After completing another championship season in the Big Ten, much of the Michigan women's swimming team is finally getting the rest it has waited all season for.
Those Wolverines, who did not qualify to swim an event in the NCAA Championships, which begins March 20, in Indianapolis, are finished for the season. Meanwhile, 10 swimmers are still training for the national meet, but even they are not exactly going full speed.
The Wolverines still in training are swimming on a more individualized schedule than they had been during the regular season.
"We are doing what we call a 're-taper,'" Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "I'm giving people a lot of rest (and) a lot of freedom."
Rest is what the Wolverines need, after a season that included a grueling training trip to Coronado, Calif., during winter break and culminated with an 11th-consecutive Big Ten championship three weeks ago.
At times this season, the Wolverines looked as if they would have a tough time recapturing the conference title. A loss to Northwestern was Michigan's first conference defeat in four seasons.
Michigan also suffered several other blowout losses to some of the nation's top-ranked teams, including Stanford, California and Georgia.
However, Michigan rose to the challenge and pulled out a rather sizable victory in the Big Tens, beating second-place Minnesota by 99.5 points.
Next week, 10 of the Wolverines will return to Indianapolis, where the conference championships were held, in search of the same results they had there three weeks ago. Richardson, however, said he is not expecting much.
"I just hope we swim fast," he said. "I really don't want to worry (about how we place)."
Nevertheless, Richardson said that he does believe that Michigan has a chance to win some races next week.
"On paper, right now, we have the ability to do well in some events," he said. "(In particular), we can do well in the 200, 400 and 800 free relays.
"Individually, Shannon Shakespeare has our best chance in the 200 free. Hopefully, we can swim faster than we ever have in our lives."
At the moment, the Wolverines are not even swimming fast, at least not in practice. Since its last meet, Michigan has tapered its workload down, week by week.
This week the Wolverines are swimming at 40 percent of their normal amount, and as the NCAA Championships near, they will be hardly training at all.
"By Sunday, we are going to basically be floating," Richardson said.
Besides Shakespeare, other notable Wolverines who will travel to Indianapolis are senior captains Anne Kampfe, Jodi Navta and Melisa Stone. The meet will be the last for these three as Wolverines, as well as the last chance for them to win an event in the NCAAs.
Last year, when the national meet was held in the Canham Natatorium, Michigan responded with a third-place finish on its home turf. However, the Wolverines failed to win a single event. If Michigan is going to repeat its Big Ten heroics, it will have to do better than that.
JONATHAN SUMMER/Daily
The Michigan women's swimming team will have time to come up for air now that it is in the midst of a three-week break in between the Big Tens and the NCAA Championships.