Swim Like A Champion (a real life journal) - Page 13

FrogMan · 05-07-2015, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Matthew has had his 11/12 A standards for a little while now. He then got his first cut in November in his second time ever competing in a 100 fly. He followed that up with a cut in 100 breast in December and had many other close call in free but could never seem to improve his free enough to make a cut. As you can see from the time sheets, other than free, no 50 event qualify for a cut other than free or else he would probably have had his 50 fly easily. He finally got his third cut about two weeks ago with a 7 seconds improvement in his 200 IM. The meet that'll happen around the end of June that I mentioned before is a AA meet. Had he not got his third cut recently, he would have needed to get it at the end of the month or else he'd have had to sit that one out. I think the one at the end of the month (long course one) is a A-AA-AAA meet which means you only need you A cuts in order to be allowed to compete...

FM

I realize now that this was kind of unclear. Matthew has had his A times for a little while now, the other cuts I mention here are all AA cuts.

FM

Breeze · 05-08-2015, 08:36 AM

Gran Prix Series Update

The results have been announced for the Gran Prix Series. As you've probably realized, if you've been following along, I'm a serious stat junkie, and because of that I did a good bit of research to try and determine where the twins were going to end up.

As I expected Bear finished 2nd overall behind just Nate, which was an excellent result for him. He even managed to beat one of the two boys that turned 13 right after the start of the series (they swam as 12 year old due to being 12 at the start of the series. The second boy referenced, failed to swim all 12 events and was disqualified from the final standings)

From my calculations, I thought Bailey was going to finish 3rd, but as it turns out she won for the 11/12 girls. I was pleasantly shocked but confused by this result. I was convinced there were at least 2 girls that had beaten her (both, like mentioned in Bear's piece above were actually 13 for most of the series). Here is what I believe happened...the way the scoring worked was - each kid received points based on where they finished in the event. So 1 point for first, 2 points for second, etc., and the lowest point total when all 12 events are added wins. When the totals over the 4 events were calculated, I believe the coaches threw out any results from swimmers that failed to complete all 12 events, and thus were ineligible to win. This way those kids didn't skew results for swimmers that were eligible. This would also explain how Bailey ended up winning. She finished 3rd and even 4th in a couple of events, but she was beaten by girls that would fall into the group that was ineligible.

So you might be wondering what the kids win...

Bear gets - Movie Tickets
Bailey gets - Dinner with the coaches (she's so thrilled - she would have rather finished 4th and gotten a new swim bag...

)

Breeze · 05-11-2015, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breeze

Gran Prix Series Update

The results have been announced for the Gran Prix Series. As you've probably realized, if you've been following along, I'm a serious stat junkie, and because of that I did a good bit of research to try and determine where the twins were going to end up.

As I expected Bear finished 2nd overall behind just Nate, which was an excellent result for him. He even managed to beat one of the two boys that turned 13 right after the start of the series (they swam as 12 year old due to being 12 at the start of the series. The second boy referenced, failed to swim all 12 events and was disqualified from the final standings)

From my calculations, I thought Bailey was going to finish 3rd, but as it turns out she won for the 11/12 girls. I was pleasantly shocked but confused by this result. I was convinced there were at least 2 girls that had beaten her (both, like mentioned in Bear's piece above were actually 13 for most of the series). Here is what I believe happened...the way the scoring worked was - each kid received points based on where they finished in the event. So 1 point for first, 2 points for second, etc., and the lowest point total when all 12 events are added wins. When the totals over the 4 events were calculated, I believe the coaches threw out any results from swimmers that failed to complete all 12 events, and thus were ineligible to win. This way those kids didn't skew results for swimmers that were eligible. This would also explain how Bailey ended up winning. She finished 3rd and even 4th in a couple of events, but she was beaten by girls that would fall into the group that was ineligible.

So you might be wondering what the kids win...

Bear gets - Movie Tickets
Bailey gets - Dinner with the coaches (she's so thrilled - she would have rather finished 4th and gotten a new swim bag...

)

Gran Prix Series Update

So a quick follow up...here were the awards with the monetary value of each next to it...

1st - Dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with the coaches - ~$20
2nd - Movie tickets $21
3rd - Gold Team Warm Up outfit - ~$80
4th - Swim Bag ~$60
5th - Towel ~$15
6th - Goggles ~$12

Not really sure how that seems logical to the organizers...but - ok...

Breeze · 05-14-2015, 10:37 AM

Summer League - CRC Time Trials

The Summer League kicks off on Friday (5/15) with the team's time trials. It will be a very interesting meet for a number of reasons:

- Bailey and Bear are on the young end of the age group this time around so they will both be battling to get onto the A relays

- Tommy has joined the boys 13/14 team, which will make it that much more difficult for Brett and/or Bear to get on the A relay

Just some quick notes on the team.

- There are 8 year round girls in Bailey's age group, which will probably make them the deepest team in all of Summer League. So deep in fact, that all 8 could end up on the State Team

- There are 6 year round Boys (counting my two) in the 13/14 boys...my guess is two will move up to swim with the 15/18 age group in relays because that team is very light in numbers and talent.

I'm not sure how this is going to play out, but if I had to guess I'd say when county rolls around:

- Bailey will be on the B Free relay as the 5th fastest girl out of the 8
- Bailey will be on a A Medley in the Fly leg
- Bear will be on the A Free Relay, but Brett won't (and I expect he swims 15/18)
- Brett will be on the A Medley in Breast, and Bear won't (and I expect him to be the flyer on the 15/18 Medley)

Breeze · 05-18-2015, 09:56 AM

Summer League - CRC Time Trials - RESULTS

Note: no blocks were used, thus resulting in slower overall times

Bailey

50 Free - This was going to be a really tight race, with 6 girls all having similar times swimming at once. The start of the race was as expected, and Bailey was in a tight battle for the 4th spot, but coming out of the turn she fell off the pace and cruised into the finish over a second back. She finished 6th with a time of 30.37, well off her personal best time (even without blocks). I asked her what happened, and she informed me, she hit the bottom coming out of her turn (not surprising as she goes deep off walls in year round meets, due to her strong underwater work), and once that happened, she lost so much ground to the field, she backed off and just finished the race.

50 Back - Awesome start for Bailey (even without the blocks to get good leverage on the start). She was out fast, but before she could get to the wall, a couple of girls caught her. She finished 4th and actually added time from last year...33.23

50 Breast - Bailey managed to get 5th, even though she came in with the 8th fastest time. It wasn't a great swim at 41.29, but it was pretty good for her.

50 Fly - Honestly, I do believe that Bailey may have held back a bit in the 3 earlier races, knowing she was going to have a showdown in this one with Caroline and Kate. And it lived up to the hype. Bailey, Caroline, and Kate were neck and neck the whole way. In fact, Bailey was probably 3rd at the turn, but she came home strong and won the event with a 30.44. Caroline finished 30.55, and Kate was a 30.68.

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Brett

50 Free - Brett's strokes were much longer and they definately looked better, but he only managed to get 6th - 29.16

50 Back - decent race -36.27, still 6th...but better than he's been swimming recently.

50 Breast - The big one for Brett...and I was super proud because he stayed longer with his strokes despite the fact he was chasing early. He finished 3rd overall (behind Tommy and Riley), but he was within about 1.5 seconds - 35.85 - but it isn't a personal best time.

50 Fly - His fly continues to look better, only managed 6th - 37.39, which is a slight improvement for him.

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Bear

50 Free - An ok swim for Bear, managed a 27.61, which put him 4th in the event (and that was as good as he was going to be able to do even if he had cranked out a PB swim).

50 Back - 32.42 time is slightly off his time for last year...finished 4th. A Bit disappointing that he wasn't able to beat Tommy in this one, as back is Tommy's weak stroke.

50 Breast - 39.71 - a good swim for Bear, but not nearly as good as his recent year round swims in Breast. Finished 6th, as expected.

50 Fly - Suprisingly, Bear only managed a 5th place finish in this stroke. I though he might be able to pull 3rd, but Seth (who's fly has improve a bunch, and Alex, who has finally started to put the year round swimming thing together) both beat him by about a second. Bear posted a 30.90.

Breeze · 05-21-2015, 10:43 AM

General Update

A couple of things to update that involve (at least tangentially) my kids…one is a Gold Team correction in the newsletter, the other is strange teen drama…

Let’s start with the update:

Gold puts out a newsletter (generally) twice a month, and in the March issue the team highlighted the swimmers that were top finishers at the Age Group State Meet, and in April they did the same thing for the Sectionals Meet. The only problem was, Bear was overlooked in both write-ups, despite the fact that he had several top 3 finishes. We were a little irritated and emailed the team to let them know of the oversight. We were interested in getting anyone into any trouble, and we really didn’t want them to do anything about it (because Bear doesn’t even read the newsletter, so he didn’t care), we just wanted to make sure the team was aware that Bear swam for Gold so he wasn’t overlooked in the future.

Well the May newsletter came out yesterday, and they have a small correction section highlighting Bear’s accomplishments as well as a picture of him on the podium with his medal. Kinda cool. If you’re interested, you can see it here… Gold Swim Team » News (just look for the May 1st Newsletter)

Now the second update is strange, and I don’t think it will be easy to convey how strange (regardless of how much I write). I’ve kept you pretty informed with my kids, while also trying to provide a taste of what was happening within their group of friends in order to provide you some perspective of other things going on in their lives. This will probably get confusing because it involves a few of the friends, and I doubt I’ve provided enough context up until now for all of this to register with the impact it has had on us. But anyway – here goes…

I believe I’ve mentioned a few times that Bailey and Seth have dated (such as it is). They’ve been on again/off again numerous times and most recently, they’ve started to show interest in each other again (personally I really wish they’d give it a rest for a while, but doesn’t look like I’ll get my wish).

Another of the boys in the group is Riley. You don’t hear a lot about him because he is a bit odd. He’s a good looking, big kid. In fact, he’s pretty close to my size right now. However, despite the fact that he’s big and mature physically for his age, he really struggles to fit in, to the point that he felt bullied in public school for 6th grade and is now home schooled. Also, the boys get together pretty much every weekend to do something, but Riley is almost never involved. He typically is the first to leave the pool, and he isn’t comfortable in crowds (apparently, even crowds that are his friends). This withdrawal has, in my opinion, gotten much worse recently, but it was always just anti-social in nature – until now.

Last night at practice, Riley texted Seth asking him to meet him upstairs at the pool. Seth asked Tommy and Bear if they got the same message, but they didn’t. So Seth, Tommy, and Bear went upstairs to meet with Riley. When they got there, Riley said he only wanted to talk with Seth, so they went into the bathroom. When they came out Seth told the other boys that Riley had choked (like a sleeper hold choke) and threatened him, saying the he was “not to touch Bailey”, and apparently he threatened to tell the coaches that he was sexually harassing Bailey if he didn’t listen.

Seth was fine, but he was shocked on 2 levels – First, his comment was “Why would you think I was harassing Bailey” and second, “Why’d you grab me, you know you could have just texted me!”

This is extremely strange to me. While I’ve had suspicions that Riley liked Bailey for a while (and Bear confirmed that he thinks Riley has liked Bailey for about 3 years), he has never once said or done anything to actually confirm those suspicions. In fact, the opposite is true, he’s flirted pretty heavily with several of the other girls on the team, and even indicated he’d ask one of them out (though he never did to my knowledge). I’m really not sure where this is coming from – my best guess is jealousy, but Seth and Bailey have gone out at least 2 times before – so why now? Was he really trying to protect Bailey – and if so why – it’s not like they are close friends or even spend any time together – where did the fraternal instinct come from?

My biggest hope is that this incident isn’t a symptom of a much larger issue. I like Riley, and I’ve said for a while that I felt he needed therapy to help address his social anxiety issues. Maybe this action will be the thing that gets that ball rolling, and it ends up being nothing more than teen angst for a boy that has troubles with interactions.

At this point the fallout of his actions are to be determined. It is very possible he could be suspended for a period of time. I’ll update that when I know more.

Breeze · 05-22-2015, 10:24 AM

General Update

So the teen drama I reported on earlier was so much more involved than I initially realized. I’m not going to get into too much detail on this because I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but essentially here is what happened.

Apparently, the Seth / Bailey relationship was a bit more volatile than I realized. They like each other, but Bailey was uncomfortable with Seth’s constant touching, and wanted him to stop. She had told him so, but probably not definitively enough. She was afraid to tell her mom and me about it because we are such good friends with Seth’s mother. She also didn’t want to tell her brothers because they are tight with Seth. Instead she turned to Riley, who as I mentioned is part of the group, but not so close that Bailey would see him as being too friendly with Seth to do anything. She explained (and exaggerated a bit) what was happening and that she wanted it to stop. So Riley actually was doing the right thing, he just chose to do it in the wrong way. I’m not sure why he felt that level of intervention was necessary, but I have to admit, as the father here, there is a considerable amount of comfort knowing that Bailey not only has 2 brothers that will stick up for her, but friends willing to put their neck out as well.

Ultimately, there was a lot of discussion with Seth, Riley, and Bailey about how to handle these things, what they did wrong, and that it is important to move forward. At this point I don’t believe there will be any suspensions.

Breeze · 05-27-2015, 09:19 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 1 vs Grand Cascades

So we start the season against the evil empire...Fun

Here are what the kids will be swimming:

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Bailey

# 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A (Fly)

# 53 Girls 13-14 100 IM 1/2 1:10.65Y

# 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/2 30.24Y

# 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B (1)

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Bear

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B (Back)

# 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/2 1:03.00Y

# 44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 1/2 32.30Y

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A (2)

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Brett

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A (Breast)

# 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/2 X 1:15.91Y

# 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/4 33.00Y

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B (1)

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Of course the weather is calling for rain...so we may not get any of this meet in...

Breeze · 05-29-2015, 08:34 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 1 vs Grand Cascades

RAINED OUT!!!

Scheduled to be made up Tuesday, June 16th...

Breeze · 06-01-2015, 08:28 AM

General Update

Got a Summer Meet on Thursday and an out of town year round meet this weekend. I'll be adding the write ups for both shortly...

Breeze · 06-01-2015, 09:38 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen

So a match up with one of our 2 biggest rivals is this Thursday. The last 3 times we have had a Thursday meet the winner has pulled out the victory by only a few points.

Here is what the kids are currently scheduled to swim:

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Bailey

# 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly

# 63 Girls 13-14 50 Breast 1/5 41.29Y - No idea why they have her swimming this event!!!

# 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y

# 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1

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Bear

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B Back

# 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/1 1:03.00Y

# 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/5 1:14.12Y

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A 2

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Brett

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Breast

# 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/1 1:15.91Y

# 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/3 33.00Y

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1

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The team put together a strange line up for this week (like Bailey in Breast). For instance, with the boys, there are 6 year round swimmers, and 6 events. Each kid can swim 2 events for points...pretty easy math here...2 year round swimmers in each event. Only that isn't what they have. They have only Brett doing Breast and only Seth doing back. I'd suggest changes in the lineup but I don't think it's worth the hassle at this point in the season. However, these entries are subject to change...

FrogMan · 06-01-2015, 02:15 PM

Matthew had a meet this past weekend and it made me think of you and your kids. I wanted to post about it all weekend but just had no time for myself. I'll be back later on this evening with some more for you.

Also gotta read that whole drama thing, that looked pretty intense!

FM

FrogMan · 06-01-2015, 08:39 PM

Good to see that the whole drama seems to have been resolved, or at least, it seems to have some sort of positive ending.

So yeah, Matthew had his first long course meet over the weekend. We don't have short and long course seasons and long course meets are few and far between. There's also the fact that Matthew is so new at competing at the age group level that he just never had an opportunity to do a long course meet.

Anyway, meet schedule was Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning. Some of the events on Friday from finals by time but some were preliminaries with finals to be swum on saturday evening. Same for Saturday morning and then Sunday morning all events were finals by time.

Matthew had two events on Friday (200 IM, 100 breast), two more on Saturday morning (100 fly, 100 free), all four being preliminaries that could lead to finals on Saturday evening, and then two more on Sunday morning (50 fly and 50 free).

He was also told he would swim one of the laps for the 4x50 medley relay but he didn't know which at the time. That turned out to be the fly lap, in the 11-12 age group relay team.

