At the beginning of 2023, I took over the head coach role of a small club in the south-west. Sitting here looking at the times my swimmers have swam this year, I am actually having to pinch myself, the improvements are more than I could ever have imagined! As someone who has shared my journey through the swimming world, coaching, racing, highs and lows, I thought it was pretty fitting to put a little summary together of the Dartmoor Darts this year before I move onto a new venture next season (more on that in another post).
I do want to say before I go any further that if you enjoy what I do, like my content and would like to say thank you in any way or help me towards making better, more exciting content in the future, then I have a range of merch that I really hope you would like to purchase.
The Squad
If you've been following the vlogs, you will know I have only had a small squad. I would say we have full-timers, part-timers and then some satellite swimmers who supplement their main club with some sessions with me. This post is about the full-timers, the guys who have given me their full dedication and focus this year and have the results to show for it. I will also say that all satellite swimmers (Ruan, Will, Will, Emily, Frankie & Isis) qualified for summer nationals! So let's go through the squad, starting with the youngest first...
Toby
At 13, Toby is the youngest swimmer I have coached since I worked with the BSM Marlin in Oman (2017-2020). When I started he was one of my part-timers, he loved football and while he was clearly twitchy, swimming didn't excite him that much. Fast forward 8 months and he is voluntarily swimming down for an hour (albeit with his mates) after a gruelling 5-day national meet. Long story short, he now loves swimming!
I may be trying to push boundaries with my coaching methods but I still believe in your development phase of swimming, you should be working towards improving all 4 of the strokes and IMs. When I started working with Toby it was clear that he had an affinity to backstroke and he certainly struggled with breaststroke. I wouldn't say things are much different now but a 2:24 200 IM (20 second PB) and 4-second 50 breast PB this season show there has been no early specialisation here.
Now, hold onto your seats because it's time to unpack some of Toby's more impressive improvements, notably in the events he swam last week at the Swim England Summer Meet.
Coming into 2023 Toby's 50 back PB was 32.0 and at county championships, the first meet I coached Toby at he swam a 30.67. That in itself is pretty good going but now his PB rests at a rather mind-boggling 28.41, a time that makes him the 3rd fastest 13 year old in British history. The 100 backstroke is a similar story. Coming into the year he was a 1:10, his first meet with me was a 1:05.0, and now he is a national champion in the event with a 1:01.31.
If that wasn't enough, his butterfly has seen even more radical drops. In the 100 meter butterfly, Toby had only swam the event twice in his life when I started coaching him. They were rather painful 1:20s, eek. Now not only is he a national bronze medalist in the event, he nearly swam a sub-60, finishing last week in a 1:00.16!
Seb
Seb is the other half of Toby's success. Also 13 years old, these best friends push each other every day and give each other just one more reason to want to come to training. Between the two of them, they embody everything that is great in swimming, most notably, making it a social sport and being pals with just about every other lad they have raced against, win or lose!
When I started with DDA Seb certainly had a positive attitude to the sport, although certainly could do with some more concentration. He leaned towards a preference for butterfly while still maintaining a desire to race all the events and strokes. It is certainly within the butterfly events that Seb has really shone this year but I must say I think it's a shame he has been unable to race some more events at the end of the season, as I am sure there would be some monumental improvements there. For context, Seb's 50 Butterfly PB is now 1.2 seconds quicker than his 50 Free PB (which in itself is a 2-second PB this season). He also has swam every single one of his LCM PBs in 2023, showing his willingness to improve. He has also swam every single race there is with the exception of the distance-free events.
Considering it took 1:03.2 to qualify for the nationals in the 100m Butterfly, the fact that Seb came into 2023 with a personal best of 1:12 didn't exactly bode well for him. While he dropped big at the first meet of the year, swimming a 5 second PB to go 1:07, it was still going to take a massive drop to get him to nationals. Another 4.5 seconds later Seb had qualified for nationals in 20th place out of 20 qualifiers (also bagging the 50 Fly as an add-on). In case you were worried that Seb surely couldn't drop again, he did, swimming a 1:02.2 at nationals to finish in 15th place. Perhaps the more impressive drop was the 50 Fly where before 2023, Seb had never even swam sub 30 SCM and had a PB of 31 LCM. Well, now Seb is a national finalist and goes a flaming 27.53!!!
Alex
I think Alex (16) is the biggest success story I have ever had the privilege of playing a part in. This one was down to unparalleled commitment and the ability to work at 100% intensity every day of the week, regardless of what everyone around him was doing or even the pool we were in. On top of that, he pushed himself to beat much faster swimmers as regularly as he could.
Unlike the younger boys, Alex is a little more orientated around just the breaststroke events. That is not to my liking and I have already told him that next season I really want to see him make as big bounds in the other strokes as he has on his breaststroke this season.
Listen to this, Alex's 200 breast is now quicker than his 200 IM and only 10 seconds slower than his 200 Free. They are all events he has swam and set PBs in this year as well.
In terms of breaststroke though Alex could not have had a more perfect season. Look at these drops in 2023:
50m Breast 32.95 --> 31.75
100m Breast 1:11.37 --> 1:08.00
200m Breast 2:38.63 --> 2:24.40
On top of that not only did Alex qualify for his first British Summer Championships, but he won the title in the 200m Breast from the 21st seed.
