High school swimming: Training in Lake Erie buoys Avon Lake

When Avon Lake swim coach Dan Smith told his team to go jump in the lake before the season started, he wasn't upset with them. He was just out of options. That's because COVID-19 had made training for the season almost impossible with access to local pools severely curtailed. But Smith didn't let that deter him. A 25-year triathlete, Smith knew there was a rather large training area nearby — Lake Erie. "Once they canceled track season I still thought we were going to be fine, but the pandemic kept getting worse so I knew we had to start making alternative plans about where to train," said Smith, the school's swim coach since the 2013-14 season and the pole vault coach in track. "I had trained at Vermilion for the past 16 years so I already know a lot of the park people there. I actually swam on these beaches when I was in high school." So with the OK from the high school and the Vermilion Parks and Recreation Dept., Smith, assistant coach Briana Batesole and the team headed to Main Street Beach in Vermilion several days a week to train during the summer. Of course, swimming in Lake Erie is not the same as swimming in a pool. In the lake, swimmers are at the mercy of the elements, contending with the weather and waves. For most of the team, swimming in open water was a new experience. "Keeping a straight line was a challenge, especially at the beginning," said sophomore Joe Swain, a two-time Division I district qualifier in the 200- and 500-yard free. "You have to develop a technique of picking your head up out of the water every three to four strokes to both breathe and see what you're doing. That can be a challenge if the lake is very rough." It was a first for sophomore Nick Haven, too. "I had never trained like that in the open water before," said Haven, a sprint freestyle specialist in the 50 and 100 free. "Training in open water helps to expose your weak points and then you can work on them. With a pool, every time you touch the wall you get an easy turn and then can create some distance. (In open water) you can't see anything, you can't hold on to anything, and in a pool you can stop. If you fight the waves it's going to tire you out. It forces you learn to ride on the top of the wave and ride it out. If you stop, you're going to get hit by the wave." Both swimmers credit the open-water training with the success they've had this year. Swain's best 200 free time of 1:43.88 is 11 seconds faster than it was at the end of last season and he's taken 22 seconds off his time (4:46.60) in the 500 free. He set school records in both events, breaking marks Brad Bartel established during the 1999-2000 season. Swain also won Southwestern Conference titles in both events. He goes into Saturday's Division I district meet at Bowling Green State University as the No. 2 seed in both events. "I feel like open water swimming has helped me with my distance swimming, my stroke rate, my kicking rate and keeping up with everyone else in the water," Swain said. "It's taught me to keep myself more stable in the water and not bouncing all over the place." Haven and Swain are also members of two relays. They team with sophomore Riley King and freshman Dakota Bedient in the 400 free, which is seeded No. 7 (3:29.77) at the district, while Haven also swims the 200 free relay and Swain the 200 medley relay. "We wore wetsuits for the majority of our open water training up until right at the very end when the lake warmed up enough," Haven said. "Training in open water is kind of like swimming with a drag suit. When you switch back to a pool it's so much nicer and so much easier. When you have your competitions in a more refined environment after you've done all that hard work that you do in hard conditions in the open water it really helps." Smith, the Shoremen's coach since the 2013-14 season,believes the open water training was instrumental in the boys team sharing the SWC title with Avon, its first league championship since 2002. "Swimming for boys for our school has really struggled since the 1990s," Smith said of turnout. "Avon Lake has always been more of a football, basketball and baseball-type school. I think having the team do workouts that were something fun, something extraordinary, something hard and challenging while everyone else is in quarantine was so important." Smith varied the workouts and included activities like relay racing to keep things interesting and enjoyable. Smith was vigilant when it came to checking lake conditions, temperatures and potential hazards to keep things safe and to maintain all social distancing protocols. During the times when he wasn't in the water swimming along with his team, he was nearby on a paddleboard. "If you're going to move through choppy water you have to have a pretty good stroke rate, cadence and kick," Smith said. "Swimming in the lake really helps the fundamentals of swimming. It's very effective as far as endurance training. Then you have snakes chasing you and dead fish in your face. You can pretty much overcome anything when you get used to that." Contact Paul Heyse at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.