Swim Like A Champion (a real life journal) - Page 6

Breeze · 04-02-2013, 12:23 PM

Summer League Schedule

Still not sure if we will be swimming in the Summer League, but here is the schedule...

CRC Time Trials - 5/17
Week 1 - 5/30
Week 2 - 6/6
Week 3 - 6/13
Week 4 - 6/20
Week 5 - 6/27
County Meet - 6/29
ASA Championship - 6/30
GRPA State Championships - 7/26-28

Breeze · 04-02-2013, 12:25 PM

I still owe you goals for the upcoming long course season, but we will be heading out of town for a couple of days, so I probably won't get those posted before we leave.

Breeze · 04-09-2013, 01:42 PM

Summer League Schedule

So the opponents for the Summer League have been announced...

CRC Time Trials - 5/17
Week 1 - 5/30 - Grand Cascades - Away (oh joy, we open with the juggernaut)
Week 2 - 6/6 - Lake Forrest - Home (5th in county)
Week 3 - 6/13 - Polo Fields - Home (2nd in county)
Week 4 - 6/20 - Aberdeen - Home (3rd in county)
Week 5 - 6/27 - Fieldstone - Away (6th in county)
County Meet - 6/29
ASA Championship - 6/30
GRPA State Championships - 7/26-28

Still not sure if we are going to swim Summer League and here is why...

It will cost us:

$130/kid to register for the team
$20/kid for league registration
$40/boy for team suits
$60 for Bailey's suit

390 + 60 + 80 + 60 = $590...

and we are having to juggle our schedule just to make the meets. This is a tough decision, because Summer is when the year round kids get to shine. They are the stars of the team and it is really good for the self esteem. Plus Summer league is fun...

Breeze · 04-15-2013, 10:38 AM

Summer League Swimming

After talking with the swim team coordinators and coming to an understanding, we have signed up to swim in the Summer League...

FrogMan · 04-15-2013, 11:20 AM

I don't visit FOFC much anymore, and even less the dynasty board so I had not seen this dynasty. Well, I had seen it just last week but just assumed it was about your own training in the pool. Just took a shot and started reading the first post this morning and I'm hooked. Just read the post describing your kids and got all teary eyed reading about Brett's DQ in Savannah.

This whole swimming thing hits quite close to home as our youngest (who just turned 9 in January) is going through his first season of competitive swim training. He trains 4 times a week for a total of about 5 to 5.5 hours in the pool every week. And he also got DQed, about a month ago, for mixing his styles and starting his 3rd 25m back at backstroke instead of breastroke in a 100 IM. He realised it after maybe 7 or 8 meters but it was too late.

I'm reading back from the start and will eventually post to tell more about my own son if you want, but not before I'm up to date on my reading, in order not to spoil anything

I'm interested to see how different swimmers development is from the States to us here in Quebec/Canada.

FM

PS: hope this shows up all right since I'm posting from tapatalk on my iPad after copying from a txt file from my computer... See ya in a few days, when I'm done reading it all.

Breeze · 04-15-2013, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogMan

I don't visit FOFC much anymore, and even less the dynasty board so I had not seen this dynasty. Well, I had seen it just last week but just assumed it was about your own training in the pool. Just took a shot and started reading the first post this morning and I'm hooked. Just read the post describing your kids and got all teary eyed reading about Brett's DQ in Savannah.

This whole swimming thing hits quite close to home as our youngest (who just turned 9 in January) is going through his first season of competitive swim training. He trains 4 times a week for a total of about 5 to 5.5 hours in the pool every week. And he also got DQed, about a month ago, for mixing his styles and starting his 3rd 25m back at backstroke instead of breastroke in a 100 IM. He realised it after maybe 7 or 8 meters but it was too late.

I'm reading back from the start and will eventually post to tell more about my own son if you want, but not before I'm up to date on my reading, in order not to spoil anything

I'm interested to see how different swimmers development is from the States to us here in Quebec/Canada.

FM

PS: hope this shows up all right since I'm posting from tapatalk on my iPad after copying from a txt file from my computer... See ya in a few days, when I'm done reading it all.

FM,

Quote looks fine in the thread and I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far. There were several driving factors behind the creation of this thread...

1. It gives me a chance to organize my thoughts
2. It serves as a journal that I can refer to in order to see my thoughts and the assessments of the kids performances in the past
3. AND PROBABLY THE BIGGEST REASON - to attempt to describe and illustrate the emotions of being a year round swimmer... (as you've seen the whole DQing can be very gut wrenching)

I would love for you to continue to post the progress of your son...feel free to put whatever you'd like down. Also, I'm not sure if you come from a swimming background, but if you didn't and you'd like to discuss anything, just let me know, we are ending our 6th season...

I'd be interested to know how long your son has been doing year round swimming, and what made him decide that it was a sport he wanted to be involved with.

Breeze

Breeze · 04-15-2013, 11:50 AM

General Update

I often struggle with regards to how much information to post out side of swimming. For the most part I've kept to swimming and swimming related facts, but I'm not sure if I should expand some of the posts to include items that will help you get a more deep understanding of my kids and their personalities...The reason I stated this is:

I know I've mentioned several times in this thread that Brett is a very intelligent kid. Just to give you some background. Brett is in 7th grade (would be in 6th if I had my way), and he recently scored in the 99.5 percentile in a standardized test for problem solving. That earned him the right to enter the Duke University Tip program, which we took advantage of. One of the items that program provides is the right to take the ACT or SAT test, so we signed Brett up. We didn't stress it, and we only decided to use to test as a way to gauge his performance and to identify what he'll need to focus on moving forward. He did no pretest training or practice tests and he scored:

Verbal - 420
Math - 470
Writting - 390

Total - 1280

Breeze · 04-15-2013, 11:54 AM

General Update

Brett has an ear infection and won't be able to fully practice for a week or more. He'll probably just do kicksets to keep his head out of the water. Maybe this will be a good window of opportunity where he'll be able to work out some of his sloppy kicking techniques.

Lexi, who moved to Arizona, has once again hurt her knee. This time it is on the back and inside. She was trying to do PE with her friends and she was doing the hurdles. Obviously she shouldn't have been, but it has to be extremely hard for a 10 year old to walk away from playing, especially one that is competitive like Lexi. These surgeries have really stolen a good bit of her childhood. She is scheduled to meet with an orthopedic this week. I'll update you when I hear the results...

FrogMan · 04-15-2013, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breeze

FM,

Quote looks fine in the thread and I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far. There were several driving factors behind the creation of this thread...

1. It gives me a chance to organize my thoughts
2. It serves as a journal that I can refer to in order to see my thoughts and the assessments of the kids performances in the past
3. AND PROBABLY THE BIGGEST REASON - to attempt to describe and illustrate the emotions of being a year round swimmer... (as you've seen the whole DQing can be very gut wrenching)

I would love for you to continue to post the progress of your son...feel free to put whatever you'd like down. Also, I'm not sure if you come from a swimming background, but if you didn't and you'd like to discuss anything, just let me know, we are ending our 6th season...

I'd be interested to know how long your son has been doing year round swimming, and what made him decide that it was a sport he wanted to be involved with.

Breeze

I am not, personally, from a swimming background but my wife is. It's her sport. I grew up playing hockey and soccer, she was born near that one big lake you can see up North called "Lac St-Jean" (google it, you'll see, it's not as big as one of the five great lakes but it's still a pretty sizeable lake

). She would spend her Summers in cabins next to the lake and eventually got to compete in synchronized swimming and had various Summer jobs as lifeguard in her youth.

Anyway, I did take some swimming lessons when I was young and I can swim ok. We signed up both our kids for swimming lessons when they were both maybe 18 months old. Idea was simply to be responsible and give them a chance at not drowning if they ever fall in water. Anyway, our oldest (Andrew) took lessons up until he was maybe 9 or 10, when they started introducting them to the different strokes. He didn't like doing laps much and he stopped a little after his first session of mostly training, as opposed to "playing" in water.

Our youngest (Matthew) is quite different in mentality. He's a fierce competitor. He needs to be first in everything he tries, while our oldest is a more mellow kind of kid. When they started barely learning the strokes, Matthew would always want to find someone to race, even sometimes slowing down so he could "go at it" with any other kid. He'd often be in lessons with kids maybe a year or two older than him, i.e. him at 5 with kids 6-7yo or at 6 with kids 7 to 9 and so on, and he would most often keep the pace. My wife knows her swimming a bit and she sees a lot of potential in him. Some of the coaches have told her so too. Me, I'm just the proud daddy who knows little to swimming styles (although I'm learning

) and who's just happy to cheer his kid on.

Because of his competitive nature, when they asked him if he'd like to train as part of the swimming team of our club, he showed some interest. He went from a mere once a week in Fall of 2011 (when he was 7) to twice a week in January, to the full schedule of four times a week this Fall (2012). In fact, he probably should be in the three times a week schedule for the 7-9 yo but there were not enough kids in the 10-12 yo group that do four times a week and too many in the 7-9yo group so they "promoted" some of the faster younger swimmer. Even though it's his first full season of training, he was seen as one of the faster young ones which we took as a sign that he might have some potential. He does Monday-Wednesday-Thursday-Saturday and as I said, it's his first full season doing that. Prior to this season, he'd been signed up for swimming lessons since he was very young. He had done a couple of swim meet, once every year in the last couple of years. He almost decided not to swimm at all in June of 2011 when he got all flustered during warmups. He was so tiny back then and he felt like he was being pushed around during warmups when all the other swimmers of his club were in the same lane and now he wasn't the fastest in the group and was being passed by most of the others. He started crying back there and my wife had to cheer him up big time. I was teaching karate that day and couldn't be there for the beginning of the meet and my heart still hurts thinking about him. He went on to have a great meet that only fuelled his competitive spirit where he set his basic times that he's been improving on ever since.

I was tempted to say we don't really have year round swimming, but it's mostly that it's not split like yours is. Main training/competing season is September to June and it's all done in the 25m pool. We don't have access to a 50m one and no outdoor facilities either, it's just too cold for us around here. There was some sort of Summer training that lasted from the beginning of July to mid-August last Summer but that was mostly for younger swimmers to perfect their styles and not really an intensive training period. We're nearing the end of our season, with I think one more meet in the season at some point in June.

In recent years, swimming at the Olympics has become a big part of our Olympics TV watching as my wife became a big Phelps fan, as did Matthew, almost by osmosis I could say.

I bought my wife a DVD of all of Phelps's events at the Beijing games and she's watched is several times with Matthew.

Other than swimming, Matthew also still practices karate. His regular class would be Wednesday evening and Saturday morning but he can only attend Saturday morning and even then, it's after his longest training of the week in the pool. Luckily for him, his dad is the sensei and owner of the dojo so I give him pravite classes of about 45 minutes on Sunday morning. He's set to test for his brown stripe on his blue belt in three weeks. I'm thinking that the training in both disciplines can be complementary. He's very agile and swift when in the dojo, with amazing stamina and I hope that the concentration required for karate can be useful later on in his swimming.

Sorry if this got long. I'm still reading on the first page and I'm careful not to be spoiled about the latest results, but I wanted to write that down now. Back later with more.

FM

Breeze · 04-15-2013, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogMan

I'm thinking that the training in both disciplines can be complementary. He's very agile and swift when in the dojo, with amazing stamina and I hope that the concentration required for karate can be useful later on in his swimming.

FM

Hey FM,

Take you time on responses...I'm glad to have you reading. By the way, you may find the two diciplines are a perfect complement. Swimming builds lots of lean muscle and creates a good bit of stamina, but because it is so repetitive it can create some restrictions in movement, whereas, Karate does a great job of keeping people limber. This should allow your son to maintain range of motion.

This may not be as obvious with your swim club, but there are quite a few swimmers with shoulders that hunch forward. That is caused by over strengthening one side of the shoulder and not maintaining flexibility. In fact, it isn't unusual for swimmers to be put on an extensive stretching program...

Breeze · 04-18-2013, 09:24 AM

General/Personal Update

So the twins age up today. They turn 11, which means they no longer have any state cuts and the times required to earn a cut are much faster.

Bear will have his Birthday party this Saturday after practice. He is bringing over several kids from swimming to play games. We'll go up to the middle school football field and potentially play:

- flag football
- utimate frisbee
- Wheeler Ball (like utlimate frisbee, but with a football)
- Gotcha (basketball game)
- Wiffle Ball
- Frisbee Golf (backyard style)

Bailey's party will be next weekend, and she's having a glow in the dark sleepover/dance party.

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

Also, we found out last night that Bear has taking change out of his bank and buying his friends snacks from the vending machine each day. He really enjoys making others feel good, and to him it was worth doing because he doesn't need anything and his friends appreciated what he was doing. Recently, he ran out of money (after spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $30), so he elected to come up with some other ways to be generous. Yesterday, he gave away some pennies, only they were collectible pennies. We aren't sure which ones they were because he hadn't cateloged them yet (at one point he thought he wanted to collect coins). We had to have a long talk with Bear about this, but it is really hard. He genuinely wants to be nice to others, so you don't want to squelch that as a parent, but you have to make sure he isn't setting himself up to be taken advantage of. This was a difficult talk...

FrogMan · 04-18-2013, 08:36 PM

I'm slowly making my way through the first posts, reading this as a novel man, compelling stuff!

I know my heart was crushed when Brett had his bad meet (Woodie B. Malone) and then I caught myself saying it with you before his next meet: "please let him do well" and I was very happy when he did do well. Anyway, for you it's well in the past and I'm sure I'll read many more stories like that about your kids, but I wanted to say that I deal with many kids of his type, with ADHD and such, in the field of martial arts and it's always nice to see them succeed or at least have interest in something.

