 Hello and welcome to the John Stiltrager show presented by Buffalo Wildlings. I'm Greg Royce showing my Stevenson swimming coach, John Stiltrager. Coach, it seems like the season just started, but we're almost two months in. Just talk about how the season's gone so far and how both teams are progressing. We're progressing pretty well. We started with our meter wide and again we are about two months in and it's nice to see our kids improving. Times are starting to come down and you can see a real difference in the team. Not only physically but mentally from the first meet of the year to our meet we just had last week. You had last week, most recent meet, you were home against Lebanon Valley. A close loss for the men and then the women were able to defeat Lebanon Valley. Just talk about that meet, how well I know Mellie had a good meet and some other people as well. We really are progressing and I think the training is really starting to take hold. On the men's side, it was probably our best meet we've had in a really long time. We won every single individual event but one. I mean I had our boys swim in some events back to back so they literally have to hop out of the water and get right back in and start swimming again. On the guys side, I thought it was a great meet. On the girls side again, we won the majority of the events. Again, I think it showed just how our training is really taking hold and they're really doing some good stuff. Obviously that helps, particularly on the men's side, if guys are jumping out of a pool and jumping right back in with that endurance because obviously, again, as we talk about the passion, you're aiming towards the conference championship and to build that stamina, build that endurance. Knowing that when you get to that point, it's a long four days but you won't necessarily have to be doing that and jumping in back to back so that can only help going forward. Yeah, and we do that stuff at practice. We kind of train like that where we'll do some really hard springing work from the block and literally get right back up and do it again with no break. Again, I think that prepares them for, like you said, not only what we had to do on Saturday but again for the conference meet and when you say, okay, we're doing just say five, two hundred from the block and then you go to the conference meet and all you have to do is one. So mentally, they're usually ready for what they need to do. Yeah, now from dual meet wise, you take a little bit of break here for finals. Right after the first of the year, I know you're still practicing here for a week or so but right after the first of the year, you head down to Puerto Rico for a training trip and that's got to be exciting for the team and I'm sure they're looking forward to that. They're really looking forward to it. It's kind of a double-edged sword because while we're in a tropical environment and it's nice and warm, it's hard. We'll train twice a day every day plus dry land. So they're probably training four and a half hours, five hours a day for close to ten days. So it's nice that we can get away. It's nice where they can go to the beach after practice instead of going to their dorm room where it's rainy and 35 degrees here. They get to lay out on the beach and so it makes it a little less painful but it's an important time of the year for us because we do a ton of training and mentally they get so much tougher on the training trip than they do any other time of the year. So while it might sound fun to a lot of people, it's really an important part of our training. I'm sure for you as a coach, I'm sure it's nice to say, okay, obviously there's the beach time but basically, like you said, you've got them for four or five hours a day where all their country are swimming, they don't have classes, they don't have other commitments on campus. They're just doing their swimming work. Yeah, literally they're stuck on an island, which is honest to God the truth and there's no family, there's no friends, it's just a team and the coaches and it's a great bonding experience and while we haven't gone for a couple of years, the kids are excited about it but again, they're excited for the beach but I'm excited again for the ancillary effect that it has on the team and again, while they'll be mentally tougher than they were when they left, they'll be closer to unit because all they have to depend on when they're there is their teammates and it goes a long way in creating a great bond. Yeah, and that's always going to touch on some teamwork and obviously while swimming is a very individual sport, obviously it's a team sport as well in the collegiate environment so to be able to build that team bonding camaraderie makes everybody maybe want to swim a little bit faster for their teammate. Sure, I mean again, you're putting four people in a room so you have to be respectful of your teammates as far as that goes and you're tired and again, it creates this bond that you can't replicate anywhere else. So again, while it sounds like a vacation, it's definitely an important piece of the puzzle. Yeah, absolutely. Alright coach, well thank you for your time. Sounds like Star Season has been successful and we'll chat probably after you get back from Puerto Rico. Great, thank you very much. Alright, for John Stiltrager, I'm Greg Royce. This has been the John Stiltrager Show.