He stands awaiting the signal to go.  He looks forward at the 25 meter long pool, knowing the struggle he’s about to endure.  His brother watches from afar, hoping his sibling does well.  The swimmers are briefed of the upcoming start of the race and assume position. The starter goes off and he dives into the pool.  He resurfaces, takes a deep breath, and swims his hardest.

The varsity swim team has already participated in ten meets and competitions this year, all which have an impact on their long term goal of winning district and regionals.  Brothers J.D. Canclini and Jon-Paul Canclini have been working together to make it to district and regionals, hoping to aid their team in winning a title.

“I expect us to be pretty solid,” J.D. Canclini said. “It’ll be tough but we’ve improved a lot from last year.  Our team is definitely built upon last year’s and we should build upon it even more.”

This year’s team is without former seniors, Patrick Copeland and Alex Alstaetter.  Copeland brought fast short distance times; while Alstaetter brought fast backstroke times.  The majority of this year’s team consists of underclassman, yet the experience level is improved from last year’s.  The team takes the term, “tapering” very seriously, where swimmers reduce their work out load so that they’re rejuvenated for their next meet and not worn out.  The team has acknowledged that they must gradually cut down on their work outs to perform at their best when district and regionals come around.

“When you get to taper, you’re going to drop a lot of time because you won’t be tired,” Jon-Paul Canclini said. “You’re still going with as much intensity as before but you have a lot more energy left. It gets you prepared for the meet so you can perform your best and not be worn out.”

To prepare themselves for meets, the team holds practice at 6 AM.  They start out stretching, making sure that they’re not too tight and don’t pull any muscles. After stretching they move onto to their warm up sets. After warm up sets, they’ll move on to intermediate sets, main set, more intermediate sets, and then a cool down set. Each day’s work out plan is based on the type of practice they are doing.  If the day is fast paced, then they will incorporate sprint swim drills and swimming periods to get their heart rate up.  On a day where they’re practicing longer distances, then they’ll do more endurance drills.

“It’s definitely extraneous, but not in a bad way,” Jon-Paul said.  “You wake up and get a good work out. Some days it’s intense and some days it’s just kind of fun.”

Each team mate has a certain event that they perform in. There are 24 events total in individuals.  Usually, the swimmers compete in a freestyle race and their primary event.  J.D. competes in the 100 freestyle and 100 breaststroke events, while Jon-Paul competes in the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly events.  Each of them makes sure that they perfect all of their swimming mechanics of their event to get the best time possible and avoid disqualification.

“I do a lot of work on my turns because IM works on a different turn on every wall.” Jon-Paul said. “So I have to work on that or otherwise I can get D-Q’d [disqualified].”

According to J.D. Canclini, the team is at the peak of their training right now and performing at their highest level.  Depending on their skill set, they will enter their tapering periods to do their best at District and Regionals.

“Everyone who’s there wants to be there,” J.D. said. “We’re pulling our body weight for two hours straight.  Most guys will drop it in the first couple of weeks if they don’t want to be there.”