Storm Forecast for December 18th, 2025

Two Updates On the Top

Dryland is off through the end of 2025, we’ll resume in 2026

‘Tis the season for missed meet deadlines.  Three deadlines occur before Christmas.  Distance Challenge (12/20), Storm Winter Classic (12/23), and Waukesha (12/23).  PLEASE commit your athlete with a yes or no before you get bogged down with holiday activities and forget!

A Pair of Contests

It’s time to announce a pair of contests for our swimmers! 

Regional Cap Design – Back again this year, we’re looking for creative, artistic minds to design the 2026 Regional Championship Caps.  These caps will be given to swimmers from every team competing at the meet—the winning design could be worn by hundreds!  The only rules: don’t get too complicated in design, and we’re stuck with a limit of 3 colors.  Cap Color, and two ink colors.  Submit designs from now through Christmas Eve for consideration; Storm coaches will narrow to four designs.  Then, Simply Swimming will bring them to life; we’ll then have a social media poll decide the winner.

Team Cheer Contest – We could use something a bit quicker and easier to memorize for a team cheer and we’d love the swimmers to come up with some ideas.  Swimmers can submit ideas through New Year’s Eve for this one, either written, typed out in an email, or via video submissions to Coach Erin.  We’ll pick a favorite and debut it at the Winter Classic.

Saturday’s Swim School Challenge

A message went out to our participants today regarding the Swim School Challenge.  Swimmers, parents, and volunteers should arrive at the Sun Prairie YMCA at 9:30.  It’ll be quick, with racing starting around 10am and finishing around 11.  It promises to be a fun time for swimmers and a wholesome experience for volunteers.  Those signing up to help will get a job assignment upon arrival.  Remember: admission is two items for a food drive.

If your swimmer is interested in helping out, have them sign up here.

Storm Distance Challenge

The final event of the calendar year comes with a lot of initial nervousness but ends with a ton of pride and accomplishment.  This year’s Distance Challenge will take place December 27^th at Lodi High School.  This event is open to everyone but Thunderstorm.  We even have space for interested parents.  There is a 500 free, 1000 free, and a 1650 free event available and coaches will pick the most appropriate event for swimmers.  This year, all participants will earn a commemorative item to celebrate the accomplishment.  And because the event is officially sanctioned, it counts for Ironman Awards.

Practice Changes & Schedule

The final height of the success of a swimmer in February & March is usually determined by the foundation built in December—ESPECIALLY with the Typhoon, Senior, and Performance groups.  As long as swimming has been competitive, there have been three types of swimmers.  There’s a subsection that eat up every double-session, getting in every rep they can.  These swimmers will be prepared for anything that Championship Meet season can throw at them.  On the other side of the spectrum, there’s a large group of swimmers that we see the last day of school in 2025, and then not again until school resumes in 2026.  They take the entire break off, and months of training is undone by two weeks of vacation.  Studies say it takes 4 weeks of “retraining” to get back the conditioning of a strong, senior-level athlete, after missing just one week.  The drop isn’t nearly as significant for younger swimmers.  But two weeks of nothing, when others are doing *everything* is a lot of progress lost.  The third group of athlete can be seen a few times a week during the break, but they’re not making up for missed practices, not doing dryland at home.  They’re in a bit of a “swim purgatory.”  Not getting faster, not drastically backsliding.

Why am I sermonizing about this, when we don’t have attendance requirements for any of our groups (except for Performance)?  Because it’s important for swimmers (and parents) to adjust expectations to what they do over the course of the next few weeks.  Longtime Duke basketball coach Mike Kryzewski said, “You can either lower your goals to match your effort or you can raise your effort to match your goals.”  So long as those two things are aligned, a swimmer can be happy with their results.  But when they are not aligned, that’s where big feelings can occur.

All this to say: If you’ve got a kid who’s just having fun?  Have fun!  That’s absolutely fine.  If your kid is going to be beside themselves if Regionals or State doesn’t go well, they need to make a plan to enter 2026 stronger than they are now.

Meet Signup & Details

JJ’s Dryland Signup

Use promo code: SWIMFAST25

Sign up for the class here

Instructions on signing up here