I also realize that we have a very similar way of thinking, re: sleeping out as a reward for training hard. We don't often realize that kids don't get a paycheck for their life. It's those little rewards that are their paychecks, and in a sport like swimming where it's a lot of actual training and sort of little playing, it gets even more important. I compare Matthew to Andrew, our oldest son, who plays hockey. Sure he's got practices, but they are still mostly playing, not always doing laps and laps and laps around the rink...

Back to reading.

FM

Breeze · 04-19-2013, 07:47 AM

General Update

Bailey and Bear came home with their medals from the Northern Divisional Meet on Tuesday (4/16). Bailey had 4 Gold, 1 Silver, and 2 Bronze. She looked pretty Phelpsian with all of them around her neck at the same time. Bear was also very proud of his two (silver & bronze).

This was another difficult situation for the wife and me. We had to be complementary of the twins and their accomplishments, but once again Brett, who wants desperately to earn a year round medal, had to be reminded that he doesn’t have one. He pouted a bit, and it was obvious from his body language that it was a bitter pill to swollow. He even commented that "I never earned a medal when I was there age." (of course he conveniently forgets that he mailed in practice at their age and was only concerned about Breaststroke which clearly limited his opportunities to earn a medal. Plus he was swimming with Swim Atlanta and faced 3 times the number of year round swimmers that the twins faced at the Northern Divisional Meet)

Brett’s reaction…while it seems pretty childish for the 12 going on 13 year old, I think illustrates how difficult this situation is for him, he created his own “medal” from a note card and pen for the 200 Breast he won but was disqualified in earlier in the season. I really hope we can find an event this long course season that will be handing out medals (not ribbons) with a weak lineup of swimmers, and Brett can earn one this season. If he doesn’t get one this long course season, he won’t get one for quite a while. Once he ages up to 13, he’ll fall further behind the good swimmers, until he really hits his growth spurt.

Breeze · 04-19-2013, 08:02 AM

General/Personal Update

On the positive side for Brett, he has his first official girlfriend!

The girl's name is Maddie, and to be honest, I'm not even sure which one she is. I'll see if I can figure it out and I'll let you guys know more about her.

It was actually a funny little story. I believe I've mentioned that Brett has become really good friends with another swimmer named Hunter. Well Hunter is a very outgoing, funloving, big kid that is constantly interacting with others, and in a general manner flirting with girls. Brett has been riding his coat tails for a while in these interactions, and it has really opened up the door for Brett to become more social. Hunter tends to break the ice in conversations, and then Brett's is able to add some wit and clever humor.

We knew for a while that Hunter and Brett both had girls they were interested in, we just weren't sure which ones (as Brett certainly wasn't going to tell us). We finally determined it was Maddie.

Interestingly, most of the kids that come to swimming carpool from time to time, and all the parents sit together while the kids are swimming. One day, the conversation turned to who the kids were interested in, and one of the mothers mentioned on the way into the pool, 4 girls that were riding together were talking about which boys they liked, and one of the girls (the driver wasn't sure which one) mentioned Brett...When she heard Brett's name she tried to listen more intently, but nothing more came up. She later determined the girl was Maddie. Once we learned this, we figured it would just be a matter of time before this "dating" thing occurred. I wonder how long before I'll be expected to take them to the movies. My bet is that Brett and Hunter will want to "double date" before the end of May - we'll see, and I'll definately let you know.

I'll bet as long as Maddie and Brett are together it won't be difficult to get him to go to practice

. However, when the breakup occurs, he may give up the sport...

Breeze · 04-23-2013, 02:11 PM

Long Course Time Standards Update

I know that I owe you guys the goals for the long course season, and I will post those, but unfortunately, I haven't sat down with the kids to get them defined. I'm sure they have some goals in mind at this point, we just haven't talked. Regardless, I'm going to post the Long Course State Cut Times below, because ultimately their goal is to swim at state, no matter what they say...

Code:


-----------------------------------------------------------
11 Year Old Girls


50 Free    - 33.59
100 Free   - 1:12.39
200 Free   - 2:37.69
400 Free   - 5:39.29
800 Free   - 11:59.99
1500 Free  - 22.29.99

50 Back   - 39.79
100 Back  - 1:24.99
200 Back  - 3:09.59

50 Breast  - 45.59
100 Breast - 1:39.39
200 Breast - 3:36.99

50 Fly   - 37.39
100 Fly  - 1:27.09
200 Fly  - 3:32.99

200 IM  - 2:59.99
400 IM  - 7:00.99

-------------------------------------------------------------
11 Year Old Boys


50 Free    - 33.89
100 Free   - 1:15.09
200 Free   - 2:44.29
400 Free   - 5:56.59
800 Free   - 12:14.09
1500 Free  - 22.29.99

50 Back   - 41.69
100 Back  - 1:28.69
200 Back  - 3:19.29

50 Breast  - 47.19
100 Breast - 1:40.99
200 Breast - 3:52.39

50 Fly   - 39.59
100 Fly  - 1:35.19
200 Fly  - 3:42.99

200 IM  - 3:07.79
400 IM  - 7:00.99

-------------------------------------------------------------
12 Year Old Boys

50 Breast  - 43.99
100 Breast - 1:38.99
200 Breast - 3:39.99

Breeze · 04-24-2013, 10:09 AM

Personal Update

Great news...Lexi's knee injury won't require surgery. She got a shot in the knee and will be in physical therapy for about 3 weeks, but she should be fine...

Breeze · 04-25-2013, 07:31 AM

General Update

Couple of interesting notes. The Summer practice schedule has been released, and Brett's team is scheduled to do two a days a couple times a week. In the past, the two a days were only offered for the Region swimmers that were close to advancing to the Senior team, and Brett isn't so we emailed the coach to ask what we should do with Brett. He suggested that Brett should go to the two a days...but that he'd talk with Brett and let him know. That is wasn't urgent that he attend both practices, but he needs to start preparing for it.

Also, because practices have been moved to early afternoon, we are going to have a hard time getting the kids there. In fact, we will have to solicit help from my parents...because of this we really don't want to ask them to make multiple trips to the pool, so we asked if the twins could practice a couple of days a week with Region.

Interestingly, the response was..."I'm concerned about Bailey..." This was not what I was expecting. Bailey is swimming so well right now, and Bear is still struggling a bit, I really thought I'd hear Bear wasn't ready. The coach said, she feels Bear is physically ready, but she wasn't sure Bailey has the muscle mass to get through the longer practices. After thinking about it, I now understand where the coach is coming from. Bear is much better at the distance swims, and that does translate into being able to handle the longer practices. All this said, it does look like the twins will be practicing a couple times a week with Region.

The kids will be putting together their goals tonight, but they will be limited. Because it has been so long since they swam Long Course...they aren't sure what times to shoot for, so they are going to wait until after the time trials this weekend to be more specific with the goals...

Breeze · 04-26-2013, 07:28 AM

Long Course Time Trials – Cumming Aquatic Center 4/27-28

The long course season kicks off this weekend. Below I will list the events and seed times for the kids, but I really won’t have any idea of what to expect in regards to times. The difference in the pool distances makes it difficult to predict. The kids should significantly improve significantly over any seed times that are from last year…so hopefully, this will be a good meet for self-esteem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bailey

200 Free – 3:12.95 (I believe this is a made up time)
100 Back – 1:35.03
100 Fly – NT
200 IM – NT

100 Free – NT
50 Fly – 43.40
50 Back – 45.85
400 Free – NT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Free – NT
100 Back – NT
50 Breast – NT
100 Fly – NT

50 Fly – NT
100 Breast – NT
50 Back – NT
400 Free - NT

Bear has long course times, for some reason the coach didn’t enter them. If I get some time later today I’ll look them up and put them in another post
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett

200 Free – 3:13.87 (I believe this is a made up time)
50 Breast – 47.72
100 Fly – NT (my guess is he gets DQed here…was working on this stroke but because of the ear infection it has been several weeks without the extra attention)
200 IM – 3:32.07 (this is a made up time, I’m pretty sure, and a DQ here wouldn’t surprise me – see above)

100 Free – 1:29.17
100 Breast – 1:44.22
50 Back – 47.45
400 Free – 6:30.09 (this is a made up time)

Breeze · 04-26-2013, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breeze

Long Course Time Trials – Cumming Aquatic Center 4/27-28

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Free – NT
100 Back – NT
50 Breast – NT
100 Fly – NT

50 Fly – NT
100 Breast – NT
50 Back – NT
400 Free - NT

Here are Bear's actual seed times...

Bear

200 Free – 2:56.74
100 Back – 1:36.73
50 Breast – 54.24
100 Fly – NT

50 Fly – 42.69
100 Breast – 1:52.82
50 Back – 44.30
400 Free - NT

Breeze · 04-26-2013, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breeze

Long Course Time Trials – Cumming Aquatic Center 4/27-28

Brett

200 Free – 3:13.87 (I believe this is a made up time)
50 Breast – 47.72
100 Fly – NT (my guess is he gets DQed here…was working on this stroke but because of the ear infection it has been several weeks without the extra attention)
200 IM – 3:32.07 (this is a made up time, I’m pretty sure, and a DQ here wouldn’t surprise me – see above)

100 Free – 1:29.17
100 Breast – 1:44.22
50 Back – 47.45
400 Free – 6:30.09 (this is a made up time)

Some clarification on Brett...

The 200 IM and the 200 Free are not made up times...he swam them last season, I just forgot...

Breeze · 04-26-2013, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breeze

Long Course Time Trials – Cumming Aquatic Center 4/27-28

Bailey

200 Free – 3:12.95 (I believe this is a made up time)
100 Back – 1:35.03
100 Fly – NT
200 IM – NT

100 Free – NT
50 Fly – 43.40
50 Back – 45.85
400 Free – NT

Bailey's 200 Free time is also legitimate...

Breeze · 04-30-2013, 06:41 AM

General/Personal Update

Still waiting on the official results from the meet, will be doing an update once they come out. However, I did get an email from Lexi's dad with an update on her status. Here is what he had to say...

"Lexi went to PT today. He wants her back in the water now. He said her atrophy is causing misalignment in her posture and knees…fixable with therapy and strengthening. Her knee cap shifted when she did those hurdles…he said they can fix that with PT also. Everything is so fragile in those knees…stinks. He doesn’t want her to run…ever. Says she has more to lose than she has to gain. No breaststroke either. Encouraged her to just get really good at the other three strokes."

Breeze · 05-02-2013, 09:17 AM

Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS

Bailey

Woke up the morning of the race with a barky cough again, this is never a good sign…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day 1

200 Free – 3:12.95 – Bailey really doesn’t like the longer swims, but for the first time this weekend she really tried to push more in a race of this distance. She opened with a 1:25.04 and finished with a 1:31.43, for a personal best time of 2:56.47. She can still do better, but it is a start.

100 Back – 1:35.03 – Bailey got a bad start here and while she swam well, she really didn’t seem to have the burst she did at the end of the short course season in her back. I have a hunch that she was conserving herself a bit knowing that the 100 Fly and 200 IM next, and I can tell you, after looking at the short course pools all fall and winter, the long course pool looks very intimidating…She swam a personal best 1:31.73. I suspect she’ll improve on this a good bit throughout the season.

100 Fly – NT – I knew Bailey would swim well here, but I was concerned that there wouldn’t be anyone to push her. By being entered with a NT seed, she was in the first heat, which is usually kids that will have a hard time completing a 100 Fly without getting DQed. However, Bailey matched up with an old 12 year old we are familiar with from Summer League and Swim Atlanta. They were right next to each other and they had an awesome race. Taryn, took the early lead, but Bailey stayed on her hip, at the turn Bailey started to charge and by the 2/3 point on the back half, She had taken the lead, and Taryn started fading back. Bailey swam a 1:29.49, and she beat Taryn by 2 full seconds. Also she’ put herself in a position where she might be able to earn this cut before the end of July.

200 IM – NT – Bailey was still dealing with fatigue when this race started. While her fly was pretty, she wasn’t terribly fast with it, being around seventh out of the 10 racing to the wall on the opening leg. Back was good not great, Breast still needs work. She looked strong in the free, but it was too little too late at that point. Her time 3:23.93

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

Day 2

100 Free – NT – This was a poor swim from Bailey. She really wasn’t pushed by those around her, but she also didn’t seem to be into this race. Not sure if she was conserving for the 50 Fly, but I wasn’t impressed with the time or effort. She finished with a 1:20.37, I feel she really should be a 1:18 low without much problem. We’ll see where this goes in the next meet.

50 Fly – 43.40 – This was probably Bailey’s best shot coming in to get a State Cut in this meet, and she looked strong. For having just turned 11, she did extremely well finishing eighteenth with a time of 38.31, only 1 second from the cut. Also an interesting side note, she was only .2 of a second behind MK a Summer League teammate who is 12 and swims with Brett on the Region team.

50 Back – 45.85 – Bailey’s back here was a perfect illustration of why I felt she was conserving in the 100 back on day 1. She was fast in this one, with a strong kick throughout. She still had a poor start, which she’ll need to clean up, but she finished tied with MK, who is a very good back stroker, at 15 overall. Her time 40.67. This is also just 1 second from a state cut.