Before that meet, he had done a grand total of three long course races so far.

He ended up having a great meet, making all four possible finals on Saturday evening, improving two of the three times he had already set while setting his base times for future long course meet (entered with "no time") and finally winning a bronze medal for the 50 fly which was a timed final. All of this while competing with kids born in 2003 and even 2002 while he was born in 2004. Basically, he was often the only or one of the few 11 year old in most finals he swam in the 11-12 age group.

The head coach of our club took care of coaching him for most of the evening on Saturday and it was kinda cool to see them interact together in a way we had never really seen before. I mean, it's not like the head coach was avoiding him, but Matthew usually is coached by the coach of the 11-13 team but she was out of town this weekend. Even then, on Friday evening and Saturday morning, he was coached by another assistant. Following the finals night, we went to eat dinner at Subway and while we were waiting in line, Matthew looked kinda proud to tell me that the head coach had told him he was considered a good prospect because he was one of only two 11 year to make the final at the 200 IM. Kiddo is making us proud, and working hard too. He was also spent after that evening.

Since we don't have many long course meet, there were some funny moments. Matthew had done his three LC times about a month ago, and he had some especially good times for his 50 and 100 fly. On the other hand, some 13, 14 and 15 year swimmers of our club had not done any 50 or 100 fly in LC in a long while, probably since they were maybe 11 for some of the 13 year old. This meant that for his preliminary heat in the 50 fly, he was swimming next to a 13 yo kid from our club that he almost idolizes for how good he is with his fly because they had about the same entry time.

No need to tell you that Matthew got smoked. I wasn't there to see it but my wife told me it was pretty cool to see the older kid fist bump Matthew just prior the both of them got on the blocks.

FM

Breeze · 06-02-2015, 09:38 AM

FrogMan

Great update...looks like Matthew is doing extremely well! Moments like the fist bump you mentioned are one of the great things about swimming. For the most part the kids understand the dedication it takes to be a swimmer and they really support each other. It makes for some pretty cool moments...

In fact, Bear had one during the Summer League Time Trials. In the fly race, Alex (who is about 6') was racing next to Bear, and Alex, as I think I mentioned, has improved dramatically in the last few months. In the sprint he was able to out-touch Bear. His first reaction was an "I beat you" exultation...to which Bear responded with a double high five.

Breeze · 06-03-2015, 08:55 AM

2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - 6/6-7 - @ UWF Aquatic Center (Pensacola)

Here are the events the kids will be swimming at the year round meet this weekend:

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Bailey

# 49 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Free (2:34.64L )
# 57 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Fly (2:43.08L )
# 61 (d2/s3): G 13-14 100 Back (1:19.50L )
# 65B (d2/s3): G 13-14 400 Free (5:13.89L )
# 83 (d3/s5): G 13-14 100 Free (1:10.37L )
# 87 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L )
# 95 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L )
# 99C (d3/s5): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L )

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Bear

# 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:20.28L )
# 58 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Fly (2:39.00L )
# 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:19.49L )
# 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (4:54.66L )
# 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:10.52L )
# 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:46.43L )
# 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L )
# 100C (d3/s5): B 13-14 1500 Free (19:25.98L )

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Brett

# 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:34.07L )
# 54 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:29.43L )
# 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:24.42L )
# 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (5:28.07L )
# 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:11.43L )
# 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:57.27L )
# 92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Breast (42.38L )
# 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L )

Breeze · 06-04-2015, 07:39 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen

Meet Update - Bailey's events have changed...update below.

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Bailey

# 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly

# 43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 1/5 31.70

# 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y

# 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1

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The coach came to her senses (with a little prodding from me)...and she moved Bailey from Breast to Back...

Breeze · 06-08-2015, 10:39 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen - RESULTS

As is usual with Aberdeen, this ended up being an extremely fun meet…
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Bailey

# 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly – The girls dominated the relay winning going away. Bailey looked a little sluggish, but still opened a lead on her leg.

# 43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 1/5 – team switched her to back and she came in 4th. Start was excellent, effort seemed lacking. Time was a pedestrian 32.22.

# 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y – Again Bailey’s start was awesome, but she seemed sluggish after that. She ended up getting out touched by her teammate Kate…she swam a 30.01…

# 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 – Extremely strong anchor leg allowed her to pass the Aberdeen B team, which had a good 10 yard lead on her before she hit the water.

*Note: some of the sluggishness I believe was due to the fact she had just finished practice only a couple of hours prior to this meet.
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Bear

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B Back – Swam with the B relay, and in the back (opening leg of the relay, he kept it close to both A teams)…didn’t matter though, as his relay faded back quickly in the Breast leg.

# 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/1 1:03.00Y – Bear managed to go Sub60…but he finished 3rd behind teammates Riley and Seth. It was actually silly that all 3 were in that event, as only 2 can score. The 3 teammates swept the finish and were the only ones to go sub60.

# 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/5 1:14.12Y – Again Bear had to compete with Riley and this time with Brett. Bear managed to finish 3rd with a 1:08.84. It was a good swim, but he lacked some effort for a sprint IM.

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A 2 – Bear’s relay dominated once again. Tommy led off an opened up a big lead, Bear stretched it with the second leg, and Seth opened up a full lap lead. The anchor was supposed to be Riley but Alex was swapped in last second (more on that with Brett’s write up), and the team swim won going away.

*Note: Bear also had practice just a couple of hours prior to the start of the meet.
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Brett

# 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Breast – Brett’s breast leg looked very strong and he took a slight lead and really opened it up…that lead was just stretched on the following legs.

# 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/1 1:15.91Y – Brett finished 4th, but he looked much stronger and he dropped a couple of seconds.

# 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/3 33.00Y – The strong breast from the relay was replicated in the individual event, and Brett won this one going away. His time was a 34 mid.

# 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 – So after watching the team waste Bear and Alex on the B medley relay for 13/14s, I suggested moving Brett and Alex up to swim with the two 15/18 boys in the Free, and the team made the adjustment. Brett led off, as the two strong year round 15/18 boys wanted to chase down the other team…Brett swam a very respectable leg, staying within a body length of both Aberdeen teams. In fact, I figure he swam around a 27 flat. Alex was scheduled to go second, but as I mentioned in Bear’s write up, the team swapped Alex and Riley when they saw the lead that the 13/14s already had…so Riley went second here, and he was able to close the gap after Brett’s leg and actually hand off a small lead to the 3rd swimmer. From there the 3rd and 4th swimmers just opened the lead and the 15/18 relay won.

*Note: Brett’s Thursday practice is an early morning one…
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Overall the team did ok…the final score was:

Aberdeen – 405
CRC – 395

So for the 4th year in a row the meet between our two teams was decided by 20 points or less. Had the team put together a more sound lineup, we would have more than made up the 10 points we lost by in this meet.

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Breeze · 06-09-2015, 01:25 PM

2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - RESULTS (Pensacola)

The wife and I didn't not attend this meet (with the exception of Bear's 1500, which I counted for)...so all I have are times and thoughts...no observations.

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Bailey

400 Meter Medley Relay - A Team - Bailey jump in the Fly leg of this event...wasn't happy with her time (~1:15)...the team finished 4th

# 49 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Free (2:34.64L ) - dropped almost a second to a 2:33.70

# 57 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Fly (2:43.08L ) - Finished, but it was ugly. Coach's wife told us she hung on every wall...2:45.53

# 61 (d2/s3): G 13-14 100 Back (1:19.50L ) - Added half a second to 1:20.03

# 65B (d2/s3): G 13-14 400 Free (5:13.89L ) - Added almost 9 full seconds...terrible swim 5:22.85

# 83 (d3/s5): G 13-14 100 Free (1:10.37L ) - dropped a fraction of a second 1:10.32

# 87 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) - another extremely poor event adding almost 6.5 seconds - 2:53.00

# 95 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) - continuing the poor performance adding 4.5 - 2:50.23

# 99C (d3/s5): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L ) - closed out the meet with an embarassing swim - adding almost 13 seconds...10.49.28

Bailey swam so poorly she got a talking to from the head coach (Andy)...not sure what all was said, but he wasn't happy. I believe Bailey is allowing her friends to influence her practice routine, mental state, and confidence in a negative way. Bailey is in a position she should be pulling away from a host of teammates, but instead she's backing up. She's going to be in for a rude awakening when State rolls around.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

400 Meter Medley Relay - B Team - Bear got the Fly leg on the relay team. Swam a 1:15...

# 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:20.28L ) - dropped just over 2 seconds for a 2:18.15 (wondering if this might be good enough to get on the 13/14 - 800 meter free relay)

# 58 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Fly (2:39.00L ) - managed a half second drop 2:38.49

# 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:19.49L ) - added 4.7 seconds...1:24.17

# 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (4:54.66L ) - Dropped almost 11 seconds for a 4:43.66

# 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:10.52L ) - Dropped nearly 6 seconds...1:04.64

# 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:46.43L ) - Dropped 2.7 seconds, which was conforting after the poor 100 back the day before. 2:43.67

# 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) - This one wasn't good...coach said he looked tired through the whole race - 2:48.44...

# 100C (d3/s5): B 13-14 1500 Free (19:25.98L ) - was concerned following the 200 medley that he was out of gas, but he did manage a good (not great) swim...18.53.09. Coach expects Bear will be able to go 18 minutes low by the end of the season.

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Brett

400 Meter Medley Relay - Brett earned the breast spot on the relay, and he swam a good 1:27.09.

# 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:34.07L ) - Dropped almost 7 seconds - 2:27.19

# 54 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:29.43L ) - Swam a similar time to the relay split - 1:27.36...another personal best.

# 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:24.42L ) - Added a couple of seconds in this one - 1:26.88

# 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free - Didn't swim this for some reason...

# 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:11.43L ) - dropped 2.4 seconds 1:09.03

# 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:57.27L ) - Another 2.4 second drop - 2:54.95

# 92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Breast (42.38L ) - 40.56 personal best time

# 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L ) - Added about 5 seconds 2:57.00...disappointing following a great meet, but not terribly surprising

Breeze · 06-10-2015, 06:17 AM

2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - RESULTS (Pensacola)

Did find out one interesting bit of information last night. The kids were talking about the meet, and both Bailey and Bear explained that during their backstroke (Bailey's 200 and Bear's 100) they hit the bottom on the start. Apparently, the pool was only 4' 2" deep at the start, and they both hit their backs coming off the blocks. This prevented them from getting a good breakout and thus slowed their times down significantly.

Breeze · 06-11-2015, 06:47 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 3 at Creekstone

Big meet tonight. Creekstone has quite a few very strong year round swimmers. CRC should win due to depth, but it'll be close.

Here are what the kids are swimming

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

#9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:01.16 1/3
#43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/1
#73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/1
#83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:54.06 1/1

------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:12.10 1/4
#44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 32.30 1/1
#54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/1
#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (2) 1:43.39 1/3

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (2) 1:54.76 1/3
#22 Boys 13-14 50 Free 29.16 1/1
#64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/3
#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:58.89 1/1

*Note: Tommy broke his foot yesterday, and will miss this meet. Still waiting on results to determine what else he might miss.

Breeze · 06-12-2015, 06:38 AM

CRC Summer League - Week 3 at Creekstone - RESULTS

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

#9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:01.16 1/3 - Did a fantastic job in the fly leg, staying with a girl that is one of the top 14 year old flyers in the state. Our girls relay went on to win the heat

#43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/1 - - 32.58 - awesome start, ok swim...

#73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/1 - 30.06 - basically the same swim as last week

#83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:54.06 1/1 - Bailey did the leadoff leg, so I got a look at her against two of the top freestylers in the county swimming the our A the Creekstone's A - she was about a half a body length behind, which should be around a 28 flat. That's good, should be better based on her strong fly time, but still good...might be good enough to sneak into the Free Relay for the Forsyth County team at state (need to be top 12 for the swimmers committed to State - typically that means top 15).

------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:12.10 1/4 - Bear actually did the Free leg, and Riley moved to Fly. The team was DQed for a swimmer leaving early so Bear costed. Had they not been DQed they would have won by a full pool length.

#44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 32.30 1/1 - Great start - similar swim 32.69.

#54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/1 - 1:09.39, good swim, coasted to 2nd in the heat, well behind teammate Riley and well ahead of Creekstone's swimmer.

#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (2) 1:43.39 1/3 - The first swimmer in the relay (Seth) went out hard initially, but was already coasting back half. Alex swam hard, and Bear and Riley coasted to the win, about a full lap up on the opponent.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (2) 1:54.76 1/3 - Brett's breast leg looked labored a bit, and given that Brett said he was very sore from practice it isn't all that surprising.

#22 Boys 13-14 50 Free 29.16 1/1 - Brett nearly missed this race, and when I say nearly missed, I'm not exaggerating. In fact, if our team hadn't had a special needs girl in the heat just before Brett he would have missed it. As it was, he only made it when the starter was telling the swimmers to step up to the block, and he had to borrow some girls pink goggles because he didn't have time to get his...he swam poorly posting a 29. Disappointing following his strong swim in the relay last week.

#64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/3 - Another tight labored swim, he also got a little coppy with the stroke in the first 25. Ended up losing to Alex...posted a poor 36 second swim.

#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:58.89 1/1 - Better free in the relay than he swam in the individual, but it didn't matter...the B team was DQed because one of the swimmers left during a rain delay and didn't return, so they had to substitute in a kid that had already swum in the 11/12 relay.

Breeze · 06-12-2015, 07:37 AM

Swim With Dad - @ GaTech - 6/13

We will be swimming just the Saturday of this meet. We are only swimming 1 day because we will miss 1 day of the meet in a couple of weeks in order to swim at the Summer League Forsyth County Championships.

Here is what the kids are swimming...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

# 21 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:39.79L ) - Bailey should improve here...not because she's gotten great at breast, but because she was so bad last year...

# 27 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 50 Free (32.26L ) - Not sure what to expect here. She seems to be getting better with her freestyle, but she also has been swimming poorly.

# 36 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:50.13L ) - With her poor results recently, I don't have high expectations here. Which is a shame because this is one of the strokes she could earn a state cut in (new State Cuts have been released, and they are much harder to achieve...I'll post the updated cuts soon)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

# 28 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 50 Free (30.24L ) - Bear's going to want to go sub30 here. He could do it, he's swimming well and according to the coaches (both Ryan and Andy), he's been killing it at practice.

# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:20.28L ) - He dropped a bunch of time in this last weekend, so I don't expect much here. In fact, his actually time is a 2:18.15.

# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:51.08L ) - I expect Bear will do well here. Given he's been swimming so well, and he hasn't done this event this year, I expect a decent drop in time. Plus this is one of the tough races that is right in his wheelhouse.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

# 22 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:09.35L ) - Brett swam real well last weekend, and his Breast appears to be getting back to his pre-choppy stage, so I expect he'll have a decent improvement here.

# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:34.07L ) - Don't know about improvement here, because like Bear he just dropped last weekend. His PB is actually a 2:27...I don't think he'll improve on that.

# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (6:11.31L ) - I don't know what to expect here. Individually, Brett is improving in fly significantly, breast seems to be getting back to normal. Back is solid, and Free is improving, so it would be reasonable to expect a good drop. Maybe 10 seconds or so, but unlike Bear, who thrives the tougher the race gets, Brett seems to go into conservation mode, and he never really fully pushes himself.

Breeze · 06-15-2015, 11:10 AM

Swim With Dad - RESULTS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

# 21 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:39.79L ) - Dropped this event...

# 27 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 50 Free (32.26L ) - She swam a personal best 31.90...coach told her she was too tight which was forcing her head down and creating drag. He wants her to relax more on her freestyle swims...

