While the National Collegiate Athletic Association has strict guidelines regarding the amount of practice time allowed during the school year, school breaks fall outside of these regulations.
"Without the NCAA's time limit, we just do a whole lot of training seven days a week," women's co-captain Kelsey Pinson '12 said,
Women's co-captain Galen Barry '12 said that much of this time was spent improving team fitness.
"The training trip is all about getting into the best shape possible, getting your endurance and cardio up," Barry said.
The team spent one week training in Honolulu and one week training in Hilo, completing pool workouts, ocean swims and lifting sessions.
"We didn't do a lot of stroke technique," men's co-captain Mickey Ahern '12 said. "We focused on long yardage workouts and aerobic and strength building."
The trip provides the swimmers with a chance to "focus on being mentally tough while doing physically demanding workouts," head coach Jim Wilson said.
"For divers, they get to dive under different conditions, sometimes favorable and sometimes not, and they have to make adjustments," he said. "We take the training trip to make everyone stronger and tougher, so we can swim faster and dive better."
In addition to the valuable practice time the training trip provided, the two-week stay in Hawaii allowed the athletes to bond with their teammates.
"The training trip is a great way for the teams to get to know each other, especially the freshmen," Barry said. While the trip involved hard work and grueling workouts, there were also opportunities for the team to have fun and enjoy the attractions of the Hawaiian islands.
"We train really hard, but we get to go to beautiful places and enjoy ourselves, too," men's co-captain Matt Stumpf '12 said. "The coaches did an outstanding job of planning the trip."
The team took full advantage of its time in Hawaii, with activities ranging from visiting a Polynesian cultural center to exploring an active volcano.
"The locals even threw us a luau on the beach," Barry said.
To fund its winter break trip, the swim team works throughout the year to raise money through a variety of methods, such as giving swim lessons and working at football games.
"The team raises all the money themselves to do this trip," Wilson said. "There is no institutional money spent. They work really hard to be able to do something over winter break that is fun, and the fact that it costs the school nothing is a bonus."
Stumpf said that the Dartmouth team is lucky to have the opportunity to go on the yearly training trip.
"A lot of other schools go to Florida for a week and don't get to do anything fun," Stumpf said. "We got to go to Hawaii for two weeks, see two islands and enjoy ourselves."
The athletic benefits of traveling to Hawaii are not lost on the team, either.
"We could train in Hanover for two weeks, but as a team, we wouldn't be as effective after that," Ahern said. "Keeping people happy is a very important psychological part of swimming."
The team said they hope that the fitness gained over the break will pay dividends come championship season.
"Our goal is always to enable everybody to have personal best performances at the end of the year," Wilson said. "By having our training trip and working hard, we feel we have increased our ability to perform towards the end of the season."
After a very promising first few meets, the team is looking to achieve the high goals it set for the year at the start of the season. "One of the goals that we have had since the beginning is to have at least three Ivy League wins, and ideally a top five finish at the [Ivy Championship in March]," Pinson said.
Morale is high heading into the Ivy League meets, Barry said.
"We've seen what we can do," Ahern said. "Everyone was really excited to swim this year, and now we just need to keep building on what we have."
The Big Green's next competition comes next week, as Dartmouth will host both Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday, Jan. 14.
