JACKSON TWP — As she molded the Mars and North Catholic swim teams into one this season, Planets coach Karen Guise wanted to get a feel for everybody’s place before diving into WPIAL Class 3A competition.

She told her swimmers everyone would have to try every event at least once, a practice usually reserved for newcomers.The news was met with at least a few sighs, especially with the longer distance 500-yard freestyle on that checklist.

It’s not the sort of event everybody has the fortitude to swim repeatedly. It’s not one everyone particularly wants to, either.

“When I read the lineup on the bus, those groans come up and everyone’s kinda feeling for them,” Guise said.

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Competing in longer distance races takes a certain level of stamina, discipline and analytical approach.

“There are not too many people that jump right out and say, ‘This is my event. I want to swim it every time,’” Guise said.

Allie Lakes is one of them.

A Seneca Valley eighth-grader and Rose E. Schneider YMCA Riptide swimmer, she just enjoys being in the water. She was 11 when she began swimming long distance.

“Not a lot of girls on the team wanted to do it,” said Lakes, who swims the 500, 1,000 and 1,650 freestyles. “I thought, ‘Well, if they’re not going to do it, then maybe I’ll give it a try and see if I like it.’”

Charlie Leach, a Seneca Valley freshman who also competes with RESY, qualified for YMCA nationals in the 1,650 with a time of 16:46.78. According to swimcloud.com, his top time in the 500 free this season is 5:18.25.

“We do these really long practices, and you have to stare at that black line (at the bottom of the pool) for so long and swim back and forth,” Leach said. “You have to keep doing it.”

Seneca Valley senior Brynn Flatt runs cross country, along with swimming long-distance events.

“Sprint, it’s over in like two seconds,” said Flatt, who’s striving for a 5:25 in the 500 freestyle. “In the 500, you’re kind of just like, ‘OK, I’ve got to keep going. I’ve got to keep going.’”

That push is another aspect to long-distance swimming.

“Being able to give it more when you really don’t have much left,” Guise said.

“With long-distance swimming, you have to really like the sport,” Leach said. “You’re in the water for so long doing these long practices. When I was 12, maybe, I swam the 500 for the first time. I was like, ‘Whoo, I kind of like this race.’ ... It’s a nice pace.”

The details and mechanics are crucial.

Turnover rate, Guise said, is how fast a swimmer’s arms move. A cycle, she added, is a swimmer moving their left arm and a right arm through the water. Stroke counts are important with distance competition, too, as a swimmer needs to know how many they need to get to the wall. They want to expend as little energy as possible in making their turns.

“You’ve got to be disciplined enough to know your pacing and know what (energy) you need to have on the back half,” Guise said.

“You have to have a lot of control and know how to turn it on and when,” Raiders swim coach Brian Blackwell said. “If you go out too fast, then you’re going to suffer in the back end. If you go out too slow, you have too much and you maybe can’t catch up enough when you need to. Being able to kind of thread that needle and know how to get on pace, how to hold stroke counts and just be that consistent is really a hard skill to master. Those that do the five enjoy it.”

Dropping off by even one-tenth of a second per lap, Leach warned, can negatively impact a distance swimmer’s time.

The most challenging part of a race for Lakes is the middle stage.

“You’re tired from the beginning, but you still have a lot to go,” Lakes said. “You just feel like slowing down, but you’re like, ‘I don’t want to slow down because I don’t want to fall off my pace.’”

A few Butler County swimmers in particular have shown to be skilled in pacing. Knoch’s Adrian Lavorini finished seventh at the WPIAL Class 2A title meet last year with a time of 4:53.43. At the same event, Freeport’s Isabelle Barton placed 10th (5:28.86).

At meets, swimmers have teammates at the end of their lane counting their laps. Those same swimmers have to keep count themselves at practice. They find different ways to pass the time as they scoop and kick water behind them, both in preparation and competition.

“I just pick a song, and I sing that in my head,” Flatt said. “I hear people screaming for me, so I’m like, ‘Oh, I should probably go faster.’”

While swimming, Flatt prefers fast-paced songs, such as those by blink-182. She doesn’t have a go-to, more “whatever I listen to that day.”

Lakes, on the other hand, zeroes in on her race — how her stroke feels, her turns and if she’s pulling enough water. Sometimes, random thoughts pop up, such as wondering what she’ll eat when she’s done swimming or what’s going on in a book she’s reading.

That can make it sound somewhat leisurely, but Guise will assure anyone it’s anything but.

“I think that there’s a lot of people that are like, ‘Oh, I can get in. I can swim. I can go back and forth down the pool,’” Guise said. “Anybody can do 25 yards.”