G 13 & Over 200 Free (2:33.70L ) - Added in place of the 200 Breast - after dropping about a second last weekend, Bailey managed to drop over 6 seconds this weekend. She finished with a personal best 2:27.07

# 36 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:50.13L ) - Bailey was hoping to get a state cut here...she started out with a strong fly of just a faction over 1:15...but then she really slowed down. Coach says it's fatigue, he's been working them hard and with a meet last weekend, summer swim and this meet, her body just couldn't respond again. Time 5:56.20

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

# 28 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 50 Free (30.24L ) - Bear wasn't able to drop, but pretty much match his time coming in - 30.40

# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:20.28L ) - Couldn't drop here either, though I didn't really expect him to after the huge drop last weekend. 2:21.02

# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:51.08L ) -He looked sluggish and tired swimming this event. In fact, the coach actually laughed during Bear's 100 Free leg at the end. Usually, Bear kicks it into high gear to charge to the wall. There was no high gear left. He did manage to drop a bunch of time, but that was more to do with the time off between swimming this race...5:43.16

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

# 22 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:09.35L ) - Better swim. Still a bit inconsistent. Coach says he needs to pull more with his lats and less with his tricept. Coach also indicated to me that Brett's kick has never been the same since he hurt his knee last year...not sure why...did manage a personal best - barely - 3:08.53

# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:34.07L ) - Didn't expect much here after last weeks good swim of 2:27.19...his stroke stayed long, but speed wasn't there. 2:33.46...

# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (6:11.31L ) - Sluggish swim all the way around - 6:19.28

Breeze · 06-15-2015, 01:22 PM

General Update

The Summer League County Championship Meet is coming up and as usual I'm helping the team with the lineups. In my search for data to set up trends I found a couple of images from 2008, thought I'd post them for fun...

That's Brett in the front row middle, and Bear front row left end.

Brett again on the front row...

Breeze · 06-15-2015, 01:32 PM

General Update

Here's one the Coach Andy put together...

Here's the lineup:

Red shirt in back face not visable - Alex
Blue Shirt with Football - Tommy (who broke his foot the other day, ending what was likely to be a big Summer State Championships)
White Shirt and Frisbee - Brett
Green Shirt - Bear
Grey Nike Shirt - Seth
Gray team shirt - Riley

Breeze · 06-16-2015, 07:05 AM

CRC Summer League vs Grand Cascades (make up meet)

Tuesday night make up and their are some changes this week. Some parents are starting to hound the coach, who is, I'm guessing, a 20 year old college student. They want their kids on the A relay...and they are being a pain to the coach in order to get these changes. It's disappointing, but not surprising. Here my kids line up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bailey

#9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:02.59 1/4
#43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/2
#73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/2 - this could be extremely exciting - 4 girls who all come in with times between 29.2 and 30.1...
#83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:57.33 1/2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 1:54.76 1/4
#32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 58.93 1/2
#54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/4
#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:47.32 1/4

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:07.05 1/2 (this is the B relay - Brett's Personal Best time of 33 is still faster than the person they replaced him with, but the change was made anyway - not typically the way our team handles things)
#44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 36.27 1/2
#64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/4
#86 Boys 15-18 200 Free Relay (3) 1:41.62 1/4

Breeze · 06-17-2015, 11:02 AM

CRC Summer League vs Grand Cascades (make up meet)

So we lost as expected, but only by 100 points this time around - much better than it has been...and had we taken the time to put our swimmers in their best strokes to maximize points we could have been around 80 back...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bailey

#9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:02.59 1/4 - The relay won going away, but Bailey lost a little ground on her stroke, this was concerning heading into a tight 50 fly race.
#43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/2 - hit the bottom of the pool on the start, cruised into a 3rd place finish, which given the competition was probably where she would have ended up anyway - 33.40
#73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/2 - awesome race, 3 of the 4 girls came into the wall at the same time...Bailey won by a fingernail...29.48. Third place as 29.81, and forth was 30.49...
#83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:57.33 1/2 - Bailey led off the B relay, and was first to the wall at the end of the first leg, beating the A leadoff swimmer for our team and Grand Cascades. The lead was just a fraction...but it was a strong swim regardless.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 1:54.76 1/4 - Team won going away...Seth provided a decent lead in back that the team just pressed until they won by 8 seconds.
#32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 58.93 1/2 - Great swim...he chased Riley all the way to a second place finish in the heat, well ahead of GCs first swimmer - 58.29
#54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/4 - fantastic race with a Gold Teammate...they were stroke for stroke through the back. In the breast the GC swimmer (who will be shooting to win Breast in county) opened up a bit of lead. Bear chased him down in free and came up just .2 second behind. - 1:05.61
#84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:47.32 1/4 - Blow out win...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:07.05 1/2 - Brett ended up doing the back...no idea how he swam, I was looking for him to swim 15/18, and didn't expect they'd ever stick him in the back on the B relay. Bear says he did good...they beat GCs B team, so must have done ok.
#44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 36.27 1/2 - Much better swim here...still could have worked a bit harder, and didn't trust his count into the walls but dropped a couple seconds anyway...34.63
#64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/4 - Much better swim here than he's been doing usually...he was leading early, lost some time going into the wall...was neck and neck with Alex and the GC boy mentioned in Bear's IM write up, but lost ground coming into the finish. Ended up third by less than a second from 1st and .2 from Alex. - 34.47
#86 Boys 15-18 200 Free Relay (3) 1:41.62 1/4 - swam 15/18...stroke looked SO MUCH BETTER - but team was way behind before Brett ever hit the water on the second leg. In fact, they were so far behind...he (like the rest of the team) ran from about 20 feet back and dove in when the previous swimmer hit the wall. It's obviously not legal, but as the place judge from GC said to me..."It's not legal, but it is awesome!" - in case you are wondering...the official let it slide.

Breeze · 06-18-2015, 07:32 AM

CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields

This will be our last regular season Summer meet…we are skipping next Thursday because it falls in the middle of the short taper Gold is doing for a year round meet next weekend.

Here is what the kids will be swimming:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

200 Yard Medley A Relay (3) – two of the girls who are normally on the A Relay are out of town so this will be a much tighter race than it usually is. Bailey is still in the Fly leg.
50 Yard Back (31.70)
50 Yard Fly (29.48)
200 Yard Free A Relay (3) – Bailey moves up to the A Free relay with the absences mentioned above

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

200 Yard Medley A Relay (4) – They have him listed in the back, but he’ll do the Free…(don’t know why the team organizers can’t seem to get this lineup correct)
50 Yard Free (27.61)
100 Yard IM (1:05.61)
200 Yard Free A Relay (3)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

200 Yard Medley A Relay (2) – Brett is back in the A relay this week despite losing to Alex in the breast by an eye blink on Tuesday. Not sure why the switch this time or on Tuesday for that matter.
50 Yard Back (34.63) – Again, not sure why they put him in this event…but hopefully he’ll improve again
50 Yard Breast (33.00)
200 Yard Free B Relay (4)

Breeze · 06-18-2015, 09:14 AM

CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields

There has been a slight change to Bailey schedule.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

200 Yard Medley A Relay (3) – two of the girls who are normally on the A Relay are out of town so this will be a much tighter race than it usually is. Bailey is still in the Fly leg.
50 Yard Back (31.70)
50 Yard Fly (29.48)
200 Yard Free A Relay (3) – Bailey moves up to the A Free relay with the absences mentioned above

Note: Bailey will also be swimming the 50 Free tonight as an exhbition. She is swimming this event to get an updated time in hopes of getting into the A Free Relay at County...intially the team was planning to use the 4 fastest times from the 50 event at county for the free relay, but the order of events is different during the county meet and the free relay is moved up and swum ahead of the individual 50 free.

Breeze · 06-19-2015, 02:03 PM

CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields

The meet was rained...no stormed out. The storm rolled in about the same time warm up were to start. It go so bad the kids had to be packed into the basement area of the clubhouse, our starters tent and the electronic starting system attached to it were blown into the pool. The tent over the PA/Sound system was blown out of the pool area and the equipment was ruined. Trees were knocked down, power was knocked out, and generally things were a huge mess...

So that's our summer league, with the excpetion of the County Championships on 6/27...

Breeze · 06-22-2015, 12:11 PM

General Update

So this is the weekend over the summer where we end up swimming in two different meets. On Friday and Sunday we will swim with Gold and on Saturday we will be swimming in the Forsyth County Championships for CRC. I'll be posting the events and information on the races shortly, but wanted to give you a heads up because they are going to overlap and I didn't want to confuse anyone.

Breeze · 06-23-2015, 08:50 AM

2015 Gold International Meet - @ Cumming Aquatic Center 6/26 - 6/ 28

This will be our last year round meet before the State Championships in July...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L ) - First time swimming this in a while...should improve, but won't get the state cut.

# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L ) - She's apparently been swimming 1:15 intervals in practice (even the end of practice). Coach is looking for a nice drop here. Maybe something in the 1:13 range

# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L ) - disappointing swim in this last meet. Should do better this time around.

# 73 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) - another event that with a little more effort she could see a decent drop in.

# 81 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) - hasn't touched her best time from last year yet...

# 85 (d3/s7): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L ) - starting to do a bit better on the distance stuff...but still hasn't embraced it, so not sure what to expect.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L ) - would like to see a drop here, Bear currently sits 5th for Gold in this event, if he can get top 4 he can swim on the A 800 Free Relay...won't be easy though, has to be Seth or Riley...

# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L ) - only swam it once, back in may when he was out of shape. Could see a small drop here...

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L ) - a nice drop in this just a couple weeks ago...I don't expect any improvement this time around.

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:43.67L ) - Had a drop in this in Florida...so not sure what to expect this time around.

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) - Could improve here...best time is from back in May.

# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (10:05.37L ) - Given his recent practice routines, I expect Bear will improve here. Coach has had Bear doing a lot of long sets in preparation for distance events. Hopefully, those sets pay off and don't have him worn out right now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L ) - Been swimming Free so much better, but unfortunately came home with a sore shoulder last night. Hopefully, it won't hinder him this weekend.

# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L ) - could improve if he stays long and snaps the kick and pull each stroke...

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L ) - I would love to say he will improve in this...and he should with a greatly improved fly form, and swimming free better, but I'm just not confident, especially with the bad shoulder.

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:54.95L ) - His back in Summer league showed some promise with an increase in effort. If he can carry that over, he'll drop time here...

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L ) - See 400 IM

# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (11:05.60L ) - Don't know if Brett has embraced this yet...and honestly, right now I'd be surprised if he actually swam it. I expect they will shelve him because of the shoulder. No reason to risk anything as this will be Brett's last year round meet of the season.

Breeze · 06-25-2015, 08:25 AM

CRC Summer League County Championships @ GaTech - 6/27

Just a quick reminder, while time is important here...what we are really looking for is a top 3 finish in order to earn a medal and a spot on the County All-Star team (note: it is possible to make the county team finishing outside of the top 3 if some of the swimmers who finished ahead elect not to swim at the state meet)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bailey

#9 Girls 13/14 200 Medley Relay A Team (fly) - The relay team comes in seeded 2nd, but they beat the top team head-to-head during a Thursday meet. The anchor freestyler for CRC isn't swimming in this meet, so this will be a very close race

#21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 28.47 (12th Seed) - Bailey is only swimming this in an effort to get on one of the free relays for the state meet. To get on one of the relays they must be in the top 12 (of those going to state)...and she's sitting on 12th. However, this is an old time. I'm hoping for a 27 high, which will give her a shot at the top 8 and the B relay team.

#43 Girls 13/14 50 Backstroke - 31.70 (7th Seed) - disappointing seed here. I really wish she was in IM...even with this old time, there is pretty much no shot to get in the top 3, and all the girls seeded in front of her are all going to State in this event.

#73 Girls 13/14 50 Fly - 29.48 (2nd Seed) - This time is not Bailey's PB, so she has a shot to win the event. She'll have to beat her old friend Maddie to do it. (note: there is a faster seed but they are exhibitioning so they can't win the event).

#83 Girls 13/14 200 Free Relay B team (4) - Bailey is scheduled to swim the anchor on the B team...they are seeded 11th...the A team is seeded 3rd. It'll be interesting to see where Bailey ends up in the 50 Free, I won't be surprised if she has 1 of the top 4 times.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

#10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Free) - The boys medley is seeded 1st heading into the County meet.

#22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 27.61 (14 Seed) - Bear is in a good position to make it on a free relay. Not every swimmer in front of him is going, so with a good swim he should make the top 12.

#32 Boys 13/14 100 Freestyle - 58.29 (4th Seed) - Bear is 4th seed, behind Gold and CRC Teammates Riley and Seth, as well as former Gold Teammate and Brett's good friend Hunter. Seth can't swim at state (swimming out of his county of residence), so if Bear can old off a couple of challengers, he could get the 3rd spot for State.

#54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:05.61 (3rd Seed) - Bear is in a tight one here...the top 5 are all separated by less than 1 second. Can he at least hold on to that 3rd spot...or could he charge for the win...going to be fun.

#74 Boys 13/14 50 Fly - (exhibition) 30.90 (6th Seed) - Exhibitioning here, hoping to make a medley for state, but being seeded 6th, makes it unlikely. His PB is actually a 30.00, which would put him 5th...but everyone in front of him is going to State...so not likely.

#84 Boys 13/14 200 Free Relay A team (2) - The team is seeded second, but they beat the top seed in a head to head Thursday race...so should be exciting.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brett

#10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Breast) - same relay as Bear's above...hopefully they can win it all...

#54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:13.13 (6th Seed) - Brett is the first swimmer outside of the top 5 mentioned in Bear's write up. I know he's capable of going under 1:10...but I think he'll settle in and finish around his seed time.

#64 Boys 13/14 50 Breaststroke - 34.47 (3rd Seed) - The amazing thing about this race is the top 3 times, were all from the same race against GC earlier this season. The one where Brett was outtouched by the GC swimmer and Alex. Could be a re-run of that race (though someone could come from back in the pack to win). I've been thinking about this one a bunch...and I believe this will probably be Brett's last chance to ever win an individual medal. Next sesason he moves up to swim with 15-18 year olds...obviously it will take a while before he'll be able to compete with some of the older kids, and by the time he gets there, some of the extremely strong breaststrokers currently 2 years younger will mostly likely beat him when they reach that 15-18 range. I'm really rooting for him to do something special here...

#86 Boys 15/18 200 Freestyle Relay - A Team (1) - Moved Brett and 2 other 13/14s up to swim the 15/18 relay in order to get some points. They are likely to finish last

CRC TEAM OUTLOOK - overall it looks like CRC will probably finish 3rd, though my projections show us only having about a 150 point lead on 4th (way behind 2nd)...so a few DQs might be very costly.

Breeze · 06-30-2015, 09:42 AM

2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 1 PRELIM RESULTS

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Bailey

# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L ) – She only managed to swim a 1:38.58, surprising as her Breast is getting better. It’s apparent to anyone watching that her stroke is much more explosive than it used to be…not sure why it isn’t faster.

# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L ) – As expected she was in the 1:13 range…in fact a 1:13.21.

# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L ) – Swum only at finals…

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Bear

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L ) – stroke looked sluggish and he looked tired. Only managed a 2:20.82

# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L ) – a pretty good swim this time around, but not good enough to get the new harder state cuts. 1:14.32.

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L ) – Swum only at finals…

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Brett

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L ) – disappointing 2:31.90 in prelims…stroke looks better, effort doesn’t.

# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L ) – Moments of good looking strokes, intermixed with poor form and choppy rhythms…1:28.64

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L ) – Swum only at finals…

Breeze · 06-30-2015, 09:54 AM

2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 1 FINALS RESULTS

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Bailey

# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L ) – In finals she did manage a personal best…not as good as I had hoped, but it’s a start 1:36.78

# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L ) – Couldn’t quite get another drop, but swam an almost identical time from the morning – 1:13.23

# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L ) – Continues to struggle with this event…did manage to get a personal best…but she should be stronger than this based on her short course season…5:47.79.

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Bear

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L ) - In finals Bear struggled even more with this race adding another 2 seconds to finish 2:22.47. This didn’t bode well for this meet or the Forsyth County Championships…

# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L ) – another bad swim for Bear…no only didn’t get a personal best, he added over a second from his seed time…1:16.50…again thing s look pretty bleak for his chances at County.

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L ) – Only managed a fractional improvement of .27 seconds. 5:42.89. Bear is looking absolutely worn out…probably related to the distance focused practices he’s doing during the week.

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Brett

# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L ) – Much better swim in the finals, in fact 5 seconds better than prelims and a personal best time of 2:26.94.

# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L ) – Poor swim – 1:30.13. Form still a work in progress and it was better than it’s been for a while, but effort was lacking again, and I believe it was because he was saving his energy for the 400 IM.

# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L ) – Breathed every stroke on the fly leg, which never allowed him to get on top of the water and generate the type of propulsion needed to move fast. This held him back significantly, but he still managed to drop almost 5 seconds – 6:06.58

Breeze · 06-30-2015, 11:06 AM

CRC Summer League County Championships – RESULTS

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Bailey

#9 Girls 13/14 200 Medley Relay A Team (fly) – The race started with the CRC backstroker finishing in dead heat for second about 1.2 seconds behind the leader. MK was the breaststroker and she took over the race, handing Bailey a nice 1.4 second lead. Bailey swam a pedestrian 29.6 to the competitions 28.5…but the anchor still had a .2 second lead and pulled away to win county…(I’ll post a picture shortly)…County Champions

#83 Girls 13/14 200 Free Relay B team (4) – Moved this to indicate the actual order the event was swum…Completely indifferent effort from Bailey here. The team’s slot was pretty much determined before she hit the water. Bailey wasn’t going to chase down the team ahead and no one was going to catch her from behind. The team finished 8th in state. Not bad for a B team.

#21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 28.47 (12th Seed) – Terrible dive puts her behind the 8 ball early…swims hard but only manages a time of 28.36. I knew at the time this wasn’t a good swim and it was going to put her on the cusp of making the free relay. As it turns out she finished in a tie for 12th. Typically, this would be plenty good enough to make the team, but for the second time in 2 years all of the first 11 girls elected to go to state…so Bailey had to have a swim off at the end of the meet. As poor as this swim was for Bailey it was still a full second faster that 1 of the girls on a CRC A Free Relay...

#43 Girls 13/14 50 Backstroke - 31.70 (7th Seed) – Horrendous dive…completely killed any chance she had. Not sure why she can’t clean this up as it is like a broken record. Her underwaters were good or she would have been embarrassingly bad…33.65 – 8th place

#73 Girls 13/14 50 Fly - 29.48 (2nd Seed) – An extremely tight race…Bailey’s dive wasn’t great here either, but she managed to stay in touch with the field. Unfortunately it was such a fast field her time of 29.59 was only good enough for 5th. With two exhibitioning, she at least made the State Team as the C fly representative, but at this point it doesn’t look good for her chances to make a relay…

#21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - Swim Off – After a 5 minute delay Bailey raced a tall girl named Ashley for the right to be on the C Free Relay at State. The race was, as you would expect close...it was also fast...Bailey had a much better dive, and at the turn they were neck and neck. Bailey was a tiny bit behind, and it appeared to be mostly due to arm reach...Bailey was closing and she finished the swim off in a time of 27.79...unfortunately Ashley came home in a 27.64. Had Bailey swum this time initially she would have been 7th overall...

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Bear

#10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Free) – The race started with Seth in back, and he finished his leg in second place about a half second behind the leaders. Brett was next…and he quickly caught the leader and eventually handed Riley a little over a second lead. Riley swam a fantastic fly leg and Bear brought it home in a 25.42…for the county championship. In fact, the team won by 5 full seconds…and missed the county record by .2. County Champions

#84 Boys 13/14 200 Free Relay A team (2) - Moved to put the event in the correct order it was swum – Seth also opened the Free Relay and immediately handed off a lead of a half second. Bear was second to go, and he handed Alex a 2.5 second lead…that lead continued to stretch and the CRC 13/14 Boys won their second county championship…this one by 3.3 seconds. County Champions

#22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 27.61 (14 Seed) – Bear had a very good swim…finishing in 26.04. Unfortunately, that swim was only good enough to get him in 9th place forcing him to swim on the C Free Relay…

#32 Boys 13/14 100 Freestyle - 58.29 (4th Seed) – Another strong swim for Bear…surprising given how poorly he looked the day before at the year round meet. He powered home with a time of 56.90. That was only good enough for 4th place (which is where I expected him to finish), so no medal, but Seth, who beat him, isn’t going to state so Bear slides into the 3 spot on the county team, and he should have a good shot at top 8 at state and a GRPA state medal.

#54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:05.61 (3rd Seed) – Extremely tight field, so tight Bear basically swam his seed time 1:05.89, and only managed to finish 4th…but he was less than a second from 2nd place.

#74 Boys 13/14 50 Fly - (exhibition) 30.90 (6th Seed) – Good, not great swim…30.80, ended up 7th (which probably isn’t going to get him on a medley relay)

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Brett

#10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Breast) – See Bear’s Relay above.

#86 Boys 15/18 200 Freestyle Relay - A Team (1) – Brett swam the anchor, I believe so the one true 15/18 swimmer on the relay could race his friends in the leadoff leg….by the time Brett hit the water is was all over but the crying. I manually timed him and had his split at a 27.78…that was encouraging.

#22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) – 29.16 (14 Seed) – Think I missed this one in my pre-race write ups. It was going to be hard for Brett to make a Free Relay, but my hope was he would swim a 27 high…like he did in the relay, but unfortunately a bad turn did him in. He only managed a 28.23…that wasn’t going to get him on a free relay.

#54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:13.13 (6th Seed) – I told Brett before this race to try and limit his breathing on the fly and he might be surprise how much better he does. Surprisingly, he did…he only breathed 4 times in the fly leg and that set him up for a good 1:11.33 time and a strong 6th place in this event.

#64 Boys 13/14 50 Breaststroke - 34.47 (3rd Seed) – Brett had a very good dive and an early lead…I don’t get to say that often. At the turn the top 3 were all neck and neck…Brett had a good turn, but faded coming home. He ended up in 3rd place with a personal best time of 34.09…about a second behind second place and about 1.2 seconds behind teammate Alex…

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CRC TEAM RESULT – The team finished 3rd in County as expected…but it was closer than it should have been. The team leadership is having serious discussions about how to help address some weaknesses that cropped up this season. For posterity sake, I’ll post my comments to the leadership later.

Breeze · 07-01-2015, 07:54 AM

CRC Summer League County Championships – RESULTS

Following their swims for CRC at the County meet it was obvious all 3 had made the State Team. Bear will be the 3rd representative in the 100 Free, Bailey will be the 3rd representative in the fly, and Brett will be the 3rd representative in the Breast.

All 3 made relays as well.

Brett is on the C Medley
Bailey is on the C Medley
Bear is on the C Free

All 3 relays are pretty strong too. I researched them compared to other relays the county fielded since 2011, and here is how they stack up:

Bear's C Free Relay is the strongest C Relay the county has fielded since 2011. In fact, they are over a full second faster than the next fastest C relay. In the past 4 years the Forsyth Tide C Free Relay has made finals (and thus medal) twice. Given their fast built time and the fact the C relay has medaled in the past, I believe Bear has a decent chance of getting into finals.

Brett's C Medley is extremely fast for a C team. In fact they are faster than the B teams from 2011 and 2012. Obviously they are the fastest C relay the county has fielded in the timeframe of my research. The C team medaled in 2011...(along with the B team, which was slower than this team). Given that, and the fact their built time of 1:59.67 is typically good enough for 6th, I think they have a good shot to make finals as well.

Bailey's C Medley, like Brett's is extremely fast for a C team. They are also faster than several B teams. In fact they are faster than the B team from 2011, 2013 and the Bronze Medal winning B team from 2014. I'd say they not only have a shot at a medal, but might challenge for 3rd.

Individually:

Bear's 100 Free time is typically good enough to make finals.

Brett's 50 Breast time is probably going to be right on the cut for the top 8, just hope he's on the right side of it this time around (he was 9th last year and he was 9th a few years back)

Bailey's time is also going to be right on the cut for finals. However, if she's able to return to her 28 low swims from Short Course State, she should make finals easily. In fact, a 28 low may be good enough to finish top 3, but her 29 middle isn't a shoe in....

Breeze · 07-02-2015, 08:10 AM

2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 2 PRELIM RESULTS

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Bailey

# 73 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) – Bailey continued her stagnant performances. She managed a personal best, but just barely – 2:46.41. This was good enough to get into the B final.

# 81 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) – Added a bunch of time 2:49.01, she was pretty frustrated after this one…she did make the B final again.

# 85 (d3/s7): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L ) – Bailey was hoping to get the cut in this one. Needed to drop about 6 seconds. Instead she added 20+ seconds…10:59.14.

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Bear

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:43.67L ) – After the poor first day at this meet on Friday and the good effort on Saturday, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Bear. He started the meet out adding 3 seconds…2:46.83 – did make finals though

# 78 B 13-14 100 Free (1:04.64) – Bear dropped the 800 free and replaced it with this event because he already has the 800 Free State Cut, but he was 1.25 seconds off this cut. Unfortunately, he continued to struggle adding time – 1:05.22, and at this point it looked like his day was going to be poor. Got into finals…

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) – like the events earlier in the day, Bear added time, finishing with a 2:43.50. – Did make finals

# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (10:05.37L ) – DROPPED

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Brett

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:54.95L ) – like his siblings, Brett added time in the prelims – 2:57.26, but he made finals.

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L ) – Finally a time drop…not a big one, but better than all the adding we’ve been seeing. 2:51.27…(made finals)

# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (11:05.60L ) – I expected a drop here, just because Brett’s Free is more efficient than it has been in a while. But what I failed to remember, was the fact that Andy had been working hard with Brett at the end of short course in 2014, and he was starting to develop an efficient stroke for distance free. So while he’s improved dramatically, it’s more over his recent chopping stroke he developed under Coach Todd. Ultimately, he did end up improving, as he dropped about 5 seconds – 11:00.40

Breeze · 07-02-2015, 02:16 PM

2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 2 FINALS RESULTS

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Bailey

# 73 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) – Better effort in the back at finals…she managed to drop a couple of seconds to a personal best time of 2:44.24

# 81 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) – Did much better than the disappointing 2:49 from prelims, but failed to get a personal best. Finished with a 2:47.11…

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Bear

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:43.67L ) – After his poor swims in the morning I wasn’t expecting much. The backstroke started and Bear quickly fell off the pace. He looked sluggish and tired. However, most of that perception was due to watching him compared to the field. Bear was swimming 13 and Up…and he was in the A final, so he had quite a few 16 and 17 year old swimmers, including those on the Gold National Team in the pool with him. He was actually moving quite quickly as was obvious when he finished in a time of 2:36.75, a drop of 10 seconds from the prelims and 7 seconds from his previous personal best. Bear was eligible to swim this event at Long Course State because of a converted Short Course Time, but it became irrelevant because this was below the require cut mark.

# 78 B 13-14 100 Free (1:04.64) – Bear came into the B Final on the 100 Free as the 3rd seed in a tight heat. Right before his race, his buddy Seth swam in the A final and went a 1:03.33…his mother made a comment about his time being off a little and my response was Bear would take a 1:03.33…the race started and my hope was Bear would win the heat. If he could win the heat he would put himself in a good position to post a solid time. At the turn Bear was neck and neck with the other top seeds in his heat, but he slowly started to pull away. As it turns out he did win the heat, he also swam a 1:03.33 exactly!!! Which by the way is .06 below the state cut, so Bear earned another cut on the day.

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) – After two strong swims, I was looking forward to this one. Bear was the top seed in this event and he didn’t disappoint. His fly leg was strong, followed by a much better back that he used to open a lead. Surprisingly, he not only held his lead in breast he actually widened it on the next closest pursuers. The came home strong in the free and finished in a personal best time of 2:35.54 – Also another state cut…

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Brett - During the break between prelims and finals I talked with Brett and tried to convince him to put forth more effort in his races. I pointed out how his extra effort in the IM at County helped his time and that while he did limit his breathing in the 200 IM during prelims, especially early in the race, that in the last 12 meters he was breathing every stroke again. Plus I told him that he can’t back off in the back stroke. I explained that he was positioned for some nice swims with more effort…and to go out keep your good form, but work hard.

# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:54.95L ) – The talk obviously had an impact, because Brett’s effort in the 200 back finals was significantly better than I’ve seen from him in so long I don’t recall. He was in the B final, but he kept up with the center of the pool and finished with a respectable 2:48.98…a Huge drop from his seed time and his time from prelims. He left the pool and his conversation with Coach Andy with a big smile on his face…nice to see that again.

# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L ) – I guess the strong back carried over because in the IM he again put forth much more effort. He did a better job of not breathing often on the fly leg…then pushed on the Back much better than he had earlier in the day. Closed hard on the field in the breast, and even managed to out duel another swimmer on the free leg. He dropped a ton of time even from his personal best earlier in the day – 2:47.84, and Again he was all smiles after the race - Extremely pumped up. Hopefully, it will carry him through and he’ll have something solid to build from next season.

Breeze · 07-06-2015, 09:47 AM

General Update - Bailey

Shortly after the International Meet and the County Championships, I had to pick the kids up from practice, and I was very disappointed to learn that Bailey was slacking off at dryland. I had heard reports of Bailey cheating at practice (along with basically everyone not named Tommy or Bear), and we talked to her about that, and things seemed to have improved. However, in this case, Bailey and her friend Maryann were more than 5 minutes late to the dryland portion of practice (and to add insult to injury she didn't even have her shoes on when she arrived). Then when they started running, Bailey, who is faster than most of the boys on the team, jogged at practically walking speed so she could hang out with Maryann (who isn't a runner at all).

I was extremely upset by this. Unfortunately, I was also not surprised. Maryann is the Bailey's lone friend still on the Advanced Sectionals team; the rest have been moved up to Seniors, and Maryann is extremely lazy and puts forth as little effort as possible. I knew she would be a bad influence on Bailey, and I warned her about it months ago, but Bailey didn't listen. Instead, she has adopted this attitude of "why does it matter, I'm going to be too small to be a good swimmer anyway"...I told her if that was her attitude that I'd just save my money and I'd pull her out of the sport, and that if she wanted to keep swimming she needed to put forth more effort. We'll see how that goes.

This may also explain why Bailey has seemed to plateau this season, when I was expecting she might make a big move to set herself apart from the large group of girls with similar times...

Breeze · 07-08-2015, 09:42 AM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Update

The first Psych Sheet for the State Meet has been released, and here is what the twins are swimming and how they are currently stacking up:

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Bailey

100 Fly (1:13.21) - 21st
400 IM (5:47.79) - 21st
200 Fly (2:43.08) - 13th
200 Back (2:42.79) - T35th

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Bear

1500 Free (18:53.09) - 4th
400 IM (5:38.79) - 21st
200 Fly (2:38.49) - 14th
100 Free (1:03.33) - 31st
200 Back (2:36.75) - 17th
200 IM (2:35.54) - 19th
400 Free (4:43.76) - 6th

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Breeze · 07-10-2015, 06:17 AM

CRC Summer League

Meant to post this picture earlier...but forgot I had it...

13/14 Medley Relay County Champs

Pictured: MK (breast), Bailey (fly), Rayley (free), Caroline (back)

Breeze · 07-14-2015, 05:55 AM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Update

The State Dinner was last night and it was announced that Bear will swim the following relays:

13/14 Boys 200 Free B Relay
13/14 Boys 400 Free B Relay
14U Boys 800 Free B Relay

Bailey failed to make a relay team, and she was pretty upset about it. Could still make it on one, if she beats some teammates in the fly races during state (assuming the fly event is before the relay).

Breeze · 07-16-2015, 05:45 AM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Update

1500 Free (18:53.09) - 5th - Bear's 1500 Meter race is today. He comes in seeded 5th, after finishing 4th the last two years. He's hoping to earn a medal this time around, but the Long Course Season is tough for the twins, as they are really young for the age group. I don't know what Bear's target time is because we haven't really discussed it, but from a few comments he's made, I believe he wants to go uner 18 minutes. I dont' think he'll be able to do that, but I do expect a decent drop in time this afternoon.

Breeze · 07-20-2015, 10:29 AM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Day 1 RESULTS

1500 Free (18:53.09) - 5th - Bear's 1500 was a disappointment. His new coach (Ryan), had been working on his distance swims getting him ready for state, and he felt Bear should be able to hold 1:13s...unfortunately, he never hit that pacing. In fact, he looked sluggish and tired almost immediately. He did manage to drop over 10 seconds which typically would be considered good, but he was passed in the standings by several swimmers and ended up 7th. His final time - 18:42.57...