400 Free – NT – Mid distance swim, so clearly not on the top of Bailey’s favorite events. This one was pretty fun for me however, because due to the number of kids signed up, they ended up putting Bear and two other boys in the same heat with the girls, so Bear and Bailey raced (sort of, they were not close to each other in lanes, and Bailey was NOT going to beat Bear in this event). Boo started with a solid 1:30.38, then dropped to a 1:37.34, 1:37.06, and closed with a decent final 100 of 1:31.74. Overall time, 6:16.92

Breeze · 05-02-2013, 09:57 AM

Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS

Brett
------------------------------------------------------------

Day 1

200 Free – 3:13.87 – Typical Brett in this race. Long consistent strokes, but no real sense of urgency or recognition that he was racing and the effort level needed to increase. He did post a much better time of 3:00.59, and that is attributable to the improved technique and better kicking (though the kicking still needs work)

50 Breast – 47.72 – Brett (and I) came into this one hoping he would get his state cut. He is a much better long course swimmer in this event because the dives, turns, and pullouts become much less of a factor. In using the short course to long course conversion tools Brett was just outside of the cut number so I felt he had a good shot. The dive and the initial pullout weren’t great, but then he started swimming down the kids around him. He finished with a time of 43.49, which beats the cut by half a second. He was also the third gold swimmer to finish. The first ages up this week, the second is also the best swimmer on the team in the 12 and under age group in all 3 other strokes. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out for the state relay teams.

100 Fly – NT – You may recall I said I felt Brett would probably be DQed in this event. I never said anything like that to him, but he must have felt the same way because he said something to his coach about it during the pre-race framing that they do (the coach didn’t like it, and I believe he was assigned extra pushups and Monday’s practice because he went into the race with the wrong attitude. It’s ok for Dad to think it silently, but not for kids to speak it publicly). Also, adding insult to injury – Bear was not only in the same heat at Brett, they were side by side in the race. Bear jumped out to an early lead, as his new form looked good early. Brett on the other hand really focused too much on his upper body and he wasn’t getting the good “wiggle” through the stroke. On the back half Bear’s form started to fall apart, and Brett started to close…FAST…Bear held him off and Brett finished, but as I guessed – he was DQed. Come to find out he was closing on Bear in the back 50 because his kick has a bit of a breaststroke motion in it. Hey the kid didn’t want to lose to his little brother and he’s faster with a breast style kick, plus when he gets tired, which he clearly was…the Breast kick rears its ugly head.

200 IM – 3:32.07 – Surprisingly, even after still being tired from the 100 Fly, Brett’s fly in the opening leg of the 200 IM was better than either of his 50s in the 100 Fly. Much more relaxed and patient with the stroke. Probably because he wasn’t racing Bear. Even though his fly was better, he was still last at the turn. He did pretty good in back, closing some ground on the field. On the Breast he not only passed a couple of kids on the outside lane at the other end of the pool, he tracked down the kid to his outside, Tommy, who is Gold coaches son, a teammate of Bears and a good Breaststroker (in fact, he finished 1 spot behind Brett in the 100 breast). Tommy had about a 4 body length lead on Brett and he caught and passed him, getting into the freestyle with about half a body length lead. Tommy’s turn was better and he is a bigger kid with a better freestyle so Brett couldn’t hold him off, but he did great. He finished with a time of 3:26.92
----------------------------------------------------------------

Day 2

100 Free – 1:29.17 – Much better looking Free…just like the 200, had a bit more effort here and he improved significantly from last year with a 1:20.30. Would still like to see him “race” more in this stroke, but we’re getting there.

100 Breast – 1:44.22 – Another spot where I had hope he could get his state cut. If you remember from short course though, Brett was closing in on the 50 time but he had a long way to go in order to get his 100 cut. The conversion utility indicated he’d need to cut a couple of seconds at least to get the time required to swim at state, but with the long course being more about strokes in the middle of the pool, I was hopeful. Again his pullout left a lot to be desired (it’s better, but that 1 dolphin kick has got to get stronger). His stroke in the middle of the pool was really good, and the effort was definitely not lacking here. He finished with a 1:37.31. Good enough for the cut. He finished second this time, only behind the 12 year old that is aging up. The best 12 year old on the team didn’t swim this event. Tommy (referenced in the IM), who finished right behind Brett was 7.5 seconds back.

50 Back – 47.45 – Brett’s back is so smooth, but the pacing is always like he’s doing a 500. He actually was on pace to beat Bear’s time, but his finish was embarrassingly bad. In fact, one of the timers said something to him like, “what was that…” and he responded, “a complete screw up finish.” Even with the poor finish that probably cost him 2 full seconds he posted a 47.92

400 Free – 6:30.09 – Solid swim. Consistent, but lacking a bit in effort. Brett wasn’t willing to push on this yet, it was more of a feeling out of how hard he can work, how much to keep in reserve, etc. I really feel with his free he could be a great distance freestyler, but he’ll need to buy in. His splits…1:30.66, 1:38.49, 1:38.85, 1:35.58 – overall 6:23:58

Breeze · 05-02-2013, 10:38 AM

Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS

Bear

Bear, for the most part had a very disappointing meet, though he wasn’t completely aware of his personal bests coming into the meet, so he thinks he did pretty good and I’m not telling him differently.

--------------------------------------
Day 1

200 Free – 2:56.74 – Took it out WAY to slowly…Again, I think this was a situation where he wanted to get a feel for the pool. He took it out in 1:27.48 and brought it home in 1:27.92. His back half looked really good as he was still charging forward when he got to the wall. I expect his time of 2:55.40 to improve a bunch when he swims this again (more on this in the 400 free write up)

100 Back – 1:36.73 – same old problems, slow off the way, turning like he’s swimming in molasses, and a long finish hurt. Strokes in the middle of the pool were good, but he needs to go harder. Finished with a 1:37.42

50 Breast – 54.24 – Form is better here, but he’s not getting the good early catch with the pull. His hands are hyper flexed so his palms are sticking out, and his finger are pointed up way to long rather than down to get the grab on the way. He finished with a 55.67

100 Fly – NT – The opening 50 looked good…but his form fell apart badly on the back half. Part of it was the need to breathe more often, but he finished with a 1:45.45. Beating Brett in this one helped with the self-esteem a bit.

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

Day 2

50 Fly – 42.69 – While not a personal best, his form was much better. Head was low and face down during breathing which allows for a stronger kick. He’s just got to get used to it and turn it loose in a race. 43.29

100 Breast – 1:52.82 – See 50 Breast…1:56.79

50 Back – 44.30 – See 100 Back – 46.76

400 Free – NT – So Bear was put in Bailey’s heat and he was racing right next to his buddy Riley (the one that is 5’ 6” 130 lbs.). The gun went off and the two of them immediately started pulling away from everyone in the heat. Here are their splits…

Code:

Riley				Bear
1:25.67			        1:27.06
1:32.23 (2:57.90)		1:30.80 (2:57.86)
1:29.31 (4:27.21)		1:29.41 (4:27.27)
1:21.92 		        1:23.68
5:49.13		        	5:50.95

This kills the state cut time by about 6 full seconds. He’s now very pumped up to swim the 800 in the next meet, because he feels he can get that cut too…

EDIT TO ADD: If you do the math on Bear's swim here...his back half 200 in the 400 is faster than the 200 he swam the first day and not by an insignificant amount...it is over 2.3 seconds faster. So significantly faster after racing an opening 200...yeah, he'll need to go out much harder in his next 200 Free...

Breeze · 05-06-2013, 07:26 AM

Goals Update

So the kids have been working on their goals, and while I don't have specific time goals, I do know they are looking ofr the following:

Bear

Now that Bear has the 400 Free he is determined to get the 800 Free as well. Based on how that goes he he may also add the 1500 to the list. He wants to get a cut in some of the other strokes, but he is a long way off on the sprints, and I don't think he'll get close during the long course season. If he can get the times down to where he's within a couple/three seconds of the time he'll have done really well. The one wildcard event is the 400 IM. Because Bear isn't afraid of the mid-level and distance events, he's keeping an eye on this one. If his other strokes come around, then he may attack this one, with hopes that he'll be able to push through the distance to get the cut.

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

Bailey

Bailey is very close to a cut (less than 2 seconds) in 3 races already, and she has 3 more where she could easily get in that same range with a good swim. She wants to get at least 2 state cuts, and I think that is very doable. In fact, I think 3 is likely and 4 would be a good challenging goal. Of course, she'll adjust her goals as she starts to attain them, so it'll be a non-issue.
There are quite a few good 12 and older 11 year olds, so I don't expect Bailey will get on a relay.

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

Brett

Brett has already achieved his biggest goals for this season and we've only just completed the time trials. He's got all 3 state cuts, not his goal is to try and get down to a 40.xx 50, because he feels that will insure he's the breaststroker in the A relay (so a double goal). It will be very difficult for him to get into the 40 second range, as he'll need to cut the time 3 seconds in about 2 months. He's doing extra exercises to get stronger (chin ups, bungee pulls, leg jumps/lifts with ankle weights on). This will also help his 100 Breast as he's looking to cut about 3+ seconds there as well.

He wants another cut outside of the breast, but that isn't going to happen.

He is planning to swim the 1500 in this next race and he wants to beat his friend Jack, and that isn't going to happen either (but it is motivating him).

The coach we use for private lessons (it's Bailey & Bear's team coach), wants him to complete a 100 fly without getting DQed, and I expect he'll get this. Then she wants him to do a 400 IM without getting DQed and I expect he could get this accomplished as well.

If the kids give me specific times that they are shooting for, I'll post them...

Breeze · 05-08-2013, 10:34 AM

General Update

Brett had a moment of frustration last night, feeling that he wasn't very good. He's struggling right now in practice because rather than do a lot of swimming, they are doing more drills and specifically more kicking drills. I've mentioned before that Brett isn't very good at kicking and he's seeing himself get passed (lapped in many cases) and shuffled to the back of the line. This is very different from the way it was at the end of short course season. When the team was prepping for state they were swimming more laps and doing less drills and Brett was not only leading the lane he was passing everybody.

After his private lesson on Saturday, the coach told him to start doing exercises to get his legs stronger. He's done a bit here and there, but following the moment of depression described above, he decided to work hard with his ankle weights, bungee cord, and chin up bar last night. We'll see if he uses this for motivation moving forward.

Izulde · 05-08-2013, 11:49 AM

Just curious, does Brett excel in arm pulls?

When I swam, I would be so slow on the kickboards, everybody, even the slowest people on the team, would lap me, but when we did arm pull drills, I would destroy everyone.

The complete inability to kick is what prevented me from being a good swimmer in terms of competitive times... well that and I never swam year-round.

Breeze · 05-08-2013, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

Just curious, does Brett excel in arm pulls?

When I swam, I would be so slow on the kickboards, everybody, even the slowest people on the team, would lap me, but when we did arm pull drills, I would destroy everyone.

The complete inability to kick is what prevented me from being a good swimmer in terms of competitive times... well that and I never swam year-round.

Yep...in fact it is interesting. Back when we were with Swim Atlanta, they used to do pull sets, where the kids would put a pull bouy between there legs and just pull. When this happened Brett destroyed everyone in his group. Including boys twice his size and kids with sectional cuts. (Gold doesn't use pull bouys and they don't do just pull sets - says it is too hard on the shoulder, and judging from Bailey's problems at the start of the season, I have reason to believe Gold is right).

The bases of Brett's kicking problem comes from his ankles. He truely is a natural Breaststroker, as his ankles turn out: when he walks, when he sits, when he runs...doesn't matter. In fact, when he sits on the floor, rather than sitting indian style (what is was called when I was growing up), he sits on his knees with his feet by his hips flat on the floor. That's sort of difficult to describe, but you can think of it like this - you know the hurdler stretch, when you have the one leg folded back, he does this with both legs, only rather than having the top of the foot down, his side foot is flat on the ground (probably should get a picture to show you...it's unusual). From there his indifference with flutter kick caused it to get worse and he would cheat during all kick sets by mixing in Breast. He's working on it now, and he's a whole lot better, but he still has a ways to go.

Breeze · 05-09-2013, 07:15 AM

Personal Update

Recently, I have put personal information in this thread because I wanted to give you guys more insight into the personalities of my kids. I felt that the more you know, the easier it is to identify with them. So I'm going to use this "personal information" parameter to brag about the twins for a second.

Recently, the Georgia schools did their required Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). This is a standardized test the state of Georgia uses to evaluate not only kids performances but the performances of the teachers. This is the same test that almost 200 City of Atlanta teachers got busted for cheating on, by either directly changing answers or allowing answers to be changed with their knowledge (you may have heard about it on the news).

Anyway, Both Bailey and Bear got a perfect score on the math portion of the exam, and Bear also made a perfect score on the essay writing piece.

Bailey and Bear will also be 2 of the 5 school representatives in the county's Pi Fight (a math competition). During the head-to-head practice match held last month, Bear was the last person standing for his school.

Not sure how Brett did yet...

I have to say I'm really proud. Ok, end of the bragging.

Breeze · 05-14-2013, 07:30 AM

Gold Update

Tonight is the team banquet. We weren't going to go, but we were guilted into it by the twins coach. She said we really needed to be there. Initially we got the impression from the coach, based on her tone and insistence that one of our kids might be recognized during the festivities, and honestly it really isn’t that farfetched. Brett could easily get a mention as being the most improved on the Region team, Bailey could be mentioned for recovering from her shoulder issues to be one of the best swimmers on the Gold group, and Bear could be recognized as the best teammate, as many parents and coaches have commented about how great a sport he is, always excited for everyone else’s accomplishments even in the face of his personal struggles at the end of the season.

However, we now believe the coach just wants the kids to have the experience of being at the event. She wants the twins to get their IronMan (swam every event available for the age group) and First Year pins. Also, the team was struggling to get enough people signed up, we know because the extended the sign up deadline, and the coach may have wanted us there to put more butts in seats.

So at this point, we don’t expect much more than an overpriced mediocre meal and a considerable amount of congratulatory talk about kids I probably don’t know. Maybe it will motivate my kids to the point they will be recognized in the future (one can hope)…

Breeze · 05-15-2013, 09:15 AM

Gold Team Update

So last night we had the team banquet. Figured I’d take a minute to go through our evening - it's kind of long as you can tell...

