By LEIGH SILVER
Staff Writer
silver@dailpennsylvanian.com
Mike Schnur is getting bored.
In the men's swimming team's final dual meet of the season, the coach is making his distance swimmers sprint and his breaststrokers swim freestyle.
Schnur's explanation? Just for the hell of it.
Today, the Quakers (6-5) will finish up their regular season at LaSalle (3-5) before the ECAC, EISL and NCAA championships.
"[LaSalle's] coach and I thought it would be fun for everybody to do some alternative events," Schnur said.
Meets usually consist of 100-and 200-yard races of each stroke. Today's meet will be divided up into 50- and 100-yard events instead, which is something the Red and Blue have never done before.
The swimmers like this new mix-it-up style.
"It's more of a fun meet than anything," freshman Peter Amos said. "It doesn't count for anything going into the conference meets and championship meets, but it will be interesting to see how everyone can do in a 50 as opposed to a 100."
Schnur will use this meet to get his team into shape for the Ivy League championships.
"We need to work on our starts. We need to work on our sprints," Schnur said. "We need to have one more opportunity to race before we start resting to see where the guys are."
Today's meet will test the Quakers' endurance, as it comes in the middle of their hardest week of practices this season. The men swam a long course Tuesday, had a difficult practice Wednesday and will have a double practice today - an exhausting workout that they usually avoid on meet days.
"We're trying to finish off the last couple weeks of really hard work and making sure that everyone stays focused on training right now . It gets easy for your mind to wander and to start thinking about how easy it is going to be in a few weeks," Schnur said. "But if you do that, it's a disaster because you need to do the work at the beginning, too."
Freshman Robbie Shilton does not think the intensity will hurt his team's performance.
"Part of college is learning how to swim tired," he said. "Luckily, this meet is shorter distances than some."
Shilton will benefit from the shorter distances and new events. He has not been able to swim breaststroke - his main event - since winter break due to a knee injury.
The entire squad has battled injuries this season, but according to Schnur, "This is the healthiest we've been all year."
The Quakers plan to use today's meet to work on fine-tuning their starts, turns and relay finishes,
Most of all, the meet will be a welcome break from the competitive atmosphere of conference meets.
"It'll be a lot of fun," Schnur said.
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