Bear was also disappointed after this swim. We aren't sure what happened, but I suspect it may have something to do with his extended warm up period and nerves. To explain further, Bear's coach thinks that Bear needs extended warm ups to really get loose (Coach Andy also held this belief so this isn't something new)...but this time, his extended warm up was about 1200 yards over and above the typical distance. I'm not sure that isn't too much, but I think Bear had so much nervous energy he felt tight and that the extra laps were needed. Also the pool deck, which is normally warm, was cold, and Bear didn't take his Parka to keep his muscles warm. So he did all that extra warm up only to get chilled before hitting the water.

Breeze · 07-21-2015, 06:27 AM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Day 2 RESULTS

Bailey

100 Fly (1:13.21) – 22nd – was hoping to go under 1:11, which was an ambitious goal given her best coming in was a 1:13. She also had a second goal, to beat the 2 Gold girls that had faster seed times than her in order to get on the B Medley Relays. She didn’t get the first goal as she posted a 1:11.69, but that is still a drop of over 1.5 seconds, so a great swim. She did accomplish the second goal, as her time earned her the spot on the relays and she ended up 13th. To illustrate how fast the 13 year old girls are...Bailey's time, which was 13th for 13 year old girls, would have also been 13th for 14 year old girls. Also the top 4 times in the finals, were all 13 year old girls.

400 IM (5:47.79) - 21st – Opened with a good 1:14 low fly leg, but followed it up with a pretty pedestrian 1:28.19 back…improved over the last time she swam it, but still not where it needs to be. Her breaststroke improved by 2 seconds (and she actually passed someone on this leg – I don’t know the last time I’ve seen that happen) from the last time she swam it, but fatigue really hit her and her free was off by over a second coming home. All in all she dropped 3.51 seconds posting a personal best 5:44.28 and finishing 21st.

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Bear

200 Free Relay (1:58.25) – 13th – Bear split a 29.25 / 50 free and the team dropped 4.42 seconds from the seed time (1:53.83), but they failed to move up in the standings, finishing 13th.

400 IM (5:38.79) – 22nd – opened with a 1:15.14 fly, pretty good as his sprint fly isn’t nearly as quick as Bailey’s so being off a bit there isn’t terrible. He followed that up with a solid if unspectacular 1:27.00 back. Then he completely blew me away…he swam a very strong 1:36.12 breast leg. This is a huge improvement over his typical times in the 1:42 range. Then he closed with a 1:10.36 freestyle, also 4 seconds faster than he swam it just a few weeks ago at the Gold Invitational Meet. Obviously, you can tell from the write up this was a huge time improvement. It ended up being a drop of over 10 seconds at 5:28.62. It also moved him up to 16th place.

Breeze · 07-21-2015, 02:50 PM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships - Day 3 RESULTS

Bailey

200 Fly (2:43.08) - 13th - Bailey was hoping to get into the top 10 here with a big improvement...she got the big improvement, but didn't get top 10. In fact she ended up 12th. Her time 2:39.32 a drop of over 3 seconds. The interesting thing here is...if Bailey had swum against 14 year olds instead of 13 year olds, she would have been 8th and in finals.

200 Medley Relay (2:16.41) - 8th - Bailey was moved into this event following her strong swim in the 100 fly the day before. She left at almost the same time as the Gold A flyer, and kept up with her most of the way, ended up falling behind by about 1 body length. The team improved on seed time but still finished 8th. 2:15.36

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Bear

200 Fly (2:38.49) - 14th - Bear came in seeded 14th, and this was a throwback race for him, as he trailed for the first 100, but in the back half, he started chasing down the swimmers around him, and he ended up passing his entire half of the pool in his heat, dropping over 4 seconds in the process and finishing with a personal best 2:34.45. Good enough for 10th and a spot in the evening finals.

100 Free (1:03.33) - 31st - Swam basically his seed time, adding just a whisker of time 1:03.93, he ended up 31st.

800 Free Relay (~9:05.00) - 11th - Seth, Riley, Bear, and Jon swam this relay together. Bear managed a 2:16 low split and the team dropped quite a few seconds off of their seed time finishing in 8:59.17 and in 8th place...

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Bear - Finals

200 Fly (2:34.45) - 10th - there was pretty much no shot of catching 9th place, as the swimmers seed time was a good 4 seconds faster than Bear. Bear also couldn't improve on his time, but he swam a very similar one...2:35.00

400 Free Relay - (~4:12.20) - 11th - Bear, Seth, Mason, and Jordan combined in this relay. Bear managed to go 1:02.70 in his split and he swam down the leaders during his leg (2nd) and even passed one of the team ahead of him. The team finished with a 4:10.83 and in 9th place.

Breeze · 07-22-2015, 12:23 PM

2015 Georgia Long Course State Championships – Day 4 RESULTS
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Bailey

200 Back (2:42.79) - T35th – A slow and deliberate effort on Bailey’s part here. I was a little disappointed she didn’t push harder. Ended with only a slight increase in time 2:43.24, and she moved up to finish in 29th place

400 Medley B Relay – (4:55.76) – 9th – Bailey got the fly leg in the 400 Medley Relay. She swam an ok 1:13 split, but it didn’t matter, the Freestyle anchor left early and they were DQed. That same swimmer left early on the 400 Free A Relay and caused that team to be DQed as well…

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Bear

200 Back (2:36.75) - 17th – Bear’s 200 back was extremely slow and deliberate…in fact, he completely loss connection to the field and was way behind early. It was a painful thing to watch as he added almost 12 seconds to finish at 2:46.05 and he dropped to 31st place.

200 IM (2:35.54) - 19th – The IM was even worse than the back…Bear’s opening fly leg looked stiff and forced and he never seemed to get going. He appeared worn out as he was swimming. Here he added 12.56 seconds finishing 31st again and posting a time of 2:48.10.

After this race the coach came up to ask us what was up with Bear and what we should do to try and get him turned around. I again believe that the cumulative effect of the extra warm up, plus his already standard extra long warm downs just took a toll. Bear admitted when I talked with him that he was a bit sore…so we gave him a Tylenol and told him to stretch.

400 Free (4:43.76) - 6th – Was really hoping Bear would have a good swim here so he could end on a good note. He opened this race and he looked much better than he had earlier in the day. He opened with an ok 1:08.8 split and followed it up with a 1:13…but came back strong with a 1:11.8 and a 1:09.5 to finish with a personal best 4:43.05. He ended up 11th overall.

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Breeze · 07-23-2015, 07:02 AM

Summer League - GRPA State Championships @ Cumming Aquatic Center - 7/25

The GRPA State is this Saturday, and all 3 kids qualified. This will be the last swim of the season for the twins, but Brett has one last long course meet on Sunday in Atlanta.

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Bailey

14U 200 Yard Medley Relay - FCT C Team- Fly Leg (2:06.53) - 8th seed - - Bailey's relay is actually really strong for a C team. In fact, it is so strong it is faster than the B team from last year which finished 3rd at this meet. For some reason the field in this years meet is much stronger than last year, so she won't be finishing 3rd, but being seeded 8th, puts her relay in the last spot for finals, and I expect they will improve on their seed time.

14U 50 Yard Fly - (29.59) - 12th - Her seed time here is the time she swam at County, and not her personal best. She'll need to get top 8 to make finals, which is possible, but she'll need to get down into the mid 28 second range, which is close to her PB. It could be very close.

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Bear

14U 100 Yard Freestyle - (56.90) - 6th - seed time here is close to his personal best, and based on the 6th seed and the fact that the 8th seed is a couple of seconds back, finals looks like a pretty good possibility for Bear.

14U 200 Yard Free Relay - FCT C Team (1:47.73) - 7th - Again another strong C team from the county. This is the fastest C team that the county has fielded since 2011 (research doesn't go back any further). Seeded 7th indicates they have a good chance at making finals (if they don't get DQed. Poor Bear has a bad history of relay DQs at this meet).

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Brett

14U 200 Yard Medley Relay FCT C Team- Breast Leg - (2:03.03) - 9th - Brett's relay is also pretty strong for a C team. In fact it is faster than a couple of B teams from recent years, but they are seeded 9th, which means this will be a nip/tuck affair. Holding my breath they get in the top 8 so he can get another state medal.

14U 50 Yard Breaststroke - (34.09) - 15th - - Last year Brett's time was about 2.6 seconds slower in this very same event, and he came in seeded 11th, and finished in 9th, first alternate for finals and an individual medal. This year, swimming much faster he comes in 15th...could he make finals, Yes...but he'll need to go low 33s to even have a shot. Certainly capable, but not likely.

Breeze · 07-24-2015, 08:45 AM

Georgia LC Invite @ GaTech - 7/26

This is prelim / finals event and Brett is the only one of my 3 swimming it. He'll only swim Sunday because he'll swim the GRPA State Meet on Saturday.

Brett

200 Breast - (3:08:53) - 5th - I'm very hopeful Brett will get a big improvement here. He's really struggled with his Breaststroke for over a year now...

100 Back - (1:24.42) - 6th - dropped abunch of time in the 200 back last month, hopefully can do the same in the 100 on Sunday

400 Free - (5:28.07) - N/A - has had a decent drop through the season in teh 200...his seed time is over a year old. Hoping we can get another PB and end the season on a good note.

05-08-2015, 08:36 AM	#602
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	*Gran Prix Series Update* The results have been announced for the Gran Prix Series. As you've probably realized, if you've been following along, I'm a serious stat junkie, and because of that I did a good bit of research to try and determine where the twins were going to end up. As I expected Bear finished 2nd overall behind just Nate, which was an excellent result for him. He even managed to beat one of the two boys that turned 13 right after the start of the series (they swam as 12 year old due to being 12 at the start of the series. The second boy referenced, failed to swim all 12 events and was disqualified from the final standings) From my calculations, I thought Bailey was going to finish 3rd, but as it turns out she won for the 11/12 girls. I was pleasantly shocked but confused by this result. I was convinced there were at least 2 girls that had beaten her (both, like mentioned in Bear's piece above were actually 13 for most of the series). Here is what I believe happened...the way the scoring worked was - each kid received points based on where they finished in the event. So 1 point for first, 2 points for second, etc., and the lowest point total when all 12 events are added wins. When the totals over the 4 events were calculated, I believe the coaches threw out any results from swimmers that failed to complete all 12 events, and thus were ineligible to win. This way those kids didn't skew results for swimmers that were eligible. This would also explain how Bailey ended up winning. She finished 3rd and even 4th in a couple of events, but she was beaten by girls that would fall into the group that was ineligible. So you might be wondering what the kids win... Bear gets - Movie Tickets Bailey gets - Dinner with the coaches (she's so thrilled - she would have rather finished 4th and gotten a new swim bag...) Last edited by Breeze : 05-11-2015 at 03:01 PM.

05-14-2015, 10:37 AM	#604
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League - CRC Time Trials The Summer League kicks off on Friday (5/15) with the team's time trials. It will be a very interesting meet for a number of reasons: - Bailey and Bear are on the young end of the age group this time around so they will both be battling to get onto the A relays - Tommy has joined the boys 13/14 team, which will make it that much more difficult for Brett and/or Bear to get on the A relay Just some quick notes on the team. - There are 8 year round girls in Bailey's age group, which will probably make them the deepest team in all of Summer League. So deep in fact, that all 8 could end up on the State Team - There are 6 year round Boys (counting my two) in the 13/14 boys...my guess is two will move up to swim with the 15/18 age group in relays because that team is very light in numbers and talent. I'm not sure how this is going to play out, but if I had to guess I'd say when county rolls around: - Bailey will be on the B Free relay as the 5th fastest girl out of the 8 - Bailey will be on a A Medley in the Fly leg - Bear will be on the A Free Relay, but Brett won't (and I expect he swims 15/18) - Brett will be on the A Medley in Breast, and Bear won't (and I expect him to be the flyer on the 15/18 Medley) Last edited by Breeze : 05-14-2015 at 10:37 AM.

05-18-2015, 09:56 AM	#605
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League - CRC Time Trials - RESULTS Note: no blocks were used, thus resulting in slower overall times Bailey 50 Free - This was going to be a really tight race, with 6 girls all having similar times swimming at once. The start of the race was as expected, and Bailey was in a tight battle for the 4th spot, but coming out of the turn she fell off the pace and cruised into the finish over a second back. She finished 6th with a time of 30.37, well off her personal best time (even without blocks). I asked her what happened, and she informed me, she hit the bottom coming out of her turn (not surprising as she goes deep off walls in year round meets, due to her strong underwater work), and once that happened, she lost so much ground to the field, she backed off and just finished the race. *50 Back* - Awesome start for Bailey (even without the blocks to get good leverage on the start). She was out fast, but before she could get to the wall, a couple of girls caught her. She finished 4th and actually added time from last year...33.23 *50 Breast* - Bailey managed to get 5th, even though she came in with the 8th fastest time. It wasn't a great swim at 41.29, but it was pretty good for her. *50 Fly* - Honestly, I do believe that Bailey may have held back a bit in the 3 earlier races, knowing she was going to have a showdown in this one with Caroline and Kate. And it lived up to the hype. Bailey, Caroline, and Kate were neck and neck the whole way. In fact, Bailey was probably 3rd at the turn, but she came home strong and won the event with a 30.44. Caroline finished 30.55, and Kate was a 30.68. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *50 Free* - Brett's strokes were much longer and they definately looked better, but he only managed to get 6th - 29.16 *50 Back* - decent race -36.27, still 6th...but better than he's been swimming recently. *50 Breast* - The big one for Brett...and I was super proud because he stayed longer with his strokes despite the fact he was chasing early. He finished 3rd overall (behind Tommy and Riley), but he was within about 1.5 seconds - 35.85 - but it isn't a personal best time. *50 Fly* - His fly continues to look better, only managed 6th - 37.39, which is a slight improvement for him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bear *50 Free* - An ok swim for Bear, managed a 27.61, which put him 4th in the event (and that was as good as he was going to be able to do even if he had cranked out a PB swim). *50 Back* - 32.42 time is slightly off his time for last year...finished 4th. A Bit disappointing that he wasn't able to beat Tommy in this one, as back is Tommy's weak stroke. *50 Breast* - 39.71 - a good swim for Bear, but not nearly as good as his recent year round swims in Breast. Finished 6th, as expected. *50 Fly* - Suprisingly, Bear only managed a 5th place finish in this stroke. I though he might be able to pull 3rd, but Seth (who's fly has improve a bunch, and Alex, who has finally started to put the year round swimming thing together) both beat him by about a second. Bear posted a 30.90. Last edited by Breeze : 05-27-2015 at 06:29 AM.

06-01-2015, 09:38 AM	#611
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen So a match up with one of our 2 biggest rivals is this Thursday. The last 3 times we have had a Thursday meet the winner has pulled out the victory by only a few points. Here is what the kids are currently scheduled to swim: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey # 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly # 63 Girls 13-14 50 Breast 1/5 41.29Y - No idea why they have her swimming this event!!! # 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y # 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B Back # 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/1 1:03.00Y # 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/5 1:14.12Y # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Breast # 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/1 1:15.91Y # 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/3 33.00Y # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The team put together a strange line up for this week (like Bailey in Breast). For instance, with the boys, there are 6 year round swimmers, and 6 events. Each kid can swim 2 events for points...pretty easy math here...2 year round swimmers in each event. Only that isn't what they have. They have only Brett doing Breast and only Seth doing back. I'd suggest changes in the lineup but I don't think it's worth the hassle at this point in the season. However, these entries are subject to change... Last edited by Breeze : 06-01-2015 at 09:46 AM.

06-01-2015, 02:15 PM	#612
FrogMan Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada	Matthew had a meet this past weekend and it made me think of you and your kids. I wanted to post about it all weekend but just had no time for myself. I'll be back later on this evening with some more for you. Also gotta read that whole drama thing, that looked pretty intense! FM __________________ A Black Belt is a White Belt who refused to give up... follow my story: The real life story of a running frog...