The location of the event was a Catholic Church (beautiful location) considerably south of our home, but north of my office, so the wife and I met at the facility (in fact, I pulled into the parking lot right behind her). We parked headed to the door, where we waited in a long line to register. When we got up to the registration table (20 minutes later) we found 2 people sitting there, 1 taking names, 1 handing out the meal tickets. This understaffing combined with the fact there were around 450 people in attendance would explain why it took so long.

We luckily were able to sit at a table with the same people we sit with at practice almost daily. After a short wait food was served, only this was also a problem. Remember there are 450 people, and there are only 2 food lines…with two servers in each line for 5 items of food:

Chicken Parmesan – dry but not terrible given the number of people being served
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Alfredo – very, very, very bland
Cesar Salad - it's salad hard to screw that up...
Roll – served cold
Cake – white sheet cake...I didn’t eat, but kids said it was good (of course they would think so)

Obviously this took forever as well…

Finally, everyone was fed and the festivities started. I have to admit that I was concerned about this being terribly boring and long, but I learned quite a few interesting things that I will incorporate below.

The first thing discussed a few tidbits about the team, including that Chattahoochee Gold sent 6 swimmers to the Olympic Trials in 2012, and the goal appears to be 10 swimmers in 2016. The second thing on the agenda was recognizing the graduating seniors. This was the largest class of seniors the team has ever had (makes sense considering the team is growing), and this group of seniors basically re-wrote the team record book for the age group this season only failing to break 2 standing records.

Some items I found interesting:

In the 20 year history of Chattahoochee Gold there has never been a senior swimmer that has not gone on to college.

In this graduating class 70% will be swimming for their college teams. Of the kids not swimming in college….1 has had 3 knee surgeries, 1 gave up swimming for years and returned as a high school junior just to be with her friends, and 1 will be going to Oxford (yes the one in England) on an academic scholarship.

Some of the universities where the seniors will be going include: LSU, GaTech, NC State, and UVA.

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

The next part of the night was handing out plaques to the record breakers of which there were quite a few, including Brett’s friend Jack who broke one of the backstroke records and Bear’s friend Jack who broke a fly event in long course and 3 or 4 in short course.

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

Team pins were handed out for 1 year, 3, year, 5 year, 8 years swimmers

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

Top point getters on the different team levels were recognized

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

Then the big awards were handed out. Unlike many swim teams that hand out a ton of awards for best swimmer, most improved, coaches’ award, and any other title that can be dreamed up, the Gold team only hands out 1 award per age group. It is called the “Gold” award (I know very creative), and it encompasses much more than just swimming. Other items taken into account are: effort at practice, attitude, leadership, personality (friendly, helpful, positive, etc.), and dedication. The kids are nominated by any number of methods (coaches, volunteers, other swimmers, etc.) and the team officials discuss and whittle down the list over a 5 week period.

The trophy is a pretty cool one. It has the ubiquitous swimmer on top of a cup, but the cup is on a wooden base with a black plaque on the front that says the age group and Gold Award Winner, below that is a gold plate with the swimmers name and year. The trophy is given to the swimmer for a year, at the end of the year that swimmer presents the trophy to the winner for the current year, and the swimmers plate is taken off the front and added to one of the pedestals the trophy sits on. The previous year winner then gets a small trophy to keep.

Each recipient was discussed in great detail with stories about their dedication, efforts, items they overcame and more. This is the award that I felt Bear had a good shot at winning because of his hard work, positive attitude, leadership and more. When the 9/10 girls award came up and the twins coach started talking I knew that Bailey had won…I’ll paraphrase the statements of the coach to the best of my ability:

“When this swimmer came to me, she was suffering from a shoulder injury and was unable to swim for over a month. However, she still came to practice every day. She stood next to me on the side of the pool asking questions about who was doing it right, when someone was doing it wrong she wanted to know way, and the whole time she encouraged the other swimmers to keep going.”

“When she eventually got back into the pool, she showed patience, worked extra hard to clean up the technique issues that had led to her injury, and she went on to excel getting several sectional cuts. This girl is always one of the loudest voices at meets cheering for her friends and she is very considerate. In fact, just the other day she requested to move down a lane at practice. I asked her why and she said she didn’t want Gracie to be the only girl in a lane full of boys. It’s this kind of thoughtfulness and attitude that makes me proud to award the 9/10 Girls Gold award to Bailey.”

I was very proud that she received this award, and thinking back on the season for 9/10 girls across all of the Gold facilities it probably was the right choice. Bailey did work very hard, was extremely positive, was a leader in her lane for practice and was a standout in dry land. She attended 90+ percent of practices and was a top performer in the age group. However, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Not because Bailey won, she deserved it, but because Bailey winning meant Bear wasn’t going to. I doubt with team politics that Gold would have allowed Bailey and Bear to both win the 9/10 age group awards. Moreover, Bailey has been on a roll lately, winning medals, breaking times, swimming in multiple events at Sectionals. Bear on the other hand has been scrapping around, working his butt off but with little to show for it. I was hopeful he would get this award and it would add to his motivation. I’m comfortable in saying that if Bear keeps swimming he will certainly win this award at some point, but it would have been helpful if it was last night.

If you’re curious about Brett, he was very focused on what was said. He realized that several of the award winners weren’t the best swimmers on the team, and I believe he sees an opportunity to be recognized in the future. He also heard about several of the senior swimmers that weren’t great swimmers when they were young. They were late bloomers who have developed to the point they are getting a scholarship of some sort to swim in college, and he’s made the correlation that he could easily be that same type of swimmer before he is finished.

Breeze · 05-15-2013, 09:42 AM

I have an image of the Gold Award winners, but the increased dropbox security isn't allowing me to simply make access to the image available over the Internet. I have to specify users that are allowed to view the images.

I looked at photobucket, or rather tried to but we are blocking that at our firewall at work.

I'll try to get the image up tonight...

Breeze · 05-16-2013, 03:28 PM

Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19

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

200 Free – 2:56.47 – could improve some here as she’s beginning to learn how to swim longer distances better

50 Breast – 50.42 – No idea what to expect…she’s getting better at this stroke again, but not sure she’s all the way back yet.

100 Fly – 1:29.49 – She swam this well just last month. Even a slight improvement would be good this time around

200 IM – 3:23.93 – I expect she will improve some here. Second time swimming this event, she’ll know better how hard she can push

100 Free – 1:20.37 – Bailey should be much faster than this time. Most of her contemporaries that she was swimming with or faster than in short course are around a 1:18…so I expect she’ll come in closer to that time than the 1:20 she swam last month

200 Fly – NT – not sure about this one. Bailey’s fly is strong but a 200 can be tough and it can also lead to bad habits. When fatigue sets in a swimmer’s form will start to break up and I’ve seen kids that completely ruined their stroke trying to swim a fly event too long for their strength. I honestly don’t care about the result here, I just don’t want her to develop any bad habits.

50 Back – 40.67 – could get a cut…

400 IM – NT - I expect Bailey will do pretty well here, if her Breaststroke holds up. It may actually help her. If she’ll relax and use the Breast as a recovery stroke, she may hold her streamline longer and get a better kick. We’ll see…

-------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Free – 2:55.40 – I expect a huge improvement here. I outlined why somewhat in the 500 Free swim from the last meet. He had so much more to give in this race last time out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 3+ second drop.

200 Breast – NT – He might drown. His form is much better but for some reason he isn’t getting the critical early grab on the water in the pull phase, which invariably leads to an inefficient stroke. If he does that for a 200, I’ll be watching for quite a while.

50 Free – NT – He has a time here…37.59. Not sure why he wasn’t listed with it. I expect he should beat that time
800 Free – NT – Bear is excited about this one. He feels he can get another state cut. I hope he does, as it would go a long way to boosting his confidence.

100 Free – NT - He actually doesn’t have a time in this. I’m surprised to find that out, could have sworn he did, but nothing is coming up in the USA Swimming database. I expect his time will be similar to Brett’s 1:20.30

100 Breast – 1:56.79 – If he gets an early grab he beats this time, if he doesn’t he won’t. It is that simple.

50 Back – 46.76 – I’d like to say he’s going to do better in this one. For some reason he just doesn’t seem to get any better in back right now. Because of that, I don’t expect much of a change.

400 IM – NT - I don’t expect much. Strokes are still in transition…back half of fly will be a problem, breast catch will potentially be an issue, and the back is pretty flat right now….

--------------------------------------------------------
Brett

200 Free – 3:00.59 – seems to be talking about pushing himself harder in the longer events, we’ll see if he’s going to do it.

100 Back – 1:45.10 – if he believes in his count could improve here.

200 Breast – 3:37.50 – This is his time from last year at state. He’s gotten much better at pullouts and he’s working harder and faster, so this should go down.

100 Fly – NT – Will continue to swim this until he gets a good time. He’s back to working hard on it at practice, and he’s doing a better job of pointing his toes and keeping his feet together. Still will be a challenge to complete a 100 fly without getting DQed

100 Free – 1:20.30 – Hoping for an improvement here again. Not sure we’ll see it. Kick is getting better, but still has a long way to go.

50 Fly – 47.64 – Could improve here. His opening 50 is ok, it isn’t until fatigue set in that he gets sloppy, and with the improvements I’ve seen, I think he has more speed in him

100 Breast – 1:37.31 – He was pretty quick on this last month. Not sure he’ll improve on this time only a month later. We are doing some exercises to try and get the shoulders, lats, and middle back stronger…so maybe?

200 Back – NT – He could be pretty good here. His back is very smooth and consistent. The problem is picking up the pace to race. So a longer event might serve him well. Don’t misunderstand. I don’t expect him to post a fast time, just solid splits and a decent time. (assuming he trusts his count)

Breeze · 05-17-2013, 09:26 AM

Summer League Update

So our Summer League Swimming starts tonight, however, we aren't planning to attend. Tonight will be the neighborhood Time Trials, so it's more like a exhibition that is used for 3 reasons:

1. So the new parents and learn how the meet goes and what is required with their volunteer positions.

2. For the coached to get an updated time on what the kids are swimming so they'll know what events to put the kids in.

3. To make a little extra consessions money for the team coffers

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

There are also a couple of reasons why we aren't attending. The biggest one is that the neighborhood pools is outside and unheated, and the kids (who when to 1 practice last week) reported the water is very cold, and when the sun goes down it's going to be too cold. Also the kids have a year round meet tomorrow, and they don't need to be up late swimming in cold water for a meet that isn't going to matter. Finally, we aren't going to participate because of Bailey's age group...it is going to be pretty intense and we'd rather have Bailey just swim for fun and this Time Trial is going to start the whole process of who belongs on the A relay.

I'll update how competitive Bailey's summer age group team will be later...

Breeze · 05-17-2013, 11:29 AM

Summer League Swimming

Here is a breakdown of the top girls in the 11/12 age group:

Code:

	50 Free	   100 Free  50 Back	50 Brst	50 Fly	  100 IM
Bailey	30.19	   1.07.57   35.20	44.34	 33.44	  1.17.43
Rayley	30.45	   1.07.39   36.94	43.03	 36.19	  1.22.28
MK	29.98	   1.07.37   35.13	39.35	 37.07	  1.14.10
KJ	30.76	   1.06.93   35.14	41.54	 31.28	  1.16.84
CR	29.71	   1.07.81   34.58	43.71	 34.20	  1.21.33
CF	31.89	   1.10.17   37.87	45.32	 38.20	  1.23.45
Reese	33.14	   1.12.49   38.34	41.10	 35.17	  1.23.85
Jordan	35.42	   1.21.69   44.57	43.99	 42.02	  NT

This should give you an idea how tight the age group is. These times are from the year round short course season, so they are several months old, but they are still a pretty good number to build from. There are a couple of other year round swimmers, but they typically have been a few seconds off the ones listed. If they've stepped up in abilty this will get even tighter.

The girls in italics are 12 the rest are 11...

As you can see with the exception of Breast, Bailey is typically one of the top swimmers out of the 8. Even when she is 4th like in the 100 free she isn't far off of the top times. Problem for Bailey is that based on the breakdowns, she might struggle to be on the A relays...in fact, right now the A medley would be:

Back - CR
Breast - MK
Fly - KJ
Free - Bailey (but I'll bet Rayley gets this spot as her freestyle has dramatically improved during long course)

Free Relay is very similar...

CR
MK
Bailey
Rayley

But KJ has also shown big improvements in LC...so Bailey will be in some tight races...

Unfortunately, this has the potential to get ugly...and we'd rather Bailey not be involved. If she clearly belongs on the A team, then fine, if it is debatable, we're probably going to just let the other child have the spot. Bailey will get her turn next year when the 11/12s should be significantly stronger than they will be this year (assuming everyone comes back).

thealmighty · 05-18-2013, 11:02 PM

Might have missed this answer but how does the age stuff work? Are they grouped every two years (even age the older, like 11-12s)? Seems an entire year older in an age group, at the twins age, could be a MAJOR advantage.

Breeze · 05-19-2013, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thealmighty

Might have missed this answer but how does the age stuff work? Are they grouped every two years (even age the older, like 11-12s)? Seems an entire year older in an age group, at the twins age, could be a MAJOR advantage.

Hey Mighty...

Yes, your reading it correctly. The age groups are broken down like this:

6 & Under
7-8
9-10
11-12
13-14
15 & Over

So yes, being the older age in the group does make a huge difference. And in the twins case, even being older doesn't make them really old for the group. The cut off date for age is May 31st, and the twins don't age up until the end of April. So even when they are the older age, they are still young...

