Al the Cal Alumni Practice last Saturday, we saw numerous Cal alums line up and throw down in the pool against each other and current members of the team. One of these races went deeper than just the Bear family – it got personal. Swimming power couple Abbey Weitzeil (2x Olympian) and Michael Jensen (14x NCAA All-American) raced a 50 free from a running dive.
Jensen won the race with the coaches having him at 19.7 while the coaches had Weitzeil at 21.5. Jensen’s personal best is 19.0, while Weitzeil’s is 20.9 from when she became the first woman to break 21 seconds in the 50y free.
Lots of discourse on whether there should be running and no comments on how much air Abbey got–lady was a-flyin
Peace love abbey weitzeil
Jenny shave for this?
Lol. I love how competitive Abbey is!
Who’s the guy in the yellow suit?
That’s Matthew Jensen, younger brother of Michael.
I don’t understand the running start across the pool deck thing, other than an effort to increase one’s chances of a season-ending injury.
Runners are common at this level. Be athletic! 💪🏼
About 16 minutes after I hit post comment, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have sounded so contemptous of Durden’s obviously successful training methods. Obviously I’m missing the point. I would genuinely like to know why not just a dive from the blocks.
Runners are more fun!
Plus you get extra speed going into the water compared do a block and learning how to maintain speed is valuable.
Like a bungee swim without the bungee
Training at speeds faster than your maximum race speed is really important. We inherently understand that for longer races, but it is really hard to achieve those speeds for shorter races. Running starts are one way to get there.
I think there’s a difference between what they did and a sprint across the pool deck.
Also, I don’t think an age group coach will allow it. At a point, a college and professional coach only has so much control over (young) adults.
I know a club team that does running dive stuff. Carpets put down for grip of course. It is always great for a swimmer to feel fast.
There wasn’t carpet in this scenario though.
I just think its dumb, can we see some real races?
That is neat
A+ content!