Lone Rocket

His eyes had red circles around them from his goggles as he stood dripping at poolside with two of his teammates in the pool behind him swimming laps. “I feel good, right now I’m tired but that’s because of tapering, but, you know, I feel good,” Titusville’s Joe Herman said Monday afternoon while taking a short break from swim practice. 


Two of his swim team friends were there, despite their season being over, to show their support and help Herman stay focussed on his workout. Herman is the lone Rocket to qualify for the PIAA State Championships.
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Coach Kevin Dawson said it was nice to see his friends there. "Training alone is pretty tough to do."

Tapering is a training technique where practices build to a intense physical peak and then, before competition, the workouts “taper” off to allow the body to be in the best possible conditioning for the goal races.  
 
“Once you get to competition you feel good,” Herman said.

Dawson admitted that tapering this time of year difficult because Herman is also a top swimmer in the Titusville YMCA program that is also currently in heavy competition season.

Herman and his coach are realistic about medaling at the PIAA state competition. Herman is ranked 22 in the state in backstroke and 25 in the butterfly. Though his ranking is lower the butterfly is his best race. He’s around five seconds off the top seeds in both events.

“Personally I don’t think there is that great of a chance (at medaling), but, I really want to break Zach (Titus) record.” Titus is now a Division I college swimmer at St. Bonaventure and current holder of the Titusville 100 butterfly school record. Herman, a sophomore is .1 second off Titus’ mark.

“It’s doable,” he said. 

“He’s one of the hardest workers that has come through here,” Dawson said. “He’ll push it to the point he can barely breathe at the end of a set. And that’s a normally every week occurrence for him. He just doesn’t turn it on and off, he goes.”

Dawson, who has coached the Rockets now for 20 years, also said the record is in his grasp. He noted again that Herman a tenth-grader and Titus set the mark in his senior year.

“I think it’s pretty cool for a sophomore to get to experience this,” Dawson said,

This is Herman’s second trip to states. Last year he was part of a rocket freestyle relay team. This year he is by himself in two individual races. “It’s a little lonely without all the others from last year there,” Herman admitted. And though he reiterated he doesn’t think he has a great shot a medalling he said he happy to be going. “I’m just going to try and swim.”

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