I expect next season Bailey's group for Summer League to be extremely strong, as many of the 11 year olds are already almost as fast as the 12 years olds now...meaning they should be much faster next year. I wouldn't be surprised if next year every girl in the 4 in the A relay is faster than the ones that will swim the A this year. We'll need to try and remember to look back on that, because it could be an interesting comparison.

While the twins do suffer a bit when they are on the younger end of the age group, I must admit, I really like the odd years the best, because Brett and Bear get to be on the same relay teams. In past years, they have been able to medal at county in the medley relay, this year I doubt that will happen, but it's still fun...

Breeze · 05-21-2013, 07:51 AM

Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19

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

200 Free – 2:56.47 – Bailey took this race out faster than she did last time, completing the first split almost 2 seconds faster than a month ago. However, her back half was slightly slower than last time so she posted a personal best but it wasn’t a significant improvement 2:55.43

50 Breast – 50.42 – Still struggling with this one…she does look better than she did earlier in the season, but something is still off - 52.10

100 Fly – 1:29.49 – In my pre-race write up I stated that given the fact she swam this well last month and it is a difficult and long race I didn’t expect much of an improvement, what I didn’t tell you (and should have) was that Bailey had much different ideas. Bailey said coming into this race that she would get the state cut in it. She was going to need to drop almost 2.5 seconds to get there, but when all was said and done, she dropped 3.5 and finished sixed overall with a time of 1:26.02

200 IM – 3:23.93 – Huge improvement here. Bailey posted a very strong 3:16.56, Breast is still holding her back in this event.

100 Free – 1:20.37 – Pretty much as I expected, she was much faster, only she was faster than I expected. As I stated, I was looking for something in the 1:18s, and honestly a 1:18 low was what I was expecting, she went a 1:17.37. I knew 1:20 was a poor swim for her.

200 Fly – NT – This was a tough one. Bailey was stressed out about it for days. When the race started she did a nice job of over emphasizing the “wiggle” in the stroke to try and create a deliberate but efficient stroke that would enable her to conserve energy. However, by the time she finished her 100, she wanted to hang on the wall at the turn, but she was urged off and ultimately she only stayed on the wall for about a second. By this time her stroke was already looking bad, and a third of the way down the pool for the 75 meter portion the inevitable happened, she swallowed water and couldn’t breathe. She stopped, at which point she was dqed. She tried to go again so she could finish, but she only got about 4 strokes in before she did it again. She was about to restart for a third time when the coach told her it was ok to get out. I felt bad for her, but I have to admit I wasn’t surprised. She tires so much even during a 200 Free, that I felt a 200 fly was going to be too much.

50 Back – 40.67 – didn’t get a cut…in fact, didn’t improve. I think there was still a fatigue issue from the 200 fly. She finished in – 41:30…so still a good chance at a cut here.

400 IM – NT – Bailey’s 100 fly in this was a pretty good 1:30.7. The back was clearly a recovery stroke for her as she went a pedestrian 1:45.00. The breast was a battle as she posted a poor 2:09.12, which was slowest of the 8 girls swimming and a full 4 seconds slower than the seventh place girl. The free was a pretty quick 1:31.88. All in all she posted a very solid 6:56.70 and earned her second state cut…

Breeze · 05-21-2013, 08:49 AM

Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19
-------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Free – 2:55.40 – So this race was difficult to assess. Bear was good enough to make the fast heat in an outside lane, meaning the middle of the pool was going to be quite a bit faster than he was. He start off and while he got left behind he looked like he was doing well…then he got to the wall did his turn and his head popped up immediately coming off the wall. He finished the 100 but didn’t swim very hard, he pushed for the back half, finishing with a poor time of 3+ minutes. However, the time didn’t matter because he managed to miss the wall on the first turn. In fact, when he got out of the pool he kept saying “I can’t believe I missed the wall”. One of Brett’s friends (Hunter) that was cheering Bear on turned to my wife (who was on deck timing) and said, “He really shouldn’t say that so loud.”…but an official overheard Hunter and responded, “We got the DQ already, so it didn’t matter.” I was very pleased with the way Bear handled this…

200 Breast – NT - This took forever, he tried hard, and he had moments where he looked good, but he still has a ways to go in this event. Moreover, he really doesn’t like the long Breaststrokes, he says they are too slow…(and he means the race is too deliberate…not that he’s too slow, though I’m sure that is part of the issue). He finished with a 4:03.53

50 Free – NT – Slight improvement here, and in fact, Bear’s seed time was an outside line, but he managed to win his heat and beat 1 kids time from the last and fastest heat. He finished with a 36.35

800 Free – NT – Bear was one of only 3 kids swimming in this race. 1 of the kids, Parker (who you’ll probably hear about more as we get closer to State) is a BIG 12 year old, who will turn 13 right after state…and John, also a really good 12 year old, but not a big kid. The race started and Bear was instructed to stay with John, who apparently was instructed to stay with Parker. Almost immediately Parker jumped out to a lead with John about a body length behind, whereas Bear decided when he saw the initial pace to pass on trying to stay with John, and he fell back a good bit. However, Bear was still posting really solid splits. In fact, this is another of the races where I wish I could create a graph that would move based on the splits because Bear and John ended up having a very interesting race. I’ll let you deduce from the splits. Here they are:

Code:

		Bear		John

100		1:28.95		1:19.50
200		1:34.75		1:30.39
300		1:33.75		1:33.25
400		1:33.00		1:34.47
500		1:32.98		1:34.26
600		1:28.83		1:32.28
700		1:26.76		1:30.15
800		1:22.15		1:27.05

Total		12:01.17	12:01.35

After the 500 split Bear began to close on John, after the 600 split the coach looked at me (as I was flipping the lap counter) and she said, “Bear’s trying to catch John”. After the 700 split she smiled and said, “I think he’s going to catch him,” It was pretty exciting for a 12 minute race. After the race Bear’s Coach shared the splits with Brett’s coach and the team’s head coach, and they were all blow away by Bears 1:22 split in the final 100…Brett’s coach even stated, “That’s crazy fast for final 100…”

100 Free – NT - Bear improved here, but not as much as I or he would have liked he posted a 1:19.90. I was hoping for about a second faster, but felt a 1:19 low was very doable (again I think it is important to note that his personal best is a 1:19.90 and he sway a 1:22.15 in the final 100 of an 800 free).

100 Breast – 1:56.79 – Swam almost exactly the same time, with a 1:56.88

50 Back – 46.76 – Another small improvement with a time of 45.21

400 IM – NT – Bear fought hard on this one. His fly was a 1:47.37, only a couple seconds off his personal best, then he swam a 1:43.24 back, and a 2:03.44 breast, followed up with a 1:28.69 free. Overall time was a 7:02.74. He just missed the State Cut by a couple of seconds…but…he’s ok with it. He really didn’t like this event. He was also disappointed following this race. With his recent struggles he’s back to feeling like he isn’t as good as his siblings. I believe in his heart he thought he might get Bailey in this one due to the distance. And in fact, he out swam Bailey in everything but Fly…I also believe without a shadow of a doubt that if he wants to swim this and he does it again, he can get the cut…but I’m not sure he wants to swim it again…

Breeze · 05-21-2013, 11:36 AM

Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19
-------------------------------------------------
Brett

200 Free – 3:00.59 – Brett definitely pushed himself harder in this event. His rotations were faster, but without shortening the stroke. He kicked much harder too. He still needs to get his legs higher in the water to be more affective, but it was much, much better. Final time 2:51.73, a 9 second improvement over last month…

100 Back – 1:45.10 – Again the effort was better. Still needs to increase his rotations. In fact, one of the assistant coaches from another pool was standing next to me during this race, and he was watching the kid in the lane next to Brett, and at one point he commented, “I’m not sure who the kid next to Tommy is, but he’s got an extremely powerful stroke. In fact, if he’ll increase his rotation he’d be really fast.” Brett improved here by 7+ seconds with a 1:37.93.

200 Breast – 3:37.50 – Brett was seeded third coming into this race, but at the 100 he was holding a slight lead on the field with a split of 1:37.65 (second was 1:37.77 and third was 1:38.49). However, going back on the 75 leg I noticed his swim cap looked a little funny. Before he reached the wall, the cap was all distorted on his head, and it just got worse coming home. It ended up that during the dive into the streamline water got under the cap and caused it to balloon on his head. He tried to knock it off when he dove into streamline by rubbing his arms against the side of his head, but it stubbornly held on. Before he finished he had a huge bubble bobbing forwards and backwards during his stroke. I’m sure it caused significant drag and slowed him down. I don’t know how much of an impact it was, but knowing it was there was a huge distraction and definitely caused a serious impact. He did improve his time regardless posting a 3:24.17. I believe he’s capable of a 3:21 high…

100 Fly – NT – Swallowed water on the 50 leg…stopped and got out. His coach was going to chew his butt, but before the coach could say anything to him, he apologized and told the coach to put him back in this event at the next meet, that he was going to get a good time. By the way, his form looked much better, but he was stiff and with very little explosion. Probably do to overthinking and not racing.

100 Free – 1:20.30 – After the 200 I felt we could see an improvement here and we did. Personal best of 1:18.39.

50 Fly – 47.64 – Like the early part of the 100, he had a very stiff and deliberate stroke. He finished with a disappointing 50.26…but the form is getting better…and the coaches are still convinced that he’ll ultimately be a great flyer…

100 Breast – 1:37.31 – Went out hard, wanted to win his heat (which would have made him second. His buddy Jack won outright with a 1:29.89 and Brett wasn’t getting there). At the opening 50 he was close. Faded on the back half a bit, but still improved by a couple of seconds to a 1:35.39

200 Back – NT – The long efficient stroke worked pretty well for him here. He went out in 1:39.48 and came home in 1:43.09. The 3:22.57 wasn’t a great time, but he didn’t embarrass himself and he probably would have in this event a couple of years ago. Interestingly, Brett would need a 3:07.99 to get a state cut in this event. While the 14 or so seconds seem like a bunch, it isn’t uncommon to see kids drop a significant amount of time the second race at that distance. So while I don’t expect him to get this cut, I won’t put it out of the realm of possibility either.

Breeze · 05-30-2013, 06:59 AM

Summer League – meet at Grand Cascades

We open our summer season (minus the time trials which we didn’t attend) at the juggernaut that is Grand Cascades. Last year we swam against them to end the season and were whipped by around 300 points. I expect it to be worse today. My kids will swim the following:

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

100 Medley Relay : B Team – Breaststroke Leg - (I did email the coach and I told her Bailey wasn’t swimming this stroke well, but she put her in it for the relay anyway)

50 Free – I believe she but Bailey in this one so she can get a current time to compare to the girls that swam at time trials in order to come up with her Free Relay teams, but what the coach failed to take into account is that during time trials the kids were hand timed, and Grand Cascades has a full touch pad system, so it will be electronic times…

50 Fly

100 Free Relay: B Team – Bailey will be the anchor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

100 Medley Relay: A Team – Fly leg (probably should be in the Back leg, but it won’t matter, this team isn’t beating GCs relay anyway)

50 Free – Not sure why she choose this event for Bear

100 IM – Bear will get killed in this. Poor kid just turned 11 and he’ll be racing some top notch year rounders who are almost 13. Brett’s buddy Jack will race Bear in this one…

100 Free Relay : A Team – Third Leg
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett

100 Medley Relay : A Team – Breast leg

100 Free – Brett will get killed by his buddy Jack in this one

50 Breast – could have a good race here. Another boy (one I’m not familiar with) has a time very similar to Brett’s seed time. Not sure if that is from the GC time trials or last year, as Brett’s seed time is from last year.

100 Free Relay : A Team – Brett will anchor the team. He shouldn’t Riley should, but again it won’t matter.

Breeze · 05-30-2013, 07:00 AM

General Update

Brett completed his first two a day practice yesterday. He was tired but pretty proud of himself for his effort.

Breeze · 05-31-2013, 08:41 AM

Summer League – meet at Grand Cascades

The meet when pretty much as expected. Last year we lost 556 to 234, this year it was a bit better...485 to 308...

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

100 Medley Relay : B Team – Bailey and Reese flip strokes heading into this race. It was funny, Bailey really didn't want to swim Breast because of her struggles right now in that stroke, and apparently Reese has similar feelings about her fly (though I think Reese's fly is better comparitively speaking then Bailey's Breast)...as it turns out it was a very good decision, as Reese actually won the 50 breast for the age group, and Bailey was 3rd in the 50 fly (only losing to our A swimmer and GCs A swimmer- more on that later). I didn't get to see the race, but was told they did very well, and they killed the GC - B team, so them must have done pretty good.

50 Free – Bailey did good...her time wasn't overly impressive 30.87 but it was good enough for second only losing to her SA friend that was termed the beast a few years back because of how well she was swimming and how big she was. She also beat some pretty good girls in the heat, Reese, Caroline (but Caroline was wearing a cast...which comes off next week - so this could get interesting), and Jaeden, another old friend from SwimAtlanta

50 Fly - I warned Bailey prior to this race that she really needed to pay attention on the start because the buzzer wasn't very loud and the starter was pretty quick to get the kids off the blocks. Unfortunately, my warning didn't help...she was last off the block, by ALOT (sigh)...anyway, she swam well despite that, as she closed hard on the opening 25 and was only a touch behind at the turn. Bailey's turn was a bit sloppy, which cost her, but she finished with a good 33.97, losing to KJ by 1 second and the GC Flyer by .5 seconds, with a terrible start...

100 Free Relay: B Team – Race was over by the time Bailey hit the water, they couldn't catch first or second and they weren't going to get caught for 3rd...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

100 Medley Relay: A Team – Missed this race too...in fact, when I walked into the pool the Free swimmer in the relay had apparently just touched the wall, because he was waiting for the rest of the event to finish...Spilts say Bear swam a 37.xx leg in the fly...