Harry
In a season plagued by injury, there is still so much to celebrate for Harry (17). Specialising in free and fly, Harry has swam PBs in both LCM (50/100) and SCM (50/100/200) in 2023! These PBs included swimming his first sub 2.00 200 Free (SCM) and finally breaking the minute in 100 Fly (LCM).
Harry broke his toe walking down the stairs after day 2 of the South West regional championships, this left him unable to swim the 100 Fly on day 3 where he had a shot of qualifying for the national in the summer.
Without a summer meeting to prioritise, Harry travelled to Luton for a SCM meet at the beginning of July where he swam Winter national qualifying times for the first time in his life. He then teamed up with the other lads for the 4x100 medley relay at nationals where they made the final and Harry contributed a wicked 58.0 100 Fly split (which would have been enough to qualify individually). That is 1.8 seconds quicker than his official PB from May this year.
Fritz
As I write this Fritz (18) has arrived in Germany, where he will continue his swimming career with Dirk Lange at SG Frankfurt. Exactly a year ago I was hurting badly. I was gutted with the results of the Commonwealth Games. They had not gone at all how I imagined and truly believed they would. This year has been the exact opposite. I still had high hopes, yet this time every single outcome I imagined came to life. The only parallel is that last year I sent Chad off to Frankfurt and this year it was Fritz. I wonder who I will send there next year.
Fritz specialises in backstroke and was already VERY fast when I arrived. This year not only has his backstroke improved by leaps and bounds but he also swam some very solid PBs in the other strokes such as 53.8 100 free and 56.88 50 Fly (SCM). The coolest thing that Fritz has done all year was win the AP International Meet at the London Aquatics Centre. That was followed by interviews and him signing autographs for hours.
Something I really wanted for Fritz was to start getting some attention from the German federation and to help that happen I took him (and Cam) over to Berlin for the German National Championships. For Fritz this was to be his peak meet. Not only did he team up with SG Frankfurt to secure two national relay titles but he swam massive best time in the 50, 100 & 200 backstroke events, finishing 5th in German for the 50 & 200 with no one missing from the fields. Here are Fritz drops this season:
50 Back 26.18 --> 25.67
100 Back 57.32 --> 56.06
200 Back 2:06.88 --> 2:04.40
Fritz's season was very straightforward and from counties to regions, he swam PBs every time he jumped in the pool for a backstroke race. His times at the German Champs were fast enough to secure Fritz a place on the German U23 National team for the 2023/24 season! Like Cam he narrowly missed a medal at the British Summer Champs coming 4th.
Cam
Cam (19) is one of the best junior breaststrokers in British history. He still holds 4 national age group records but sadly lockdown took some wind from his sails.
In my honest opinion, the biggest success with Cam was simply swimming a PB in the 50 & 100m Breast events. Coming into 2023 Cam's PB in the 100 Breast was a 1:03.12 from 2019, when he was just 15. His best from the whole of 2022 was 1:03.45. In the last 8 months, he has swam FIVE 1:02s.... Actually if you include relay splits there have been 7 1:02s!
The pinnacle of all of this was the 1:02.11 he swam to finish 8th in the A final of the World Trials.
I will be completely honest and say that with Cam this year I have honed in completely on the breaststroke. Last year in training he was still doing his fair share of free and fly, but I wanted to double down on the breaststroke and I think it has paid off. He has still swam PBs in the 50/100 Free and 100 IM.
I think if Cam's two extremely close 4th place British Summer Champs finishes had been medals, this really would have been a fairytale season, maybe I am just being greedy though.
Summary
All of this has been achieved in 6 sessions a week (a total of 11.5 hours of pool time) and 1 gym session (45 minutes). Last week at nationals another coach said I am doing a great job 'considering'. I had to explain to him that we have not just been making do. I could have requested more sessions at any point this season. In the 11.5 hours, I covered all bases with the swimmers and developed all the areas I wanted to. I should also add Seb and Toby only swam 5 of the sessions as they still have other commitments such as Football and Cadets.
Next season I have recommended Alex and Fritz do more and I am sure they will. I would also recommend Seb & Toby move up to 6 times a week. Cam will drop down to 3 times a week at the start but add a lot more gym time as he works to balance swimming with work.
I must also mention Michael who has done just that this year. He has not attended enough (he works full time) for me to say he is one of my full-time swimmers but he was part of the medley relay that made a national final. His anchor leg was half a second quicker than his PB from back in 2019.
I have made some pretty cool coaching discoveries this year and had plenty of eureka moments, all of which I plan on sharing over videos and blog posts (perhaps even some courses) over the coming months.
I should also add if you are reading this and want to make the same level of gains in the pool, then I do offer Online Training Programs that have seen some very similar results to those in DDA. I recommend you give it a go if you are currently training alone or in a master's club that doesn't have a dedicated coach.
Dartmoor has been a pleasure to coach and an experience I will cherish forever. As I said earlier if you want to give back in any way to me then I would encourage you to purchase one of my t-shirts.