Women prepare for championships

There's a different pace at the Counsilman and Billingsley Aquatic Center this time of the year.\nThe women's swimming team has moved into the final phase of its training for the season, a more relaxed series of practices know as the "taper."\nThe physically draining practices that challenge the team throughout the entire season began to wind down a couple of weeks ago, progressively becoming less intense as the the Big Ten Women's Swimming and Diving Championships nears. The tournament will be at IU Feb. 15-17.\nThe taper method is used by many coaches and is valued by swimmers as a time to rest and store up their valuable energy as well as focus on their upcoming events. They use this time to concentrate on their technique and the small details that can make or break a race, like starts and turns -- areas in which there is little room for error. \nSophomore backstroker and butterflyer Colleen McCracken said the taper helps the team focus more on these details.\n"When you get tired, you have the tendency to go back to your old habits," she said, referring to the more difficult workouts the team goes through earlier in the season.\n"Repetition is key in swimming. Once you start feeling those starts and turns and you get into the taper, and your body's not tired, you can do them much quicker than you could before."\nIn a sport where a race can be decided in one-hundredth of a second, these small aspects can make a huge difference and can determine the winner.\nCoach Dorsey Tierney said the intense training is over now. She has cut the workload down to about one-third of what the team is used to.\n"Conditioning work is over; we don't need to worry about that," Tierney said. "But sometimes through that conditioning, you become a little tired, little things tend to slide a bit. So when you get to this point in the season, it's important to be really sharp."\nAside from physical sharpness, it is also important for the team to be mentally prepared. Tierney is encouraging the team to stay inside its "bubble." She is trying to limit the amount of outside distractions to maintain a common goal and focus for this weekend's meet. \nOne method she will use is having the team stay at the hotel in the Indiana Memorial Union for the entire weekend. Tierney said staying there will create a "championship atmosphere" in which everyone's mind will be on the task at hand.\nSenior Jenn Cristy said it's important for each swimmer to have her own focus on her personal events as well. She said she plans to watch tapes of her races at last years Big Ten Championship meet and visualizing her races to mentally prepare. She said although practices are easier now, the anticipation of this huge meet is on everyone's mind.\n"We're just trying to get into racing mode," Cristy explained. "There's a more competitive feel now. They're fun, less-intense practices, but when it comes to racing we're all serious"