50 Free – Bear did well here. He wasn't going to be the A swimmer from GC, but he did beat their B swimmer with a solid 32.08 (and another poor turn, poor kid just hasn't figured out his taller body yet).

100 IM – As expected Bear got killed. Brett's buddy Jack swam the event in 1:03.91...Bear didn't even get a personal best as he posted a 1:24.xx...not a great swim for him, but he did finish 2nd.

100 Free Relay : A Team – Bear missed the wall again on his turn...dark, poorly lit pool, he lost his perscription googles and as I said above, he just isn't comfortable with his new body yet. He was very upset feeling he had let the team down. Of course he didn't because he'd have needed to give Brett (anchor) about a 7 second lead for him to even have a chance to hold off Jack...As it turns out they finished 2nd with a decent time considering the missed wall on the turn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett

100 Medley Relay : A Team – (race is described above)...poor split in the low 40 second range - I'm sure the 2 hour practice a few hours before had an impact

100 Free – Brett swam a pedestrian 1:12.xx, as he cruised most of the way. I understand way, Jack swam a sub minute, and he wasn't going to catch Jack, and the 3rd place swimmer was well behind and wasn't going to catch Brett, but I want to see him work on sprinting during the summer. We talked about this after the meet...we'll see if he takes it to heart.

50 Breast – just like bailey in the fly, I warned him about the start, and just like bailey he didn't execute and was basically still on the blocks when everyone else was in the water. Again swam in the 40 second range...mid 40s this time, and was disappointed, felt he should have won (and he should have). The bad start hurt, and the fatigue from a hard practice was clearly a factor here. This loss might actually be a good thing in the long run though. Because GCs breaststroker beat Brett, they will probably keep him in that event at the county meet, and Brett can beat this guy. Had Brett won, they may have moved Jack to breast and Brett can't beat Jack...

100 Free Relay : A Team – (Race is described in Bear's write up)...Brett swam a uninterested 33 low...again he couldn't catch Jack and the 3rd place team wasn't going to catch him...

Breeze · 06-03-2013, 03:14 PM

General Update

We just got the word from the Gold team that Bailey and Bear will begin transitioning to the Region team starting next week. They will swim with Region twice a week and with Gold's Gold team the rest of the week.

This is good in that it will shorten the amount of time we are at the pool. It is bad in that Brett will now be on the same team with his siblings and that tends to cause him some self esteem issues.

Breeze · 06-06-2013, 08:44 AM

Summer League Meet vs Lake Forrest

Lake Forrest is Brett's buddy Hunter's team (Bailey's friends, the twins Hailey and Hayden are Hunter's sisters so they will be there too). This will be an interesting meet because CRC is a bigger deeper team, which will help at the County Meet when swimmers are limited to 2 events, but on a Thursday meet, the small size (only 89 swimmers are showing up from Lake Forrest), allows the good swimmers to have extra events, and thus earn more points.

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

200 Yard Medley Relay - B Team - Bailey is doing the fly leg again. Which she should. The relay teams have been reorganized because of Reese's strong swim in the Breast last week. Reese moves up to the A relay and MK who was doing the Breast moves to the Back, and Rayley moves from Back to Free. The Freestyler from the A relay will now swim Free for the B relay. I'm actually a bit disappointed in this. I would have loved to see the B relay with Reese and Caroline (CR) race the A relay as it was composed last week. I think it could have been tight. But the B breaststroker will be about 6 seconds slower than the Reese so no shot...

50 Free - Bailey is back in this event this week, which is fine. She gets to race Cameron, which is interesting because Cameron currently swims in the A Free Relay. Not sure if Bailey wins here if she'll be on the A Relay or not...probably not, because they will go by time (which is sort of stupid with hand started and stopped watches and volunteer parents that don't understand the importance of being accurate)...

50 Fly - Bailey will be matched up with a girl Taryn, who she beat a few weeks ago in a year round meet in a Long Course 100 Fly...this could be close. Taryn is much bigger so the turns/walls might give her the edge here. KJ will probably win the event...

200 Free Relay - B Team - Bailey will anchor the B relay, and with Caroline (CR) on it this time, they should be a good bit faster than last week...

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Medley Relay - A Team - Bear has the fly leg in this relay (I think he should probably be doing the back, and I may say something about that next week...anyway, Bear will Match up with Alex G...who is the best 11 year old in county and one of the top 5, 11 year olds in the state, and Fly - it's his best stroke. He will probably have a lead at the start of his leg, (assuming Riley doesn't screw up the backstroke start like he's done the last 3 times they have done this relay)...but he won't be able to hold it, and the freestlyer isn't going to make up the difference.

100 IM - Not sure why they've earmarked Bear to do the IMs...he likes them, but he isn't the best swimmer on the team and usually, IM falls to the best swimmer. Anyway, Bear will race Hunter here and get beat by 10 seconds or so...but Bear should be 3rd place by 20 or more seconds...

50 Fly - Bear misses Alex G here, not sure why he isn't swimming this event, but we won't complain. Bear will race Caleb for the win in this race, but Caleb is a big boy and will probably beat him by a couple of seconds...

200 Free Relay - A Team - Bear will lead off, which might be a really good thing if he is focused in, because when he is, he's quick off the blocks...he'll be way behind and the handoff regardless because he's matched up with Alex G again...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett

200 Medley Relay - A Team - Brett is doing Breast and he'll race Hunter in his leg. Brett and Hunter are about the same (because Hunter is much stronger off the walls)...again won't matter because of Alex G in the fly...

50 Free - Brett gets to race Hunter here again, and Hunter will kill him. Riley James will be in this one as well and Brett won't beat him either. The key will be if Brett can beat Caleb from Lake Forrest for third place.

50 Breast - Brett gets Alex G in this one, and this could be interesting. This is Alex's worst stroke, but he's still very good. Brett will be tired because he'll have a 2 hour practice just 2 hours before this meet (the twins will have a 1.5 hour practice too, in case you are wondering), and that may fatigue him enough that he won't approach a personal best of 38 low...so this could be tight. Interestingly, Hunter is really pulling for Brett. Hunter and Alex G have a rivalry going to see who will get the award for most points for the team, and last week Hunter had to swim Breast (he doesn't like Breast) and he lost, which gave Alex the lead. Alex won't lose often this Summer so Hunter really wants Brett to pull this out.

200 Free Relay - A Team - Brett has the second leg, because he doesn't have an updated 50 free time...meaning he's currently the slowest of the 4 swimmers. He should better Alex As (CRC Swimmer) time in the 50 during this meet, and he might beat Bears time too...

Breeze · 06-13-2013, 09:18 AM

Summer League Meet vs Lake Forest

CRC won the meet with Lake Forest by about 120 points...some of the advantage was because the Lake Forest coach did a terrible job setting lineups...they also lost about 80 swimmers from last years team (many of them year round swimmers)

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

200 Yard Medley Relay - B Team - Bailey B relay was right with the A relay in the back because Caroline swam a great leg. In the second leg they fell way behind, but still managed to beat Lake Forest's A team to finish second.

50 Free - Swam a 30.22 and finished 2nd, only losing to a girl who already turned 13 (Taryn), who will be one of the best swimmers in county regardless of the events she choses to swim...Bailey beat Cameron in this race and Cameron has been swimming on the A free relay...

50 Fly - Finished 3rd...losing to Taryn and KJ...beat Caroline. Good swim with a time of 33.32

200 Free Relay - B Team - Bailey's group beat the A relay from Lake Forest...swam a good 2:04 time for a B relay...

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bear

200 Medley Relay - A Team - The Medley Relay finished 2nd...couldn't keep up with the Lake Forest Boys...Bear swam a good Fly leg, but he was way behind Alex G who will have a shot to be top 3 in the county meet...

100 IM - Bear finished 2nd behind Brett's buddy Hunter. Swam a 1:22.03 so a nice improvement over the previous week...

50 Fly - Hung with Alex initially, but fell back in the back half. Finished 2nd and swam a 37.34

200 Free Relay - A Team - Again, no shot to keep up with Lake Forest...finished 2nd...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett

200 Medley Relay - A Team - Brett beat Hunter in his leg, see Bear's write up for the rest...

50 Free - Brett finished 2nd with a 32.09 time...lost to Hunter by several seconds.

50 Breast - Brett was very pumped up for this race and it showed. He got a good start - trialed after the pullout but Alex's strong fly clearly helped with that...but it took no time for Brett to make up the difference and he pulled away at the end posting a 37.75...

200 Free Relay - A Team - Decent leg for Brett...but it didn't matter...

Breeze · 06-13-2013, 09:37 AM

Polo Fields vs CRC

Bailey

200 Medley Relay - Still doing Fly on the B (where she should be)...I don't think Caroline is currently scheduled so swim with this group, which is wrong. I think it is attributed to a bad manual time for another girl last week in the backstroke....

50 Free - Still got Bailey in this one and it is going to be a tight one...Bailey, Cameron and Caroline are all swimming this event, and Polo with swim a girl with a sub 30 time...those 4 will be very tight...(unfortunately I'm not a place judge this week, because I'm sure the people doing it will screw this up...)

100 IM - Bailey was moved to 100 IM this time... and she'll be in a tight contest with Rayley and a girl from Polo....

200 Free Relay - Because Bailey beat Cameron last week they moved her into the A Free relay...hopefully the team will post there best time of the season tonight so Bailey can swim with the A team at county (because the A team has a shot at a medal)...

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

Bear

200 Medley Relay - Bear is still in the fly leg. Polo has one of the best 12 year olds in the county Leyton...and another good swimmer. Not sure how our relay will match up, because I don't know how good Polo's other 2 swimmers are. My bet is Polo wins...

50 Free - Bear's turn in this one...unfortunately he matches up with Riley and Leyton...no shot...3rd at best...

50 Fly - Matches up with Riley again, but could get 2nd...

200 Free Relay - See Medley....

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

Brett

200 Medley Relay - See Bear's write up

100 Free - Unless there are bad times or the one kid with a NT in the event are must faster than indiated, Brett has a good shot to win this one...

50 Breast - Nobody is close to him in time...but some of the seeds could be old times...we'll see

200 Free Relay - See Bear's write up...

Breeze · 06-14-2013, 02:27 PM

Polo Fields vs CRC

We were rained out last night...the boys did win their relay and Bailey's relay finished 3rd as usual. The short free races also went off...

Bear swam a 32.24 and finished 3rd as expected.

Bailey swam a 30.27 and by time she finished 3rd by place judge she finished 4th...suprisingly the pace judges had the 4th place girl finishing second...(I had her 4th like the clock...but I wasn't place judge for that race)...

The rest was a wash...

Breeze · 06-14-2013, 02:34 PM

Swim with Dad @ GaTech 6/15-6/16

We have a year round meet on Saturday and Sunday, but with the preparations for the county meet, being out of town, the meet last night and the other dynastys I'm doing, I haven't had the oportunity to review the psych sheet...

Here are what the kids are swimming...

Bailey

200 Free
50 Fly
200 IM
100 Back
200 Back
100 Free
50 Back
100 Fly

Bear

200 Free
200 IM
100 Breast
400 Free
50 Breast
100 Free
50 Back
200 Breast

Brett

50 Fly
200 IM
50 Free
400 Free
50 Breast
100 Free
50 Back
100 Fly

04-15-2013, 11:20 AM	#255
FrogMan Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada	I don't visit FOFC much anymore, and even less the dynasty board so I had not seen this dynasty. Well, I had seen it just last week but just assumed it was about your own training in the pool. Just took a shot and started reading the first post this morning and I'm hooked. Just read the post describing your kids and got all teary eyed reading about Brett's DQ in Savannah. This whole swimming thing hits quite close to home as our youngest (who just turned 9 in January) is going through his first season of competitive swim training. He trains 4 times a week for a total of about 5 to 5.5 hours in the pool every week. And he also got DQed, about a month ago, for mixing his styles and starting his 3rd 25m back at backstroke instead of breastroke in a 100 IM. He realised it after maybe 7 or 8 meters but it was too late. I'm reading back from the start and will eventually post to tell more about my own son if you want, but not before I'm up to date on my reading, in order not to spoil anything I'm interested to see how different swimmers development is from the States to us here in Quebec/Canada. FM PS: hope this shows up all right since I'm posting from tapatalk on my iPad after copying from a txt file from my computer... See ya in a few days, when I'm done reading it all. __________________ A Black Belt is a White Belt who refused to give up... follow my story: The real life story of a running frog...

04-15-2013, 11:54 AM	#258
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Brett has an ear infection and won't be able to fully practice for a week or more. He'll probably just do kicksets to keep his head out of the water. Maybe this will be a good window of opportunity where he'll be able to work out some of his sloppy kicking techniques. Lexi, who moved to Arizona, has once again hurt her knee. This time it is on the back and inside. She was trying to do PE with her friends and she was doing the hurdles. Obviously she shouldn't have been, but it has to be extremely hard for a 10 year old to walk away from playing, especially one that is competitive like Lexi. These surgeries have really stolen a good bit of her childhood. She is scheduled to meet with an orthopedic this week. I'll update you when I hear the results... Last edited by Breeze : 04-18-2013 at 02:52 PM.

