RENTON HIGH CENTENNIAL: Eat, sleep, swim, repeat; not much changed for swimmers

Published 4:56 pm Friday, May 6, 2011

Mark Prothero won a state title in the 200 individual medley during his senior year at Renton High School in 1974. He went on to swim at the University of Washington and make two USA National teams.

Steve Sholdra is a junior at Renton High School who won the 2A state title in the 500 in February. Sholdra broke Prothero’s 36-year-old school record in the 500 freestyle last year.

While the two may have been separated in their time at Renton High by more than three decades, there is one thing tying them together: They are two of the Indians’ best swimmers ever.

So what exactly has changed since Prothero was at Renton? The Renton Reporter had Prothero and Sholdra ask each other some questions about swimming then and now.

Mark Prothero’s questions for Steve Sholdra:

Prothero: How often do you work out (high school and club)?

Sholdra: For my year-round team, Bellevue Club Swim Team (BCST), we have a two-hour practice seven days a week, with an additional 1 1/2-hour morning practice at 5 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays.  In the summer, we practice twice-a-day five days a week, with one practice Saturday and Sunday.

At Renton High School swim team, we practice 1 1/2 hours once-a-day at Hazen Pool for 10 weeks.

Prothero: How much yardage do you do in a typical workout/day?

Sholdra: 6,500 meters is my average daily mileage during the winter training season (during high-school training season that escalates to 8,500-plus meters). I swim at least nine practices each week. In the summer, we have twice-a-day practices every day, so our total daily mileage is 11,000 to 12,000 meters. The longest I’ve ever swam in one single practice was 10 miles.

For Renton High Swim Team, we swim 2,500 yards, with drill and technique work.

When you add all these practices together, I swim annually more than the distance from Seattle to Mexico.

Prothero: What are your goals in swimming for next year? In five years?

Sholdra: I truly enjoy the sport of swimming, the feel of the water and the intense racing.  My main swimming goal is to swim in college.  In five years, I will be finishing up my college-swimming career, and my goal is to swim, and perform well, at NCAA Championships.

Prothero: What are you thinking about doing as a career?

Sholdra: So many of the opportunities of life are opening at this time.  (As Shakespeare said, “The world is my oyster.”)  I want to pursue a career that involves people, communication, and serves my community and my country.

Steve Sholdra’s questions for Mark Prothero:

Sholdra: What’s different about swimming since you set that Renton High School record?

Prothero: The times continue to get faster and there are more kids getting fast times. Training-wise, in many programs there is more variety and less focus on pure yardage. Back in the 70s however, there was much higher quality, relatively, than now. At the nationals in Kansas City in 1975, nine out of the top 17 400 IM’ers were from Seattle and the Northwest.

Another change is that I didn’t wear goggles or a cap when I won state in ’74. Nobody did. That really didn’t catch on until ’76. That’s when I wore goggles and a cap in a race for the first time. Now, everyone wears goggles in races and just about every guy wears a cap.

A major change has been in rules and techniques. Rule changes allow the head to go under on the breaststroke, which was against the rule when I swam. Also, back then we had to touch the wall with our hand before doing a backstroke flip turn. That rule change significantly dropped times in the back and IM events.

Sholdra: What’s the same about swimming?

Prothero: Many things are the same. I worked out every summer at Colman Pool on Puget Sound in West Seattle, just like many kids will this summer. There are more high-quality pools, although there’s still a shortage here in the Seattle-area. We wore tiny little suits, cut our hair short and shaved our bodies for the big meets, etc. Led a common swimmer lifestyle – eat, sleep, swim, repeat.

Sholdra: How big was the RHS swim team, and what Division was the school (i.e. 2A, 3A)?

Prothero: We had about 20-25 guys on the team the three years I was there. RHS was 4A, although back then they didn’t make those divisions for the state swimming championships.

Sholdra: Which Renton school was the powerhouse in swimming?

Prothero: It was between us and Hazen as Lindbergh was brand new my junior year so they didn’t have much. But Hazen and Renton had a great rivalry, finishing in the top three in our league each year (along with Highline). We worked out at Hazen and played water polo with them so we knew each other really well, which made for a great rivalry and some very exciting dual meets. In my three years of dual meets with Hazen, I think we beat them twice and they beat us once.