Harv’s Back
It seems that my coach, Harvey, is constantly coming back from somewhere - or leaving for somewhere - and practice always seems harder. This makes no sense. Every time he leaves practices for another coach to give us, it feels like the practice is much harder than if Harv were there giving it to us. Sometimes we assume this is because he writes the practice and when he gives it out, he adjusts based on how we are doing.
It also seems like practice is harder when Harvey gets back. I figure that he’s just excited to see us again and wants to see what’s been up since he’s been gone. He wants to see that we are still getting better even though he’s been gone. This week was an example of that. Harv has recently been to Women’s and Men’s NCAA Championships, and South African and French Olympic Trials. There are two of us, Matt Owen and myself, that didn’t go to any of those meets and it seems like we haven’t seen Harv in a month and a half. Well this week with Harv back has been tough = I am in a lot of pain.
I am starting to realize that it doesn’t really matter if Harv is here or not. He just writes hard practices. I’m sure that’s the reason why the swimmers that he coaches from France and South Africa recently made their respective Olympic teams.
I hope it doesn’t sound like I dislike the hard practices; I’m not complaining by any means. Practices that challenge me are what I thrive on. It makes it fun for me to do things that I haven’t done before in practice and Harv likes to give me opportunities to do just that. I guess I’m just in pain right now so hard practices are on my mind.