As the Christmas season creeps up, the holiday workouts begin. The Washington boys’ swim team has a tradition of completing a 12 days of Christmas workout over the holiday season.

“I am not looking forward to it,” senior Michael Simoneau said. “The set is very long and it gets ridiculously hard after the seventh day.”

The workout goes along with the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” For each day in the song, the boys add another set, a workout without rest inbetween, which they have to repeat from then on.

“It’s one of my favorite practices because it’s fun and we work on stuff we don’t usually do,” senior George Durin said. “It gives me a chance to mix up my strokes and do things I don’t usually get to do.”

Throughout the 12 days, sets of kick, freestyle, and stroke are repeated multiple times. The set ends with completing all twelve  sets back-to-back. They do as much of the sets as they can during their three hour Saturday practices. If they complete the whole workout, it would add up to 9,100 yards.

“The best advice I have heard from the upperclassmen was to drink lots of water before and eat a very small breakfast,” freshman Ethan Williams said. “I have done a set like this for club swimming, but it was never this intense.”

The next time the Washington boys’ swim team competes is senior night, Thursday, January 4 at Washington High School starting at 6 p.m.

Hannah Williams

Sports Writer