05-21-2015, 10:43 AM	#606
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update A couple of things to update that involve (at least tangentially) my kids…one is a Gold Team correction in the newsletter, the other is strange teen drama… Let’s start with the update: Gold puts out a newsletter (generally) twice a month, and in the March issue the team highlighted the swimmers that were top finishers at the Age Group State Meet, and in April they did the same thing for the Sectionals Meet. The only problem was, Bear was overlooked in both write-ups, despite the fact that he had several top 3 finishes. We were a little irritated and emailed the team to let them know of the oversight. We were interested in getting anyone into any trouble, and we really didn’t want them to do anything about it (because Bear doesn’t even read the newsletter, so he didn’t care), we just wanted to make sure the team was aware that Bear swam for Gold so he wasn’t overlooked in the future. Well the May newsletter came out yesterday, and they have a small correction section highlighting Bear’s accomplishments as well as a picture of him on the podium with his medal. Kinda cool. If you’re interested, you can see it here… Gold Swim Team » News (just look for the May 1st Newsletter) Now the second update is strange, and I don’t think it will be easy to convey how strange (regardless of how much I write). I’ve kept you pretty informed with my kids, while also trying to provide a taste of what was happening within their group of friends in order to provide you some perspective of other things going on in their lives. This will probably get confusing because it involves a few of the friends, and I doubt I’ve provided enough context up until now for all of this to register with the impact it has had on us. But anyway – here goes… I believe I’ve mentioned a few times that Bailey and Seth have dated (such as it is). They’ve been on again/off again numerous times and most recently, they’ve started to show interest in each other again (personally I really wish they’d give it a rest for a while, but doesn’t look like I’ll get my wish). Another of the boys in the group is Riley. You don’t hear a lot about him because he is a bit odd. He’s a good looking, big kid. In fact, he’s pretty close to my size right now. However, despite the fact that he’s big and mature physically for his age, he really struggles to fit in, to the point that he felt bullied in public school for 6th grade and is now home schooled. Also, the boys get together pretty much every weekend to do something, but Riley is almost never involved. He typically is the first to leave the pool, and he isn’t comfortable in crowds (apparently, even crowds that are his friends). This withdrawal has, in my opinion, gotten much worse recently, but it was always just anti-social in nature – until now. Last night at practice, Riley texted Seth asking him to meet him upstairs at the pool. Seth asked Tommy and Bear if they got the same message, but they didn’t. So Seth, Tommy, and Bear went upstairs to meet with Riley. When they got there, Riley said he only wanted to talk with Seth, so they went into the bathroom. When they came out Seth told the other boys that Riley had choked (like a sleeper hold choke) and threatened him, saying the he was “not to touch Bailey”, and apparently he threatened to tell the coaches that he was sexually harassing Bailey if he didn’t listen. Seth was fine, but he was shocked on 2 levels – First, his comment was “Why would you think I was harassing Bailey” and second, “Why’d you grab me, you know you could have just texted me!” This is extremely strange to me. While I’ve had suspicions that Riley liked Bailey for a while (and Bear confirmed that he thinks Riley has liked Bailey for about 3 years), he has never once said or done anything to actually confirm those suspicions. In fact, the opposite is true, he’s flirted pretty heavily with several of the other girls on the team, and even indicated he’d ask one of them out (though he never did to my knowledge). I’m really not sure where this is coming from – my best guess is jealousy, but Seth and Bailey have gone out at least 2 times before – so why now? Was he really trying to protect Bailey – and if so why – it’s not like they are close friends or even spend any time together – where did the fraternal instinct come from? My biggest hope is that this incident isn’t a symptom of a much larger issue. I like Riley, and I’ve said for a while that I felt he needed therapy to help address his social anxiety issues. Maybe this action will be the thing that gets that ball rolling, and it ends up being nothing more than teen angst for a boy that has troubles with interactions. At this point the fallout of his actions are to be determined. It is very possible he could be suspended for a period of time. I’ll update that when I know more.

05-22-2015, 10:24 AM	#607
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update So the teen drama I reported on earlier was so much more involved than I initially realized. I’m not going to get into too much detail on this because I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but essentially here is what happened. Apparently, the Seth / Bailey relationship was a bit more volatile than I realized. They like each other, but Bailey was uncomfortable with Seth’s constant touching, and wanted him to stop. She had told him so, but probably not definitively enough. She was afraid to tell her mom and me about it because we are such good friends with Seth’s mother. She also didn’t want to tell her brothers because they are tight with Seth. Instead she turned to Riley, who as I mentioned is part of the group, but not so close that Bailey would see him as being too friendly with Seth to do anything. She explained (and exaggerated a bit) what was happening and that she wanted it to stop. So Riley actually was doing the right thing, he just chose to do it in the wrong way. I’m not sure why he felt that level of intervention was necessary, but I have to admit, as the father here, there is a considerable amount of comfort knowing that Bailey not only has 2 brothers that will stick up for her, but friends willing to put their neck out as well. Ultimately, there was a lot of discussion with Seth, Riley, and Bailey about how to handle these things, what they did wrong, and that it is important to move forward. At this point I don’t believe there will be any suspensions.

05-27-2015, 09:19 AM	#608
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 1 vs Grand Cascades So we start the season against the evil empire...Fun Here are what the kids will be swimming: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bailey # 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A (Fly) # 53 Girls 13-14 100 IM 1/2 1:10.65Y # 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/2 30.24Y # 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B (1) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B (Back) # 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/2 1:03.00Y # 44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 1/2 32.30Y # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A (2) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A (Breast) # 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/2 X 1:15.91Y # 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/4 33.00Y # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B (1) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course the weather is calling for rain...so we may not get any of this meet in...

05-29-2015, 08:34 AM	#609
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 1 vs Grand Cascades RAINED OUT!!! Scheduled to be made up Tuesday, June 16th...

06-01-2015, 08:28 AM	#610
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Got a Summer Meet on Thursday and an out of town year round meet this weekend. I'll be adding the write ups for both shortly...

06-01-2015, 08:39 PM	#613
FrogMan Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada	Good to see that the whole drama seems to have been resolved, or at least, it seems to have some sort of positive ending. So yeah, Matthew had his first long course meet over the weekend. We don't have short and long course seasons and long course meets are few and far between. There's also the fact that Matthew is so new at competing at the age group level that he just never had an opportunity to do a long course meet. Anyway, meet schedule was Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning. Some of the events on Friday from finals by time but some were preliminaries with finals to be swum on saturday evening. Same for Saturday morning and then Sunday morning all events were finals by time. Matthew had two events on Friday (200 IM, 100 breast), two more on Saturday morning (100 fly, 100 free), all four being preliminaries that could lead to finals on Saturday evening, and then two more on Sunday morning (50 fly and 50 free). He was also told he would swim one of the laps for the 4x50 medley relay but he didn't know which at the time. That turned out to be the fly lap, in the 11-12 age group relay team. Before that meet, he had done a grand total of three long course races so far. He ended up having a great meet, making all four possible finals on Saturday evening, improving two of the three times he had already set while setting his base times for future long course meet (entered with "no time") and finally winning a bronze medal for the 50 fly which was a timed final. All of this while competing with kids born in 2003 and even 2002 while he was born in 2004. Basically, he was often the only or one of the few 11 year old in most finals he swam in the 11-12 age group. The head coach of our club took care of coaching him for most of the evening on Saturday and it was kinda cool to see them interact together in a way we had never really seen before. I mean, it's not like the head coach was avoiding him, but Matthew usually is coached by the coach of the 11-13 team but she was out of town this weekend. Even then, on Friday evening and Saturday morning, he was coached by another assistant. Following the finals night, we went to eat dinner at Subway and while we were waiting in line, Matthew looked kinda proud to tell me that the head coach had told him he was considered a good prospect because he was one of only two 11 year to make the final at the 200 IM. Kiddo is making us proud, and working hard too. He was also spent after that evening. Since we don't have many long course meet, there were some funny moments. Matthew had done his three LC times about a month ago, and he had some especially good times for his 50 and 100 fly. On the other hand, some 13, 14 and 15 year swimmers of our club had not done any 50 or 100 fly in LC in a long while, probably since they were maybe 11 for some of the 13 year old. This meant that for his preliminary heat in the 50 fly, he was swimming next to a 13 yo kid from our club that he almost idolizes for how good he is with his fly because they had about the same entry time. No need to tell you that Matthew got smoked. I wasn't there to see it but my wife told me it was pretty cool to see the older kid fist bump Matthew just prior the both of them got on the blocks. FM __________________ A Black Belt is a White Belt who refused to give up... follow my story: The real life story of a running frog... Last edited by FrogMan : 06-01-2015 at 08:40 PM.

06-02-2015, 09:38 AM	#614
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	FrogMan Great update...looks like Matthew is doing extremely well! Moments like the fist bump you mentioned are one of the great things about swimming. For the most part the kids understand the dedication it takes to be a swimmer and they really support each other. It makes for some pretty cool moments... In fact, Bear had one during the Summer League Time Trials. In the fly race, Alex (who is about 6') was racing next to Bear, and Alex, as I think I mentioned, has improved dramatically in the last few months. In the sprint he was able to out-touch Bear. His first reaction was an "I beat you" exultation...to which Bear responded with a double high five.

06-03-2015, 08:55 AM	#615
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - 6/6-7 - @ UWF Aquatic Center (Pensacola) Here are the events the kids will be swimming at the year round meet this weekend: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey # 49 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Free (2:34.64L ) # 57 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Fly (2:43.08L ) # 61 (d2/s3): G 13-14 100 Back (1:19.50L ) # 65B (d2/s3): G 13-14 400 Free (5:13.89L ) # 83 (d3/s5): G 13-14 100 Free (1:10.37L ) # 87 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) # 95 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) # 99C (d3/s5): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear # 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:20.28L ) # 58 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Fly (2:39.00L ) # 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:19.49L ) # 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (4:54.66L ) # 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:10.52L ) # 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:46.43L ) # 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) # 100C (d3/s5): B 13-14 1500 Free (19:25.98L ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett # 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:34.07L ) # 54 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:29.43L ) # 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:24.42L ) # 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (5:28.07L ) # 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:11.43L ) # 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:57.27L ) # 92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Breast (42.38L ) # 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L )

06-04-2015, 07:39 AM	#616
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen Meet Update - Bailey's events have changed...update below. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey # 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly *# 43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 1/5 31.70* # 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y # 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The coach came to her senses (with a little prodding from me)...and she moved Bailey from Breast to Back... Last edited by Breeze : 06-04-2015 at 07:39 AM.

06-08-2015, 10:39 AM	#617
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 2 at Aberdeen - RESULTS As is usual with Aberdeen, this ended up being an extremely fun meet… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey # 9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Fly – The girls dominated the relay winning going away. Bailey looked a little sluggish, but still opened a lead on her leg. # 43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 1/5 – team switched her to back and she came in 4th. Start was excellent, effort seemed lacking. Time was a pedestrian 32.22. # 73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 1/5 30.24Y – Again Bailey’s start was awesome, but she seemed sluggish after that. She ended up getting out touched by her teammate Kate…she swam a 30.01… # 83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 – Extremely strong anchor leg allowed her to pass the Aberdeen B team, which had a good 10 yard lead on her before she hit the water. Note: some of the sluggishness I believe was due to the fact she had just finished practice only a couple of hours prior to this meet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear* # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay B Back – Swam with the B relay, and in the back (opening leg of the relay, he kept it close to both A teams)…didn’t matter though, as his relay faded back quickly in the Breast leg. # 32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 1/1 1:03.00Y – Bear managed to go Sub60…but he finished 3rd behind teammates Riley and Seth. It was actually silly that all 3 were in that event, as only 2 can score. The 3 teammates swept the finish and were the only ones to go sub60. # 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/5 1:14.12Y – Again Bear had to compete with Riley and this time with Brett. Bear managed to finish 3rd with a 1:08.84. It was a good swim, but he lacked some effort for a sprint IM. # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay A 2 – Bear’s relay dominated once again. Tommy led off an opened up a big lead, Bear stretched it with the second leg, and Seth opened up a full lap lead. The anchor was supposed to be Riley but Alex was swapped in last second (more on that with Brett’s write up), and the team swim won going away. Note: Bear also had practice just a couple of hours prior to the start of the meet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett* # 10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay A Breast – Brett’s breast leg looked very strong and he took a slight lead and really opened it up…that lead was just stretched on the following legs. # 54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1/1 1:15.91Y – Brett finished 4th, but he looked much stronger and he dropped a couple of seconds. # 64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 1/3 33.00Y – The strong breast from the relay was replicated in the individual event, and Brett won this one going away. His time was a 34 mid. # 84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay B 1 – So after watching the team waste Bear and Alex on the B medley relay for 13/14s, I suggested moving Brett and Alex up to swim with the two 15/18 boys in the Free, and the team made the adjustment. Brett led off, as the two strong year round 15/18 boys wanted to chase down the other team…Brett swam a very respectable leg, staying within a body length of both Aberdeen teams. In fact, I figure he swam around a 27 flat. Alex was scheduled to go second, but as I mentioned in Bear’s write up, the team swapped Alex and Riley when they saw the lead that the 13/14s already had…so Riley went second here, and he was able to close the gap after Brett’s leg and actually hand off a small lead to the 3rd swimmer. From there the 3rd and 4th swimmers just opened the lead and the 15/18 relay won. *Note: Brett’s Thursday practice is an early morning one… ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall the team did ok…the final score was: Aberdeen – 405 CRC – 395 So for the 4th year in a row the meet between our two teams was decided by 20 points or less. Had the team put together a more sound lineup, we would have more than made up the 10 points we lost by in this meet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

06-09-2015, 01:25 PM	#618
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - RESULTS (Pensacola) The wife and I didn't not attend this meet (with the exception of Bear's 1500, which I counted for)...so all I have are times and thoughts...no observations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey 400 Meter Medley Relay - A Team - Bailey jump in the Fly leg of this event...wasn't happy with her time (~1:15)...the team finished 4th # 49 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Free (2:34.64L ) - dropped almost a second to a 2:33.70 # 57 (d2/s3): G 13-14 200 Fly (2:43.08L ) - Finished, but it was ugly. Coach's wife told us she hung on every wall...2:45.53 # 61 (d2/s3): G 13-14 100 Back (1:19.50L ) - Added half a second to 1:20.03 # 65B (d2/s3): G 13-14 400 Free (5:13.89L ) - Added almost 9 full seconds...terrible swim 5:22.85 # 83 (d3/s5): G 13-14 100 Free (1:10.37L ) - dropped a fraction of a second 1:10.32 # 87 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L ) - another extremely poor event adding almost 6.5 seconds - 2:53.00 # 95 (d3/s5): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L ) - continuing the poor performance adding 4.5 - 2:50.23 # 99C (d3/s5): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L ) - closed out the meet with an embarassing swim - adding almost 13 seconds...10.49.28 Bailey swam so poorly she got a talking to from the head coach (Andy)...not sure what all was said, but he wasn't happy. I believe Bailey is allowing her friends to influence her practice routine, mental state, and confidence in a negative way. Bailey is in a position she should be pulling away from a host of teammates, but instead she's backing up. She's going to be in for a rude awakening when State rolls around. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear 400 Meter Medley Relay - B Team - Bear got the Fly leg on the relay team. Swam a 1:15... # 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:20.28L ) - dropped just over 2 seconds for a 2:18.15 (wondering if this might be good enough to get on the 13/14 - 800 meter free relay) # 58 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Fly (2:39.00L ) - managed a half second drop 2:38.49 # 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:19.49L ) - added 4.7 seconds...1:24.17 # 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free (4:54.66L ) - Dropped almost 11 seconds for a 4:43.66 # 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:10.52L ) - Dropped nearly 6 seconds...1:04.64 # 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:46.43L ) - Dropped 2.7 seconds, which was conforting after the poor 100 back the day before. 2:43.67 # 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L ) - This one wasn't good...coach said he looked tired through the whole race - 2:48.44... # 100C (d3/s5): B 13-14 1500 Free (19:25.98L ) - was concerned following the 200 medley that he was out of gas, but he did manage a good (not great) swim...18.53.09. Coach expects Bear will be able to go 18 minutes low by the end of the season. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett 400 Meter Medley Relay - Brett earned the breast spot on the relay, and he swam a good 1:27.09. # 50 (d2/s3): B 13-14 200 Free (2:34.07L ) - Dropped almost 7 seconds - 2:27.19 # 54 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:29.43L ) - Swam a similar time to the relay split - 1:27.36...another personal best. # 62 (d2/s3): B 13-14 100 Back (1:24.42L ) - Added a couple of seconds in this one - 1:26.88 # 66B (d2/s3): B 13-14 400 Free - Didn't swim this for some reason... # 84 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Free (1:11.43L ) - dropped 2.4 seconds 1:09.03 # 88 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Back (2:57.27L ) - Another 2.4 second drop - 2:54.95 # 92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Breast (42.38L ) - 40.56 personal best time # 96 (d3/s5): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L ) - Added about 5 seconds 2:57.00...disappointing following a great meet, but not terribly surprising

06-10-2015, 06:17 AM	#619
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 SE GPAC Tom Lalor Invitational - RESULTS (Pensacola) Did find out one interesting bit of information last night. The kids were talking about the meet, and both Bailey and Bear explained that during their backstroke (Bailey's 200 and Bear's 100) they hit the bottom on the start. Apparently, the pool was only 4' 2" deep at the start, and they both hit their backs coming off the blocks. This prevented them from getting a good breakout and thus slowed their times down significantly.

