The Fargo North High Swimming and Diving girls team is having a very intense and competitive season.
Since the last issue, the girls have upset Fargo Davies, as well as a crushing win over Fargo South, and have been putting together a very impressive season. Practices are increasingly getting harder, with more yards getting added to their practices every day to get into end of season form.
With conjunction with boot camp and hard practices, you can see why Fargo North was able to upset Fargo Davies in the dual on Friday, October 5th.
On October 12th Fargo North competed in a double dual with Grand Forks Central and Grand Forks Red River, during their future spartans night meet that celebrates kids that are going to be a Fargo North Spartan. This meet featured big signs with “Future Spartans” on it, and they all sat together right next to the team and got tons of snacks. Although they were fairly loud during diving when it’s supposed to be quiet, they got a great feel for the pool and were proud to be a Spartan.
On October 13th, they traveled to North Wahpeton, A.K.A Fargo Davies to compete in the Davies invite.
Boot camp has also been getting increasingly harder, with a recent practice consisting of 64 push-ups, 64 burpees, 64 squats, and 3 other workouts. Of course, I had to join in and get in on the action, and I thought I was going to die. The pool area is awful to do this in because it’s 119 degrees in there all the time, so if you do any form of physical activity in there it looks like you fell into the pool because you’re so sweaty, and my shirt looked like I ran outside in the rain and did a rain dance for 20 minutes.
Fargo North is getting ready for the most important two meets of the season, EDC and State. EDC is on Saturday, November 3rd with State following one week after, On the 9th, which makes October is peak month, which includes a lot harder practices. Recently, I joined in on a practice with them to try it out, and it was difficult. Although i’m going to lose a bit of masculinity for saying this, but I had a fear of getting lapped during the practice when I was swimming with seventh and eighth graders. It could be that i’m slow, but they’re really working hard at what they’re doing everyday.
All of this work leads up to taper week, which is a complete recession of yards, where they go from 6000+ yards down to a mere 2000-3000, to give the body a break just in time to get your best performance at one of the meets, and they also do mental training to improve the minds capability to think and imagine their best race.
For people still trying to qualify for state, EDC is a big and emotional meet because it’s their last chance to continue their season to the state meet. The state meet is going to be a very competitive meet this year and Fargo North hopes to be a top finisher this year.