Mental exercises toughen Ram for state/ Bremer eyes school record in 200
Tim Bergsten; The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, May 15, 1996

In the pool, Eli Bremer is something of a visual artist.

If he can see himself winning, he can feel it. And if he can feel it, he can do it, applying his swim strokes in his free and powerful way.

A senior at Lewis-Palmer, which has no swim team, Bremer competes for Rampart.

Last Saturday at the Metro League swim meet, Bremer set meet records in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events, and swam the anchor leg on Rampart's record-setting 4x100 relay team.

But in his mind, he'd been there, done that. He knew his big day was coming.

"This whole season, every night, I've been lying down and watching myself race," Bremer said. "It puts me in a swimming mode, helps me focus in on what needs to be done. It really pays off. I hit the water and I'm there. I'm psyched for it."

This week, he's visualizing the boys state swimming and diving championships that begin with swimming prelims at 3 p.m. Friday at Edora Pool and Ice Center in Fort Collins. The meet continues at 9 a.m. Saturday with diving prelims. Finals for all events start at 3 p.m.

A respectable pentathlete, Bremer learned his mental trickery from Randall Rattan, a sports psychologist at the Olympic Training Center.

"I did eight weeks with him last year," Bremer said. "In the pentathlon, I had incredible results. It was all basic stuff I didn't know before, like how to correctly watch myself race before I actually do."

So with the thought in his mind, Bremer confidently led Rampart past a tough Air Academy team to claim the meet championship.

"The mental part is the biggest aspect," Bremer said. "Physically, everyone has gone all-out all season and everyone has good strokes."

He swam the 200 in 1 minute, 46.76 seconds at the league meet, and hopes to clip that time by another two seconds, which would be a school record and a junior national qualifying time.

He is seeded eighth for the state meet in the 200 and fifth in the 500, but could finish better, depending on which events other top swimmers choose.

Rampart's 400 free relay, including Josh Biedermann, Chuck Alonzo, Greg Woods and Bremer, has the fifth-fastest state qualifying time.