06-11-2015, 06:47 AM	#620
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 3 at Creekstone Big meet tonight. Creekstone has quite a few very strong year round swimmers. CRC should win due to depth, but it'll be close. Here are what the kids are swimming ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey #9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:01.16 1/3 #43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/1 #73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/1 #83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:54.06 1/1 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Bear #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:12.10 1/4 #44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 32.30 1/1 #54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/1 #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (2) 1:43.39 1/3 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (2) 1:54.76 1/3 #22 Boys 13-14 50 Free 29.16 1/1 #64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/3 #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:58.89 1/1 Note: Tommy broke his foot yesterday, and will miss this meet. Still waiting on results to determine what else he might miss. Last edited by Breeze : 06-11-2015 at 06:47 AM.*

06-12-2015, 06:38 AM	#621
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League - Week 3 at Creekstone - RESULTS ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey #9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:01.16 1/3 - Did a fantastic job in the fly leg, staying with a girl that is one of the top 14 year old flyers in the state. Our girls relay went on to win the heat #43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/1 - - 32.58 - awesome start, ok swim... #73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/1 - 30.06 - basically the same swim as last week #83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:54.06 1/1 - Bailey did the leadoff leg, so I got a look at her against two of the top freestylers in the county swimming the our A the Creekstone's A - she was about a half a body length behind, which should be around a 28 flat. That's good, should be better based on her strong fly time, but still good...might be good enough to sneak into the Free Relay for the Forsyth County team at state (need to be top 12 for the swimmers committed to State - typically that means top 15). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Bear #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:12.10 1/4 - Bear actually did the Free leg, and Riley moved to Fly. The team was DQed for a swimmer leaving early so Bear costed. Had they not been DQed they would have won by a full pool length. #44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 32.30 1/1 - Great start - similar swim 32.69. #54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/1 - 1:09.39, good swim, coasted to 2nd in the heat, well behind teammate Riley and well ahead of Creekstone's swimmer. #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (2) 1:43.39 1/3 - The first swimmer in the relay (Seth) went out hard initially, but was already coasting back half. Alex swam hard, and Bear and Riley coasted to the win, about a full lap up on the opponent. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (2) 1:54.76 1/3 - Brett's breast leg looked labored a bit, and given that Brett said he was very sore from practice it isn't all that surprising. #22 Boys 13-14 50 Free 29.16 1/1 - Brett nearly missed this race, and when I say nearly missed, I'm not exaggerating. In fact, if our team hadn't had a special needs girl in the heat just before Brett he would have missed it. As it was, he only made it when the starter was telling the swimmers to step up to the block, and he had to borrow some girls pink goggles because he didn't have time to get his...he swam poorly posting a 29. Disappointing following his strong swim in the relay last week. #64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/3 - Another tight labored swim, he also got a little coppy with the stroke in the first 25. Ended up losing to Alex...posted a poor 36 second swim. #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:58.89 1/1 - Better free in the relay than he swam in the individual, but it didn't matter...the B team was DQed because one of the swimmers left during a rain delay and didn't return, so they had to substitute in a kid that had already swum in the 11/12 relay.

06-12-2015, 07:37 AM	#622
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Swim With Dad - @ GaTech - 6/13 We will be swimming just the Saturday of this meet. We are only swimming 1 day because we will miss 1 day of the meet in a couple of weeks in order to swim at the Summer League Forsyth County Championships. Here is what the kids are swimming... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *# 21 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:39.79L )* - Bailey should improve here...not because she's gotten great at breast, but because she was so bad last year... *# 27 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 50 Free (32.26L )* - Not sure what to expect here. She seems to be getting better with her freestyle, but she also has been swimming poorly. *# 36 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:50.13L )* - With her poor results recently, I don't have high expectations here. Which is a shame because this is one of the strokes she could earn a state cut in (new State Cuts have been released, and they are much harder to achieve...I'll post the updated cuts soon) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *# 28 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 50 Free (30.24L )* - Bear's going to want to go sub30 here. He could do it, he's swimming well and according to the coaches (both Ryan and Andy), he's been killing it at practice. *# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:20.28L )* - He dropped a bunch of time in this last weekend, so I don't expect much here. In fact, his actually time is a 2:18.15. *# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:51.08L )* - I expect Bear will do well here. Given he's been swimming so well, and he hasn't done this event this year, I expect a decent drop in time. Plus this is one of the tough races that is right in his wheelhouse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *# 22 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:09.35L )* - Brett swam real well last weekend, and his Breast appears to be getting back to his pre-choppy stage, so I expect he'll have a decent improvement here. *# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:34.07L )* - Don't know about improvement here, because like Bear he just dropped last weekend. His PB is actually a 2:27...I don't think he'll improve on that. *# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (6:11.31L )* - I don't know what to expect here. Individually, Brett is improving in fly significantly, breast seems to be getting back to normal. Back is solid, and Free is improving, so it would be reasonable to expect a good drop. Maybe 10 seconds or so, but unlike Bear, who thrives the tougher the race gets, Brett seems to go into conservation mode, and he never really fully pushes himself. Last edited by Breeze : 06-12-2015 at 10:38 AM.

06-15-2015, 11:10 AM	#623
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Swim With Dad - RESULTS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *# 21 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:39.79L )* - Dropped this event... *# 27 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 50 Free (32.26L )* - She swam a personal best 31.90...coach told her she was too tight which was forcing her head down and creating drag. He wants her to relax more on her freestyle swims... *G 13 & Over 200 Free (2:33.70L )* - Added in place of the 200 Breast - after dropping about a second last weekend, Bailey managed to drop over 6 seconds this weekend. She finished with a personal best 2:27.07 *# 36 (d1/s2): G 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:50.13L )* - Bailey was hoping to get a state cut here...she started out with a strong fly of just a faction over 1:15...but then she really slowed down. Coach says it's fatigue, he's been working them hard and with a meet last weekend, summer swim and this meet, her body just couldn't respond again. Time 5:56.20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *# 28 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 50 Free (30.24L )* - Bear wasn't able to drop, but pretty much match his time coming in - 30.40 *# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:20.28L )* - Couldn't drop here either, though I didn't really expect him to after the huge drop last weekend. 2:21.02 *# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (5:51.08L )* -He looked sluggish and tired swimming this event. In fact, the coach actually laughed during Bear's 100 Free leg at the end. Usually, Bear kicks it into high gear to charge to the wall. There was no high gear left. He did manage to drop a bunch of time, but that was more to do with the time off between swimming this race...5:43.16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *# 22 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Breast (3:09.35L )* - Better swim. Still a bit inconsistent. Coach says he needs to pull more with his lats and less with his tricept. Coach also indicated to me that Brett's kick has never been the same since he hurt his knee last year...not sure why...did manage a personal best - barely - 3:08.53 *# 34 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 200 Free (2:34.07L )* - Didn't expect much here after last weeks good swim of 2:27.19...his stroke stayed long, but speed wasn't there. 2:33.46... *# 37 (d1/s2): B 13 & Over 400 Medley (6:11.31L )* - Sluggish swim all the way around - 6:19.28

06-15-2015, 01:22 PM	#624
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update The Summer League County Championship Meet is coming up and as usual I'm helping the team with the lineups. In my search for data to set up trends I found a couple of images from 2008, thought I'd post them for fun... That's Brett in the front row middle, and Bear front row left end. Brett again on the front row...

06-15-2015, 01:32 PM	#625
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Here's one the Coach Andy put together... Here's the lineup: Red shirt in back face not visable - Alex Blue Shirt with Football - Tommy (who broke his foot the other day, ending what was likely to be a big Summer State Championships) White Shirt and Frisbee - Brett Green Shirt - Bear Grey Nike Shirt - Seth Gray team shirt - Riley Last edited by Breeze : 06-15-2015 at 01:35 PM.

06-16-2015, 07:05 AM	#626
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League vs Grand Cascades (make up meet) Tuesday night make up and their are some changes this week. Some parents are starting to hound the coach, who is, I'm guessing, a 20 year old college student. They want their kids on the A relay...and they are being a pain to the coach in order to get these changes. It's disappointing, but not surprising. Here my kids line up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey #9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:02.59 1/4 #43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/2 #73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/2 - this could be extremely exciting - 4 girls who all come in with times between 29.2 and 30.1... #83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:57.33 1/2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 1:54.76 1/4 #32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 58.93 1/2 #54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/4 #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:47.32 1/4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett #10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:07.05 1/2 (this is the B relay - Brett's Personal Best time of 33 is still faster than the person they replaced him with, but the change was made anyway - not typically the way our team handles things) #44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 36.27 1/2 #64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/4 #86 Boys 15-18 200 Free Relay (3) 1:41.62 1/4 Last edited by Breeze : 06-16-2015 at 07:06 AM.

06-17-2015, 11:02 AM	#627
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League vs Grand Cascades (make up meet) So we lost as expected, but only by 100 points this time around - much better than it has been...and had we taken the time to put our swimmers in their best strokes to maximize points we could have been around 80 back... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *#9 Girls 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:02.59 1/4* - The relay won going away, but Bailey lost a little ground on her stroke, this was concerning heading into a tight 50 fly race. *#43 Girls 13-14 50 Back 31.70 1/2* - hit the bottom of the pool on the start, cruised into a 3rd place finish, which given the competition was probably where she would have ended up anyway - 33.40 *#73 Girls 13-14 50 Fly 30.01 1/2* - awesome race, 3 of the 4 girls came into the wall at the same time...Bailey won by a fingernail...29.48. Third place as 29.81, and forth was 30.49... *#83 Girls 13-14 200 Free Relay (1) 1:57.33 1/2* - Bailey led off the B relay, and was first to the wall at the end of the first leg, beating the A leadoff swimmer for our team and Grand Cascades. The lead was just a fraction...but it was a strong swim regardless. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 1:54.76 1/4* - Team won going away...Seth provided a decent lead in back that the team just pressed until they won by 8 seconds. *#32 Boys 13-14 100 Free 58.93 1/2* - Great swim...he chased Riley all the way to a second place finish in the heat, well ahead of GCs first swimmer - 58.29 *#54 Boys 13-14 100 IM 1:08.84 1/4* - fantastic race with a Gold Teammate...they were stroke for stroke through the back. In the breast the GC swimmer (who will be shooting to win Breast in county) opened up a bit of lead. Bear chased him down in free and came up just .2 second behind. - 1:05.61 #84 Boys 13-14 200 Free Relay (3) 1:47.32 1/4 - Blow out win... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *#10 Boys 13-14 200 Medley Relay (3) 2:07.05 1/2* - Brett ended up doing the back...no idea how he swam, I was looking for him to swim 15/18, and didn't expect they'd ever stick him in the back on the B relay. Bear says he did good...they beat GCs B team, so must have done ok. *#44 Boys 13-14 50 Back 36.27 1/2* - Much better swim here...still could have worked a bit harder, and didn't trust his count into the walls but dropped a couple seconds anyway...34.63 *#64 Boys 13-14 50 Breast 33.00 1/4* - Much better swim here than he's been doing usually...he was leading early, lost some time going into the wall...was neck and neck with Alex and the GC boy mentioned in Bear's IM write up, but lost ground coming into the finish. Ended up third by less than a second from 1st and .2 from Alex. - 34.47 *#86 Boys 15-18 200 Free Relay (3) 1:41.62 1/4* - swam 15/18...stroke looked SO MUCH BETTER - but team was way behind before Brett ever hit the water on the second leg. In fact, they were so far behind...he (like the rest of the team) ran from about 20 feet back and dove in when the previous swimmer hit the wall. It's obviously not legal, but as the place judge from GC said to me..."It's not legal, but it is awesome!" - in case you are wondering...the official let it slide. Last edited by Breeze : 06-17-2015 at 11:02 AM.

06-18-2015, 07:32 AM	#628
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields This will be our last regular season Summer meet…we are skipping next Thursday because it falls in the middle of the short taper Gold is doing for a year round meet next weekend. Here is what the kids will be swimming: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *200 Yard Medley A Relay (3)* – two of the girls who are normally on the A Relay are out of town so this will be a much tighter race than it usually is. Bailey is still in the Fly leg. *50 Yard Back (31.70)* *50 Yard Fly (29.48)* *200 Yard Free A Relay (3)* – Bailey moves up to the A Free relay with the absences mentioned above --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *200 Yard Medley A Relay (4)* – They have him listed in the back, but he’ll do the Free…(don’t know why the team organizers can’t seem to get this lineup correct) *50 Yard Free (27.61)* *100 Yard IM (1:05.61)* *200 Yard Free A Relay (3)* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *200 Yard Medley A Relay (2)* – Brett is back in the A relay this week despite losing to Alex in the breast by an eye blink on Tuesday. Not sure why the switch this time or on Tuesday for that matter. *50 Yard Back (34.63)* – Again, not sure why they put him in this event…but hopefully he’ll improve again *50 Yard Breast (33.00)* *200 Yard Free B Relay (4)*

06-18-2015, 09:14 AM	#629
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields There has been a slight change to Bailey schedule. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *200 Yard Medley A Relay (3)* – two of the girls who are normally on the A Relay are out of town so this will be a much tighter race than it usually is. Bailey is still in the Fly leg. *50 Yard Back (31.70)* *50 Yard Fly (29.48)* *200 Yard Free A Relay (3)* – Bailey moves up to the A Free relay with the absences mentioned above Note: Bailey will also be swimming the 50 Free tonight as an exhbition. She is swimming this event to get an updated time in hopes of getting into the A Free Relay at County...intially the team was planning to use the 4 fastest times from the 50 event at county for the free relay, but the order of events is different during the county meet and the free relay is moved up and swum ahead of the individual 50 free. Last edited by Breeze : 06-18-2015 at 09:14 AM.

06-19-2015, 02:03 PM	#630
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League vs Polo Fields The meet was rained...no stormed out. The storm rolled in about the same time warm up were to start. It go so bad the kids had to be packed into the basement area of the clubhouse, our starters tent and the electronic starting system attached to it were blown into the pool. The tent over the PA/Sound system was blown out of the pool area and the equipment was ruined. Trees were knocked down, power was knocked out, and generally things were a huge mess... So that's our summer league, with the excpetion of the County Championships on 6/27...

06-22-2015, 12:11 PM	#631
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update So this is the weekend over the summer where we end up swimming in two different meets. On Friday and Sunday we will swim with Gold and on Saturday we will be swimming in the Forsyth County Championships for CRC. I'll be posting the events and information on the races shortly, but wanted to give you a heads up because they are going to overlap and I didn't want to confuse anyone.