04-18-2013, 08:36 PM	#262
FrogMan Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada	I'm slowly making my way through the first posts, reading this as a novel man, compelling stuff! I know my heart was crushed when Brett had his bad meet (Woodie B. Malone) and then I caught myself saying it with you before his next meet: "please let him do well" and I was very happy when he did do well. Anyway, for you it's well in the past and I'm sure I'll read many more stories like that about your kids, but I wanted to say that I deal with many kids of his type, with ADHD and such, in the field of martial arts and it's always nice to see them succeed or at least have interest in something. I also realize that we have a very similar way of thinking, re: sleeping out as a reward for training hard. We don't often realize that kids don't get a paycheck for their life. It's those little rewards that are their paychecks, and in a sport like swimming where it's a lot of actual training and sort of little playing, it gets even more important. I compare Matthew to Andrew, our oldest son, who plays hockey. Sure he's got practices, but they are still mostly playing, not always doing laps and laps and laps around the rink... Back to reading. FM __________________ A Black Belt is a White Belt who refused to give up... follow my story: The real life story of a running frog...

04-19-2013, 08:02 AM	#264
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General/Personal Update On the positive side for Brett, he has his first official girlfriend! The girl's name is Maddie, and to be honest, I'm not even sure which one she is. I'll see if I can figure it out and I'll let you guys know more about her. It was actually a funny little story. I believe I've mentioned that Brett has become really good friends with another swimmer named Hunter. Well Hunter is a very outgoing, funloving, big kid that is constantly interacting with others, and in a general manner flirting with girls. Brett has been riding his coat tails for a while in these interactions, and it has really opened up the door for Brett to become more social. Hunter tends to break the ice in conversations, and then Brett's is able to add some wit and clever humor. We knew for a while that Hunter and Brett both had girls they were interested in, we just weren't sure which ones (as Brett certainly wasn't going to tell us). We finally determined it was Maddie. Interestingly, most of the kids that come to swimming carpool from time to time, and all the parents sit together while the kids are swimming. One day, the conversation turned to who the kids were interested in, and one of the mothers mentioned on the way into the pool, 4 girls that were riding together were talking about which boys they liked, and one of the girls (the driver wasn't sure which one) mentioned Brett...When she heard Brett's name she tried to listen more intently, but nothing more came up. She later determined the girl was Maddie. Once we learned this, we figured it would just be a matter of time before this "dating" thing occurred. I wonder how long before I'll be expected to take them to the movies. My bet is that Brett and Hunter will want to "double date" before the end of May - we'll see, and I'll definately let you know. I'll bet as long as Maddie and Brett are together it won't be difficult to get him to go to practice . However, when the breakup occurs, he may give up the sport... Last edited by Breeze : 04-19-2013 at 08:04 AM.

04-26-2013, 07:28 AM	#268
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Long Course Time Trials – Cumming Aquatic Center 4/27-28 The long course season kicks off this weekend. Below I will list the events and seed times for the kids, but I really won’t have any idea of what to expect in regards to times. The difference in the pool distances makes it difficult to predict. The kids should significantly improve significantly over any seed times that are from last year…so hopefully, this will be a good meet for self-esteem. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey 200 Free – 3:12.95 (I believe this is a made up time) 100 Back – 1:35.03 100 Fly – NT 200 IM – NT 100 Free – NT 50 Fly – 43.40 50 Back – 45.85 400 Free – NT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bear 200 Free – NT 100 Back – NT 50 Breast – NT 100 Fly – NT 50 Fly – NT 100 Breast – NT 50 Back – NT 400 Free - NT Bear has long course times, for some reason the coach didn’t enter them. If I get some time later today I’ll look them up and put them in another post -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett 200 Free – 3:13.87 (I believe this is a made up time) 50 Breast – 47.72 100 Fly – NT (my guess is he gets DQed here…was working on this stroke but because of the ear infection it has been several weeks without the extra attention) 200 IM – 3:32.07 (this is a made up time, I’m pretty sure, and a DQ here wouldn’t surprise me – see above) 100 Free – 1:29.17 100 Breast – 1:44.22 50 Back – 47.45 400 Free – 6:30.09 (this is a made up time) Last edited by Breeze : 04-26-2013 at 11:27 AM.

04-02-2013, 12:23 PM	#251
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League Schedule Still not sure if we will be swimming in the Summer League, but here is the schedule... CRC Time Trials - 5/17 Week 1 - 5/30 Week 2 - 6/6 Week 3 - 6/13 Week 4 - 6/20 Week 5 - 6/27 County Meet - 6/29 ASA Championship - 6/30 GRPA State Championships - 7/26-28

04-02-2013, 12:25 PM	#252
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	I still owe you goals for the upcoming long course season, but we will be heading out of town for a couple of days, so I probably won't get those posted before we leave.

04-09-2013, 01:42 PM	#253
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League Schedule So the opponents for the Summer League have been announced... CRC Time Trials - 5/17 Week 1 - 5/30 - Grand Cascades - Away (oh joy, we open with the juggernaut) Week 2 - 6/6 - Lake Forrest - Home (5th in county) Week 3 - 6/13 - Polo Fields - Home (2nd in county) Week 4 - 6/20 - Aberdeen - Home (3rd in county) Week 5 - 6/27 - Fieldstone - Away (6th in county) County Meet - 6/29 ASA Championship - 6/30 GRPA State Championships - 7/26-28 Still not sure if we are going to swim Summer League and here is why... It will cost us: $130/kid to register for the team $20/kid for league registration $40/boy for team suits $60 for Bailey's suit 390 + 60 + 80 + 60 = $590... and we are having to juggle our schedule just to make the meets. This is a tough decision, because Summer is when the year round kids get to shine. They are the stars of the team and it is really good for the self esteem. Plus Summer league is fun...

04-15-2013, 10:38 AM	#254
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League Swimming After talking with the swim team coordinators and coming to an understanding, we have signed up to swim in the Summer League...

04-15-2013, 11:50 AM	#257
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update I often struggle with regards to how much information to post out side of swimming. For the most part I've kept to swimming and swimming related facts, but I'm not sure if I should expand some of the posts to include items that will help you get a more deep understanding of my kids and their personalities...The reason I stated this is: I know I've mentioned several times in this thread that Brett is a very intelligent kid. Just to give you some background. Brett is in 7th grade (would be in 6th if I had my way), and he recently scored in the 99.5 percentile in a standardized test for problem solving. That earned him the right to enter the Duke University Tip program, which we took advantage of. One of the items that program provides is the right to take the ACT or SAT test, so we signed Brett up. We didn't stress it, and we only decided to use to test as a way to gauge his performance and to identify what he'll need to focus on moving forward. He did no pretest training or practice tests and he scored: Verbal - 420 Math - 470 Writting - 390 Total - 1280

04-18-2013, 09:24 AM	#261
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General/Personal Update So the twins age up today. They turn 11, which means they no longer have any state cuts and the times required to earn a cut are much faster. Bear will have his Birthday party this Saturday after practice. He is bringing over several kids from swimming to play games. We'll go up to the middle school football field and potentially play: - flag football - utimate frisbee - Wheeler Ball (like utlimate frisbee, but with a football) - Gotcha (basketball game) - Wiffle Ball - Frisbee Golf (backyard style) Bailey's party will be next weekend, and she's having a glow in the dark sleepover/dance party. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Also, we found out last night that Bear has taking change out of his bank and buying his friends snacks from the vending machine each day. He really enjoys making others feel good, and to him it was worth doing because he doesn't need anything and his friends appreciated what he was doing. Recently, he ran out of money (after spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $30), so he elected to come up with some other ways to be generous. Yesterday, he gave away some pennies, only they were collectible pennies. We aren't sure which ones they were because he hadn't cateloged them yet (at one point he thought he wanted to collect coins). We had to have a long talk with Bear about this, but it is really hard. He genuinely wants to be nice to others, so you don't want to squelch that as a parent, but you have to make sure he isn't setting himself up to be taken advantage of. This was a difficult talk...

04-19-2013, 07:47 AM	#263
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Bailey and Bear came home with their medals from the Northern Divisional Meet on Tuesday (4/16). Bailey had 4 Gold, 1 Silver, and 2 Bronze. She looked pretty Phelpsian with all of them around her neck at the same time. Bear was also very proud of his two (silver & bronze). This was another difficult situation for the wife and me. We had to be complementary of the twins and their accomplishments, but once again Brett, who wants desperately to earn a year round medal, had to be reminded that he doesn’t have one. He pouted a bit, and it was obvious from his body language that it was a bitter pill to swollow. He even commented that "I never earned a medal when I was there age." (of course he conveniently forgets that he mailed in practice at their age and was only concerned about Breaststroke which clearly limited his opportunities to earn a medal. Plus he was swimming with Swim Atlanta and faced 3 times the number of year round swimmers that the twins faced at the Northern Divisional Meet) Brett’s reaction…while it seems pretty childish for the 12 going on 13 year old, I think illustrates how difficult this situation is for him, he created his own “medal” from a note card and pen for the 200 Breast he won but was disqualified in earlier in the season. I really hope we can find an event this long course season that will be handing out medals (not ribbons) with a weak lineup of swimmers, and Brett can earn one this season. If he doesn’t get one this long course season, he won’t get one for quite a while. Once he ages up to 13, he’ll fall further behind the good swimmers, until he really hits his growth spurt.

04-24-2013, 10:09 AM	#266
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Personal Update Great news...Lexi's knee injury won't require surgery. She got a shot in the knee and will be in physical therapy for about 3 weeks, but she should be fine...

04-25-2013, 07:31 AM	#267
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Couple of interesting notes. The Summer practice schedule has been released, and Brett's team is scheduled to do two a days a couple times a week. In the past, the two a days were only offered for the Region swimmers that were close to advancing to the Senior team, and Brett isn't so we emailed the coach to ask what we should do with Brett. He suggested that Brett should go to the two a days...but that he'd talk with Brett and let him know. That is wasn't urgent that he attend both practices, but he needs to start preparing for it. Also, because practices have been moved to early afternoon, we are going to have a hard time getting the kids there. In fact, we will have to solicit help from my parents...because of this we really don't want to ask them to make multiple trips to the pool, so we asked if the twins could practice a couple of days a week with Region. Interestingly, the response was..."I'm concerned about Bailey..." This was not what I was expecting. Bailey is swimming so well right now, and Bear is still struggling a bit, I really thought I'd hear Bear wasn't ready. The coach said, she feels Bear is physically ready, but she wasn't sure Bailey has the muscle mass to get through the longer practices. After thinking about it, I now understand where the coach is coming from. Bear is much better at the distance swims, and that does translate into being able to handle the longer practices. All this said, it does look like the twins will be practicing a couple times a week with Region. The kids will be putting together their goals tonight, but they will be limited. Because it has been so long since they swam Long Course...they aren't sure what times to shoot for, so they are going to wait until after the time trials this weekend to be more specific with the goals...

04-30-2013, 06:41 AM	#272
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General/Personal Update Still waiting on the official results from the meet, will be doing an update once they come out. However, I did get an email from Lexi's dad with an update on her status. Here is what he had to say... "Lexi went to PT today. He wants her back in the water now. He said her atrophy is causing misalignment in her posture and knees…fixable with therapy and strengthening. Her knee cap shifted when she did those hurdles…he said they can fix that with PT also. Everything is so fragile in those knees…stinks. He doesn’t want her to run…ever. Says she has more to lose than she has to gain. No breaststroke either. Encouraged her to just get really good at the other three strokes."

05-02-2013, 09:17 AM	#273
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS Bailey Woke up the morning of the race with a barky cough again, this is never a good sign… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 1 200 Free – 3:12.95 – Bailey really doesn’t like the longer swims, but for the first time this weekend she really tried to push more in a race of this distance. She opened with a 1:25.04 and finished with a 1:31.43, for a personal best time of 2:56.47. She can still do better, but it is a start. 100 Back – 1:35.03 – Bailey got a bad start here and while she swam well, she really didn’t seem to have the burst she did at the end of the short course season in her back. I have a hunch that she was conserving herself a bit knowing that the 100 Fly and 200 IM next, and I can tell you, after looking at the short course pools all fall and winter, the long course pool looks very intimidating…She swam a personal best 1:31.73. I suspect she’ll improve on this a good bit throughout the season. 100 Fly – NT – I knew Bailey would swim well here, but I was concerned that there wouldn’t be anyone to push her. By being entered with a NT seed, she was in the first heat, which is usually kids that will have a hard time completing a 100 Fly without getting DQed. However, Bailey matched up with an old 12 year old we are familiar with from Summer League and Swim Atlanta. They were right next to each other and they had an awesome race. Taryn, took the early lead, but Bailey stayed on her hip, at the turn Bailey started to charge and by the 2/3 point on the back half, She had taken the lead, and Taryn started fading back. Bailey swam a 1:29.49, and she beat Taryn by 2 full seconds. Also she’ put herself in a position where she might be able to earn this cut before the end of July. 200 IM – NT – Bailey was still dealing with fatigue when this race started. While her fly was pretty, she wasn’t terribly fast with it, being around seventh out of the 10 racing to the wall on the opening leg. Back was good not great, Breast still needs work. She looked strong in the free, but it was too little too late at that point. Her time 3:23.93 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 2 100 Free – NT – This was a poor swim from Bailey. She really wasn’t pushed by those around her, but she also didn’t seem to be into this race. Not sure if she was conserving for the 50 Fly, but I wasn’t impressed with the time or effort. She finished with a 1:20.37, I feel she really should be a 1:18 low without much problem. We’ll see where this goes in the next meet. 50 Fly – 43.40 – This was probably Bailey’s best shot coming in to get a State Cut in this meet, and she looked strong. For having just turned 11, she did extremely well finishing eighteenth with a time of 38.31, only 1 second from the cut. Also an interesting side note, she was only .2 of a second behind MK a Summer League teammate who is 12 and swims with Brett on the Region team. 50 Back – 45.85 – Bailey’s back here was a perfect illustration of why I felt she was conserving in the 100 back on day 1. She was fast in this one, with a strong kick throughout. She still had a poor start, which she’ll need to clean up, but she finished tied with MK, who is a very good back stroker, at 15 overall. Her time 40.67. This is also just 1 second from a state cut. 400 Free – NT – Mid distance swim, so clearly not on the top of Bailey’s favorite events. This one was pretty fun for me however, because due to the number of kids signed up, they ended up putting Bear and two other boys in the same heat with the girls, so Bear and Bailey raced (sort of, they were not close to each other in lanes, and Bailey was NOT going to beat Bear in this event). Boo started with a solid 1:30.38, then dropped to a 1:37.34, 1:37.06, and closed with a decent final 100 of 1:31.74. Overall time, 6:16.92

