turn was terrible. In backstroke, I gained almost two seconds because I slipped off my start and caused extra drag. In breaststroke, I dropped one second off my time—something I hadn’t done in over a year! And in freestyle, I gained two seconds because I was late on my dive. This camp was an incredible experience. I made many new friends who I created a strong bond with, and I hope to see them again. I would love to learn and participate in even more Race Camps in the future!

Along with the camp, with my parents, we also went to Strand beach which was so cool. We walked on the Oceanside Pier Boardwalk and took a ton of pictures. We also experienced some really fun restaurants while we were there. One of them was The Privateer Coal Fire Pizza and later we went to grab some ice cream at Little Fox Cups + Cones. This experience was a great way to end 2025. While I learnt a ton at the camp, the important thing for me now is to see how I can keep practicing with these new skills. I can’t wait to get back in the pool.

Happy New Year!