06-23-2015, 08:50 AM	#632
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 Gold International Meet - @ Cumming Aquatic Center 6/26 - 6/ 28 This will be our last year round meet before the State Championships in July... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L )* - First time swimming this in a while...should improve, but won't get the state cut. *# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L )* - She's apparently been swimming 1:15 intervals in practice (even the end of practice). Coach is looking for a nice drop here. Maybe something in the 1:13 range *# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L )* - disappointing swim in this last meet. Should do better this time around. *# 73 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Back (2:46.59L )* - another event that with a little more effort she could see a decent drop in. *# 81 (d3/s7): G 13-14 200 Medley (2:45.66L )* - hasn't touched her best time from last year yet... *# 85 (d3/s7): G 13-14 800 Free (10:36.92L )* - starting to do a bit better on the distance stuff...but still hasn't embraced it, so not sure what to expect. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L )* - would like to see a drop here, Bear currently sits 5th for Gold in this event, if he can get top 4 he can swim on the A 800 Free Relay...won't be easy though, has to be Seth or Riley... *# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L )* - only swam it once, back in may when he was out of shape. Could see a small drop here... *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L )* - a nice drop in this just a couple weeks ago...I don't expect any improvement this time around. *# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:43.67L )* - Had a drop in this in Florida...so not sure what to expect this time around. *# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:40.82L )* - Could improve here...best time is from back in May. *# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (10:05.37L )* - Given his recent practice routines, I expect Bear will improve here. Coach has had Bear doing a lot of long sets in preparation for distance events. Hopefully, those sets pay off and don't have him worn out right now. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L )* - Been swimming Free so much better, but unfortunately came home with a sore shoulder last night. Hopefully, it won't hinder him this weekend. *# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L )* - could improve if he stays long and snaps the kick and pull each stroke... *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L )* - I would love to say he will improve in this...and he should with a greatly improved fly form, and swimming free better, but I'm just not confident, especially with the bad shoulder. *# 74 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Back (2:54.95L )* - His back in Summer league showed some promise with an increase in effort. If he can carry that over, he'll drop time here... *# 82 (d3/s7): B 13-14 200 Medley (2:52.67L )* - See 400 IM *# 86 (d3/s7): B 13-14 800 Free (11:05.60L )* - Don't know if Brett has embraced this yet...and honestly, right now I'd be surprised if he actually swam it. I expect they will shelve him because of the shoulder. No reason to risk anything as this will be Brett's last year round meet of the season.

06-25-2015, 08:25 AM	#633
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League County Championships @ GaTech - 6/27 Just a quick reminder, while time is important here...what we are really looking for is a top 3 finish in order to earn a medal and a spot on the County All-Star team (note: it is possible to make the county team finishing outside of the top 3 if some of the swimmers who finished ahead elect not to swim at the state meet) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bailey #9 Girls 13/14 200 Medley Relay A Team (fly) - The relay team comes in seeded 2nd, but they beat the top team head-to-head during a Thursday meet. The anchor freestyler for CRC isn't swimming in this meet, so this will be a very close race #21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 28.47 (12th Seed) - Bailey is only swimming this in an effort to get on one of the free relays for the state meet. To get on one of the relays they must be in the top 12 (of those going to state)...and she's sitting on 12th. However, this is an old time. I'm hoping for a 27 high, which will give her a shot at the top 8 and the B relay team. #43 Girls 13/14 50 Backstroke - 31.70 (7th Seed) - disappointing seed here. I really wish she was in IM...even with this old time, there is pretty much no shot to get in the top 3, and all the girls seeded in front of her are all going to State in this event. #73 Girls 13/14 50 Fly - 29.48 (2nd Seed) - This time is not Bailey's PB, so she has a shot to win the event. She'll have to beat her old friend Maddie to do it. (note: there is a faster seed but they are exhibitioning so they can't win the event). #83 Girls 13/14 200 Free Relay B team (4) - Bailey is scheduled to swim the anchor on the B team...they are seeded 11th...the A team is seeded 3rd. It'll be interesting to see where Bailey ends up in the 50 Free, I won't be surprised if she has 1 of the top 4 times. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear #10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Free) - The boys medley is seeded 1st heading into the County meet. #22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 27.61 (14 Seed) - Bear is in a good position to make it on a free relay. Not every swimmer in front of him is going, so with a good swim he should make the top 12. #32 Boys 13/14 100 Freestyle - 58.29 (4th Seed) - Bear is 4th seed, behind Gold and CRC Teammates Riley and Seth, as well as former Gold Teammate and Brett's good friend Hunter. Seth can't swim at state (swimming out of his county of residence), so if Bear can old off a couple of challengers, he could get the 3rd spot for State. #54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:05.61 (3rd Seed) - Bear is in a tight one here...the top 5 are all separated by less than 1 second. Can he at least hold on to that 3rd spot...or could he charge for the win...going to be fun. #74 Boys 13/14 50 Fly - (exhibition) 30.90 (6th Seed) - Exhibitioning here, hoping to make a medley for state, but being seeded 6th, makes it unlikely. His PB is actually a 30.00, which would put him 5th...but everyone in front of him is going to State...so not likely. #84 Boys 13/14 200 Free Relay A team (2) - The team is seeded second, but they beat the top seed in a head to head Thursday race...so should be exciting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett #10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Breast) - same relay as Bear's above...hopefully they can win it all... #54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:13.13 (6th Seed) - Brett is the first swimmer outside of the top 5 mentioned in Bear's write up. I know he's capable of going under 1:10...but I think he'll settle in and finish around his seed time. #64 Boys 13/14 50 Breaststroke - 34.47 (3rd Seed) - The amazing thing about this race is the top 3 times, were all from the same race against GC earlier this season. The one where Brett was outtouched by the GC swimmer and Alex. Could be a re-run of that race (though someone could come from back in the pack to win). I've been thinking about this one a bunch...and I believe this will probably be Brett's last chance to ever win an individual medal. Next sesason he moves up to swim with 15-18 year olds...obviously it will take a while before he'll be able to compete with some of the older kids, and by the time he gets there, some of the extremely strong breaststrokers currently 2 years younger will mostly likely beat him when they reach that 15-18 range. I'm really rooting for him to do something special here... #86 Boys 15/18 200 Freestyle Relay - A Team (1) - Moved Brett and 2 other 13/14s up to swim the 15/18 relay in order to get some points. They are likely to finish last CRC TEAM OUTLOOK - overall it looks like CRC will probably finish 3rd, though my projections show us only having about a 150 point lead on 4th (way behind 2nd)...so a few DQs might be very costly. Last edited by Breeze : 01-09-2018 at 08:03 PM.

06-30-2015, 09:42 AM	#634
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 1 PRELIM RESULTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L )* – She only managed to swim a 1:38.58, surprising as her Breast is getting better. It’s apparent to anyone watching that her stroke is much more explosive than it used to be…not sure why it isn’t faster. *# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L )* – As expected she was in the 1:13 range…in fact a 1:13.21. *# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L )* – Swum only at finals… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L )* – stroke looked sluggish and he looked tired. Only managed a 2:20.82 *# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L )* – a pretty good swim this time around, but not good enough to get the new harder state cuts. 1:14.32. *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L )* – Swum only at finals… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L )* – disappointing 2:31.90 in prelims…stroke looks better, effort doesn’t. *# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L )* – Moments of good looking strokes, intermixed with poor form and choppy rhythms…1:28.64 *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L )* – Swum only at finals… Last edited by Breeze : 07-02-2015 at 07:50 AM.

06-30-2015, 09:54 AM	#635
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	2015 Gold International Meet – DAY 1 FINALS RESULTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *# 5 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Breast (1:37.77L )* – In finals she did manage a personal best…not as good as I had hoped, but it’s a start 1:36.78 *# 9 (d1/s1): G 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.59L )* – Couldn’t quite get another drop, but swam an almost identical time from the morning – 1:13.23 *# 13 (d1/s1): G 13-14 400 Medley (5:50.13L )* – Continues to struggle with this event…did manage to get a personal best…but she should be stronger than this based on her short course season…5:47.79. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:18.25L )* - In finals Bear struggled even more with this race adding another 2 seconds to finish 2:22.47. This didn’t bode well for this meet or the Forsyth County Championships… *# 10 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:15.22L )* – another bad swim for Bear…no only didn’t get a personal best, he added over a second from his seed time…1:16.50…again thing s look pretty bleak for his chances at County. *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (5:43.16L )* – Only managed a fractional improvement of .27 seconds. 5:42.89. Bear is looking absolutely worn out…probably related to the distance focused practices he’s doing during the week. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett *# 2 (d1/s1): B 13-14 200 Free (2:27.19L )* – Much better swim in the finals, in fact 5 seconds better than prelims and a personal best time of 2:26.94. *# 6 (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:27.36L )* – Poor swim – 1:30.13. Form still a work in progress and it was better than it’s been for a while, but effort was lacking again, and I believe it was because he was saving his energy for the 400 IM. *# 14 (d1/s1): B 13-14 400 Medley (6:11.31L )* – Breathed every stroke on the fly leg, which never allowed him to get on top of the water and generate the type of propulsion needed to move fast. This held him back significantly, but he still managed to drop almost 5 seconds – 6:06.58 Last edited by Breeze : 06-30-2015 at 09:55 AM.

06-30-2015, 11:06 AM	#636
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League County Championships – RESULTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bailey #9 Girls 13/14 200 Medley Relay A Team (fly) – The race started with the CRC backstroker finishing in dead heat for second about 1.2 seconds behind the leader. MK was the breaststroker and she took over the race, handing Bailey a nice 1.4 second lead. Bailey swam a pedestrian 29.6 to the competitions 28.5…but the anchor still had a .2 second lead and pulled away to win county…(I’ll post a picture shortly)…County Champions #83 Girls 13/14 200 Free Relay B team (4) – Moved this to indicate the actual order the event was swum…Completely indifferent effort from Bailey here. The team’s slot was pretty much determined before she hit the water. Bailey wasn’t going to chase down the team ahead and no one was going to catch her from behind. The team finished 8th in state. Not bad for a B team. #21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 28.47 (12th Seed) – Terrible dive puts her behind the 8 ball early…swims hard but only manages a time of 28.36. I knew at the time this wasn’t a good swim and it was going to put her on the cusp of making the free relay. As it turns out she finished in a tie for 12th. Typically, this would be plenty good enough to make the team, but for the second time in 2 years all of the first 11 girls elected to go to state…so Bailey had to have a swim off at the end of the meet. As poor as this swim was for Bailey it was still a full second faster that 1 of the girls on a CRC A Free Relay... #43 Girls 13/14 50 Backstroke - 31.70 (7th Seed) – Horrendous dive…completely killed any chance she had. Not sure why she can’t clean this up as it is like a broken record. Her underwaters were good or she would have been embarrassingly bad…33.65 – 8th place #73 Girls 13/14 50 Fly - 29.48 (2nd Seed) – An extremely tight race…Bailey’s dive wasn’t great here either, but she managed to stay in touch with the field. Unfortunately it was such a fast field her time of 29.59 was only good enough for 5th. With two exhibitioning, she at least made the State Team as the C fly representative, but at this point it doesn’t look good for her chances to make a relay… #21 Girls 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - Swim Off – After a 5 minute delay Bailey raced a tall girl named Ashley for the right to be on the C Free Relay at State. The race was, as you would expect close...it was also fast...Bailey had a much better dive, and at the turn they were neck and neck. Bailey was a tiny bit behind, and it appeared to be mostly due to arm reach...Bailey was closing and she finished the swim off in a time of 27.79...unfortunately Ashley came home in a 27.64. Had Bailey swum this time initially she would have been 7th overall... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear #10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Free) – The race started with Seth in back, and he finished his leg in second place about a half second behind the leaders. Brett was next…and he quickly caught the leader and eventually handed Riley a little over a second lead. Riley swam a fantastic fly leg and Bear brought it home in a 25.42…for the county championship. In fact, the team won by 5 full seconds…and missed the county record by .2. County Champions #84 Boys 13/14 200 Free Relay A team (2) - Moved to put the event in the correct order it was swum – Seth also opened the Free Relay and immediately handed off a lead of a half second. Bear was second to go, and he handed Alex a 2.5 second lead…that lead continued to stretch and the CRC 13/14 Boys won their second county championship…this one by 3.3 seconds. County Champions #22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) - 27.61 (14 Seed) – Bear had a very good swim…finishing in 26.04. Unfortunately, that swim was only good enough to get him in 9th place forcing him to swim on the C Free Relay… #32 Boys 13/14 100 Freestyle - 58.29 (4th Seed) – Another strong swim for Bear…surprising given how poorly he looked the day before at the year round meet. He powered home with a time of 56.90. That was only good enough for 4th place (which is where I expected him to finish), so no medal, but Seth, who beat him, isn’t going to state so Bear slides into the 3 spot on the county team, and he should have a good shot at top 8 at state and a GRPA state medal. #54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:05.61 (3rd Seed) – Extremely tight field, so tight Bear basically swam his seed time 1:05.89, and only managed to finish 4th…but he was less than a second from 2nd place. #74 Boys 13/14 50 Fly - (exhibition) 30.90 (6th Seed) – Good, not great swim…30.80, ended up 7th (which probably isn’t going to get him on a medley relay) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett #10 Boys 13/14 Medley Relay A team (Breast) – See Bear’s Relay above. #86 Boys 15/18 200 Freestyle Relay - A Team (1) – Brett swam the anchor, I believe so the one true 15/18 swimmer on the relay could race his friends in the leadoff leg….by the time Brett hit the water is was all over but the crying. I manually timed him and had his split at a 27.78…that was encouraging. #22 Boys 13/14 50 Freestyle (exhibition) – 29.16 (14 Seed) – Think I missed this one in my pre-race write ups. It was going to be hard for Brett to make a Free Relay, but my hope was he would swim a 27 high…like he did in the relay, but unfortunately a bad turn did him in. He only managed a 28.23…that wasn’t going to get him on a free relay. #54 Boys 13/14 100 IM - 1:13.13 (6th Seed) – I told Brett before this race to try and limit his breathing on the fly and he might be surprise how much better he does. Surprisingly, he did…he only breathed 4 times in the fly leg and that set him up for a good 1:11.33 time and a strong 6th place in this event. #64 Boys 13/14 50 Breaststroke - 34.47 (3rd Seed) – Brett had a very good dive and an early lead…I don’t get to say that often. At the turn the top 3 were all neck and neck…Brett had a good turn, but faded coming home. He ended up in 3rd place with a personal best time of 34.09…about a second behind second place and about 1.2 seconds behind teammate Alex… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CRC TEAM RESULT – The team finished 3rd in County as expected…but it was closer than it should have been. The team leadership is having serious discussions about how to help address some weaknesses that cropped up this season. For posterity sake, I’ll post my comments to the leadership later. Last edited by Breeze : 01-09-2018 at 08:04 PM.

07-01-2015, 07:54 AM	#637
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	CRC Summer League County Championships – RESULTS Following their swims for CRC at the County meet it was obvious all 3 had made the State Team. Bear will be the 3rd representative in the 100 Free, Bailey will be the 3rd representative in the fly, and Brett will be the 3rd representative in the Breast. All 3 made relays as well. Brett is on the C Medley Bailey is on the C Medley Bear is on the C Free All 3 relays are pretty strong too. I researched them compared to other relays the county fielded since 2011, and here is how they stack up: Bear's C Free Relay is the strongest C Relay the county has fielded since 2011. In fact, they are over a full second faster than the next fastest C relay. In the past 4 years the Forsyth Tide C Free Relay has made finals (and thus medal) twice. Given their fast built time and the fact the C relay has medaled in the past, I believe Bear has a decent chance of getting into finals. Brett's C Medley is extremely fast for a C team. In fact they are faster than the B teams from 2011 and 2012. Obviously they are the fastest C relay the county has fielded in the timeframe of my research. The C team medaled in 2011...(along with the B team, which was slower than this team). Given that, and the fact their built time of 1:59.67 is typically good enough for 6th, I think they have a good shot to make finals as well. Bailey's C Medley, like Brett's is extremely fast for a C team. They are also faster than several B teams. In fact they are faster than the B team from 2011, 2013 and the Bronze Medal winning B team from 2014. I'd say they not only have a shot at a medal, but might challenge for 3rd. Individually: Bear's 100 Free time is typically good enough to make finals. Brett's 50 Breast time is probably going to be right on the cut for the top 8, just hope he's on the right side of it this time around (he was 9th last year and he was 9th a few years back) Bailey's time is also going to be right on the cut for finals. However, if she's able to return to her 28 low swims from Short Course State, she should make finals easily. In fact, a 28 low may be good enough to finish top 3, but her 29 middle isn't a shoe in....