When watching a swim meet, it's commonplace for spectators to think they could jump in the pool and swim the 50-yard freestyle race. After all, it's only two minutes of swimming.
And they probably could, though the odds of winning would be slim.
But how many people could jump into the pool and swim the 1000-yard freestyle? That's 18 minutes of non-stop swimming, during which athletes must painstakingly calculate the optimal pace, ensuring they do not tire before the end of the race.
In the swimming and diving world, there's a big difference between distance swimmers and sprint swimmers in how they train, prepare for races, and develop techniques during races. In a typical meet, there are a total of about 16 events; two of them, the 500-yard freestyle and the 1000-yard freestyle, are distance events. These two races differ drastically from the shorter sprinting events, not only in their length but also in how the swimmers approach them.
"Distance and sprint events are very different," junior Tia Bassano said. "Not only does the stroke count, breathing, et cetera change, but your mentality is completely different as well."
"There are a lot of differences between distance swimming and sprint events," senior tri-captain Jess Bollinger added. "I think these differences are even very different between swimmers."
In preparing to race in distance events, swimmers must train differently than sprint swimmers, often swimming longer yardage in order to build up their endurance. While sprinters look to improve their explosive power, working on turns and dives, distance swimmers are more concerned with pushing themselves as much as possible in the beginning while still saving something for the end of the race. For this reason, distance swimmers often work on repetition of longer swims in each workout in order to familiarize themselves with pacing and controlling their speed.
"With distance events, you can't sprint at the beginning because you will not have any energy left in the end," Bassano said. "You have to get your stroke rhythm and count down and swim with a plan."
Certainly, distance swimming is not one easy stroke.
"In training distance, swimmers look to work on improving a few things," men's swimming and diving coach Adam Hoyt said. "First, how well they maintain speed - do they accelerate or decelerate between strokes? Second, their aerobic base and threshold, focusing on intense training over longer periods of time. Finally, the amount of energy they expend on each stroke and how far each stroke pulls them."
While the theoretical goal for distance swimmers is to push themselves as hard as possible without expending too much energy too soon, each swimmer has his or her own approach to the race.
"Distance swimmers like to try and come back faster in the second half of the race than they swam in the first half of the race," freshman Meredith Cronin said. "This is a strategy used to prevent the swimmer from going out too fast and dying at the end of the race."
In addition to different training routines, distance swimmers must approach their events with an alternate mentality to sprint swimmers. While a sprint swimmer starts quickly, has fast turns, and must push all-out for the entire race, a distance swimmer must maintain a pace, knowing when he or she is too fast or too slow.
"One important thing is attitude and mentality," women's swimming and diving coach Nancy Bigelow said. "Many great distance swimmers are very mentally tough. Some of the best are those who really feel their pace and know when to go faster or slow things down. They are really in control of what they are doing."
"For me, in the distance events there is a lot more thinking going on," Bollinger added. "For the sprint events, the swimmer needs to do a lot more thinking before they swim to psych themselves up, and to be super confident. But when they swim, they just go, because there is no time for thinking. In the 1000 free there is a lot more time alone. In the back of your mind you need to think positively about your swims and you need to stay conscious of the pace you are holding."
While there are a few swimmers who swim both sprint races and distance races, most choose to stick with one or the other as the training and the approach to the races are different.
"I have seen swimmers be very successful in events from the 50 free to the 1650 free," Bigelow said. "But that does not happen very often."
This year for the Jumbos, Bollinger, Cronin and Bassano, among others, have done a majority of the distance swimming for the women, while senior co-captains Ray Radovich and Greg Bettencourt along with senior classmates Kyle Jones and Justin Fanning and freshman Patrick Kinsella have done a majority of the distance work for the men.
Just recently, Bettencourt broke the Tufts record in the 1000 freestyle by swimming the race in 9:36.51, a resounding 18 seconds faster than the record set in 1992 by Marc Bonnet-Eymard. In addition to Bettencourt, the Jumbo distance swimmers will be looking to make a splash at NESCACs later this month and at NCAAs in March.
