Cliff...

Kim...

Ilia...

Iam starting my third year with E.O.M.A.C. and am still excited by it. The honeymoon is not yet over! I guess it’s a marriage made in heaven. Masters are the best!

Those of you who have endured my bad jokes and demanding workouts have a good perspective of my philosophy. Have fun and work your ass off! Pretty simple when you get right down to the essence of where I am coming from.

Workouts are always designed with the fastest swimmers in mind. Then we scale them down for each lane. I generally run only two types of workouts, one for distance and one for everyone else. I try to challenge everyone at his or her level. I think people get excited when they encounter and conquer challenges. That’s what mountain climbing is all about isn’t it?

The beginning of the year we try not to differentiate workouts and just have everyone do the same thing. One point I would like to make is, try to get in good all around shape first before worrying about your stroke. Experience tells us that when you are stronger and fitter, you can then do a much better job of concentrating on keeping your stroke together. We will however do a lot of drills at the beginning so you get the feeling of what a correct stroke feels like! Not only will you know what it feels like, but with the addition of the new club camera, you can even know what it looks like. I will bring the camera to each workout. Although I will attempt to film one or two lanes a workout, you can still approach me if you have something specific you would like filmed ( no comment!).

We will have a new coach on deck during Wednesdays and Fridays and her name is Tara Burak. Tara headed up the Etobicoke Swim Club’s introduction to competitive swimming and was a competitive swimmer herself. Ilia Goloubtchik will continue to coach on Monday evenings and Sunday mornings.

The Circuit will continue to be featured, mostly on Monday evenings if the numbers are not too high and space permits. I do recommend you bring your own belt for the surgical tubing and we can store them in one of our bins. I also recommend getting your own piece of dryland tubing and doing extra work before or after each practice or at your convenience. Strength is very important in every athletic endeavour and if you wish to improve, getting stronger and losing weight are two tried and true methods.

Try to start the season off with some goals! You cannot overestimate the importance of having short and long term goals. Without them you are like a ship without a rudder. They could be specific times you wish to do at meets, losing weight, number of workouts you make, stretching after workouts, reading the pace clock etc. Try to come to each workout with one or two goals in mind. Like doing proper streamlines off each wall, working the main set as hard as possible, or working on your kick etc.

Finally, we ended off last year with 120 new club records and 35 Canadian records ( according to Charlie). Although this is very impressive and results do count for a lot, I am more focused on people. I am more interested in the tone of the club, the amount of harmony and co-operation among our members, the caring , the support and of course the level of "Fun" we are all having .