A group of local high school and junior high swimmers will be spending their spring break in the high altitude of Colorado Springs.
No, they’re not taking a break from the pool and hitting the slopes to ski or snowboard. They’ll be in the water, swimming up to 10 miles a day at the U.S. Olympic Training, March 26 to April 3.
U.S. Olympic open-water swimmer Mark Warkentin arranged the trip for 14 swimmers.
“The swimmers are members of the Santa Barbara Aquatics Club senior group,” he said. “As the coach of the program, I applied to the OTC and asked if we could come to the Springs to train for a week and they accepted my application.”
The group includes CIF Division 1 finalist Janelle Nguyen of Dos Pueblos. The other members are, from Dos Pueblos: Janelle Nguyen, Ryan Peters, Ryan Montag, Josh Pighetti, Paige Pighetti, Sarah Jamieson and Nicolas Lum; from Santa Barbara: Elizabeth Casier and Dana Sloan; Bishop Diego: Shannon Slaught; Laguna Blanca: Milo Filip; Goleta Valley Junior High: Reagan Eickert and Courtney Nuttall.
Katy Freeman, an All-American from UCSB will join the group.
The swimmers will be coached by Warkentin and receive additional training advice from members of the USA Swimming National Team coaching staff.
“The trip isn’t associated with any of the high schools, but scheduled and planned through club swimming,” Warkentin said.
At the OTC, the swimmers will learn about the benefits of training at altitude.
“Training at altitude has been proven to increase red blood cell concentration levels, an advantage for the athletes when they return to competitions at sea level,” Warkentin explained. “Hopefully, the athletes will adapt to the lack of oxygen and their cardiovascular system will respond with an increase in red blood cells.
“Mostly,” he added, “we’re going for the experience of being at the Olympic Training Center, but I’d like to think that training at altitude will help for a short period of time.”