05-02-2013, 09:57 AM	#274
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS Brett ------------------------------------------------------------ Day 1 200 Free – 3:13.87 – Typical Brett in this race. Long consistent strokes, but no real sense of urgency or recognition that he was racing and the effort level needed to increase. He did post a much better time of 3:00.59, and that is attributable to the improved technique and better kicking (though the kicking still needs work) 50 Breast – 47.72 – Brett (and I) came into this one hoping he would get his state cut. He is a much better long course swimmer in this event because the dives, turns, and pullouts become much less of a factor. In using the short course to long course conversion tools Brett was just outside of the cut number so I felt he had a good shot. The dive and the initial pullout weren’t great, but then he started swimming down the kids around him. He finished with a time of 43.49, which beats the cut by half a second. He was also the third gold swimmer to finish. The first ages up this week, the second is also the best swimmer on the team in the 12 and under age group in all 3 other strokes. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out for the state relay teams. 100 Fly – NT – You may recall I said I felt Brett would probably be DQed in this event. I never said anything like that to him, but he must have felt the same way because he said something to his coach about it during the pre-race framing that they do (the coach didn’t like it, and I believe he was assigned extra pushups and Monday’s practice because he went into the race with the wrong attitude. It’s ok for Dad to think it silently, but not for kids to speak it publicly). Also, adding insult to injury – Bear was not only in the same heat at Brett, they were side by side in the race. Bear jumped out to an early lead, as his new form looked good early. Brett on the other hand really focused too much on his upper body and he wasn’t getting the good “wiggle” through the stroke. On the back half Bear’s form started to fall apart, and Brett started to close…FAST…Bear held him off and Brett finished, but as I guessed – he was DQed. Come to find out he was closing on Bear in the back 50 because his kick has a bit of a breaststroke motion in it. Hey the kid didn’t want to lose to his little brother and he’s faster with a breast style kick, plus when he gets tired, which he clearly was…the Breast kick rears its ugly head. 200 IM – 3:32.07 – Surprisingly, even after still being tired from the 100 Fly, Brett’s fly in the opening leg of the 200 IM was better than either of his 50s in the 100 Fly. Much more relaxed and patient with the stroke. Probably because he wasn’t racing Bear. Even though his fly was better, he was still last at the turn. He did pretty good in back, closing some ground on the field. On the Breast he not only passed a couple of kids on the outside lane at the other end of the pool, he tracked down the kid to his outside, Tommy, who is Gold coaches son, a teammate of Bears and a good Breaststroker (in fact, he finished 1 spot behind Brett in the 100 breast). Tommy had about a 4 body length lead on Brett and he caught and passed him, getting into the freestyle with about half a body length lead. Tommy’s turn was better and he is a bigger kid with a better freestyle so Brett couldn’t hold him off, but he did great. He finished with a time of 3:26.92 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Day 2 100 Free – 1:29.17 – Much better looking Free…just like the 200, had a bit more effort here and he improved significantly from last year with a 1:20.30. Would still like to see him “race” more in this stroke, but we’re getting there. 100 Breast – 1:44.22 – Another spot where I had hope he could get his state cut. If you remember from short course though, Brett was closing in on the 50 time but he had a long way to go in order to get his 100 cut. The conversion utility indicated he’d need to cut a couple of seconds at least to get the time required to swim at state, but with the long course being more about strokes in the middle of the pool, I was hopeful. Again his pullout left a lot to be desired (it’s better, but that 1 dolphin kick has got to get stronger). His stroke in the middle of the pool was really good, and the effort was definitely not lacking here. He finished with a 1:37.31. Good enough for the cut. He finished second this time, only behind the 12 year old that is aging up. The best 12 year old on the team didn’t swim this event. Tommy (referenced in the IM), who finished right behind Brett was 7.5 seconds back. 50 Back – 47.45 – Brett’s back is so smooth, but the pacing is always like he’s doing a 500. He actually was on pace to beat Bear’s time, but his finish was embarrassingly bad. In fact, one of the timers said something to him like, “what was that…” and he responded, “a complete screw up finish.” Even with the poor finish that probably cost him 2 full seconds he posted a 47.92 400 Free – 6:30.09 – Solid swim. Consistent, but lacking a bit in effort. Brett wasn’t willing to push on this yet, it was more of a feeling out of how hard he can work, how much to keep in reserve, etc. I really feel with his free he could be a great distance freestyler, but he’ll need to buy in. His splits…1:30.66, 1:38.49, 1:38.85, 1:35.58 – overall 6:23:58 Last edited by Breeze : 05-02-2013 at 09:57 AM.

05-02-2013, 10:38 AM	#275
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Long Course Time Trials – RESULTS Bear Bear, for the most part had a very disappointing meet, though he wasn’t completely aware of his personal bests coming into the meet, so he thinks he did pretty good and I’m not telling him differently. -------------------------------------- Day 1 200 Free – 2:56.74 – Took it out WAY to slowly…Again, I think this was a situation where he wanted to get a feel for the pool. He took it out in 1:27.48 and brought it home in 1:27.92. His back half looked really good as he was still charging forward when he got to the wall. I expect his time of 2:55.40 to improve a bunch when he swims this again (more on this in the 400 free write up) 100 Back – 1:36.73 – same old problems, slow off the way, turning like he’s swimming in molasses, and a long finish hurt. Strokes in the middle of the pool were good, but he needs to go harder. Finished with a 1:37.42 50 Breast – 54.24 – Form is better here, but he’s not getting the good early catch with the pull. His hands are hyper flexed so his palms are sticking out, and his finger are pointed up way to long rather than down to get the grab on the way. He finished with a 55.67 100 Fly – NT – The opening 50 looked good…but his form fell apart badly on the back half. Part of it was the need to breathe more often, but he finished with a 1:45.45. Beating Brett in this one helped with the self-esteem a bit. --------------------------------------------- Day 2 50 Fly – 42.69 – While not a personal best, his form was much better. Head was low and face down during breathing which allows for a stronger kick. He’s just got to get used to it and turn it loose in a race. 43.29 100 Breast – 1:52.82 – See 50 Breast…1:56.79 50 Back – 44.30 – See 100 Back – 46.76 400 Free – NT – So Bear was put in Bailey’s heat and he was racing right next to his buddy Riley (the one that is 5’ 6” 130 lbs.). The gun went off and the two of them immediately started pulling away from everyone in the heat. Here are their splits… Code: Riley Bear 1:25.67 1:27.06 1:32.23 (2:57.90) 1:30.80 (2:57.86) 1:29.31 (4:27.21) 1:29.41 (4:27.27) 1:21.92 1:23.68 5:49.13 5:50.95 This kills the state cut time by about 6 full seconds. He’s now very pumped up to swim the 800 in the next meet, because he feels he can get that cut too… EDIT TO ADD: If you do the math on Bear's swim here...his back half 200 in the 400 is faster than the 200 he swam the first day and not by an insignificant amount...it is over 2.3 seconds faster. So significantly faster after racing an opening 200...yeah, he'll need to go out much harder in his next 200 Free... Last edited by Breeze : 05-02-2013 at 11:05 AM.

05-06-2013, 07:26 AM	#276
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Goals Update So the kids have been working on their goals, and while I don't have specific time goals, I do know they are looking ofr the following: Bear Now that Bear has the 400 Free he is determined to get the 800 Free as well. Based on how that goes he he may also add the 1500 to the list. He wants to get a cut in some of the other strokes, but he is a long way off on the sprints, and I don't think he'll get close during the long course season. If he can get the times down to where he's within a couple/three seconds of the time he'll have done really well. The one wildcard event is the 400 IM. Because Bear isn't afraid of the mid-level and distance events, he's keeping an eye on this one. If his other strokes come around, then he may attack this one, with hopes that he'll be able to push through the distance to get the cut. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey Bailey is very close to a cut (less than 2 seconds) in 3 races already, and she has 3 more where she could easily get in that same range with a good swim. She wants to get at least 2 state cuts, and I think that is very doable. In fact, I think 3 is likely and 4 would be a good challenging goal. Of course, she'll adjust her goals as she starts to attain them, so it'll be a non-issue. There are quite a few good 12 and older 11 year olds, so I don't expect Bailey will get on a relay. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brett Brett has already achieved his biggest goals for this season and we've only just completed the time trials. He's got all 3 state cuts, not his goal is to try and get down to a 40.xx 50, because he feels that will insure he's the breaststroker in the A relay (so a double goal). It will be very difficult for him to get into the 40 second range, as he'll need to cut the time 3 seconds in about 2 months. He's doing extra exercises to get stronger (chin ups, bungee pulls, leg jumps/lifts with ankle weights on). This will also help his 100 Breast as he's looking to cut about 3+ seconds there as well. He wants another cut outside of the breast, but that isn't going to happen. He is planning to swim the 1500 in this next race and he wants to beat his friend Jack, and that isn't going to happen either (but it is motivating him). The coach we use for private lessons (it's Bailey & Bear's team coach), wants him to complete a 100 fly without getting DQed, and I expect he'll get this. Then she wants him to do a 400 IM without getting DQed and I expect he could get this accomplished as well. If the kids give me specific times that they are shooting for, I'll post them... Last edited by Breeze : 05-06-2013 at 07:27 AM.

05-08-2013, 10:34 AM	#277
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Brett had a moment of frustration last night, feeling that he wasn't very good. He's struggling right now in practice because rather than do a lot of swimming, they are doing more drills and specifically more kicking drills. I've mentioned before that Brett isn't very good at kicking and he's seeing himself get passed (lapped in many cases) and shuffled to the back of the line. This is very different from the way it was at the end of short course season. When the team was prepping for state they were swimming more laps and doing less drills and Brett was not only leading the lane he was passing everybody. After his private lesson on Saturday, the coach told him to start doing exercises to get his legs stronger. He's done a bit here and there, but following the moment of depression described above, he decided to work hard with his ankle weights, bungee cord, and chin up bar last night. We'll see if he uses this for motivation moving forward.

05-08-2013, 11:49 AM	#278
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	Just curious, does Brett excel in arm pulls? When I swam, I would be so slow on the kickboards, everybody, even the slowest people on the team, would lap me, but when we did arm pull drills, I would destroy everyone. The complete inability to kick is what prevented me from being a good swimmer in terms of competitive times... well that and I never swam year-round. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

05-09-2013, 07:15 AM	#280
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Personal Update Recently, I have put personal information in this thread because I wanted to give you guys more insight into the personalities of my kids. I felt that the more you know, the easier it is to identify with them. So I'm going to use this "personal information" parameter to brag about the twins for a second. Recently, the Georgia schools did their required Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). This is a standardized test the state of Georgia uses to evaluate not only kids performances but the performances of the teachers. This is the same test that almost 200 City of Atlanta teachers got busted for cheating on, by either directly changing answers or allowing answers to be changed with their knowledge (you may have heard about it on the news). Anyway, Both Bailey and Bear got a perfect score on the math portion of the exam, and Bear also made a perfect score on the essay writing piece. Bailey and Bear will also be 2 of the 5 school representatives in the county's Pi Fight (a math competition). During the head-to-head practice match held last month, Bear was the last person standing for his school. Not sure how Brett did yet... I have to say I'm really proud. Ok, end of the bragging. Last edited by Breeze : 05-09-2013 at 07:37 AM.

05-14-2013, 07:30 AM	#281
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Gold Update Tonight is the team banquet. We weren't going to go, but we were guilted into it by the twins coach. She said we really needed to be there. Initially we got the impression from the coach, based on her tone and insistence that one of our kids might be recognized during the festivities, and honestly it really isn’t that farfetched. Brett could easily get a mention as being the most improved on the Region team, Bailey could be mentioned for recovering from her shoulder issues to be one of the best swimmers on the Gold group, and Bear could be recognized as the best teammate, as many parents and coaches have commented about how great a sport he is, always excited for everyone else’s accomplishments even in the face of his personal struggles at the end of the season. However, we now believe the coach just wants the kids to have the experience of being at the event. She wants the twins to get their IronMan (swam every event available for the age group) and First Year pins. Also, the team was struggling to get enough people signed up, we know because the extended the sign up deadline, and the coach may have wanted us there to put more butts in seats. So at this point, we don’t expect much more than an overpriced mediocre meal and a considerable amount of congratulatory talk about kids I probably don’t know. Maybe it will motivate my kids to the point they will be recognized in the future (one can hope)…

05-15-2013, 09:15 AM	#282
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Gold Team Update So last night we had the team banquet. Figured I’d take a minute to go through our evening - it's kind of long as you can tell... The location of the event was a Catholic Church (beautiful location) considerably south of our home, but north of my office, so the wife and I met at the facility (in fact, I pulled into the parking lot right behind her). We parked headed to the door, where we waited in a long line to register. When we got up to the registration table (20 minutes later) we found 2 people sitting there, 1 taking names, 1 handing out the meal tickets. This understaffing combined with the fact there were around 450 people in attendance would explain why it took so long. We luckily were able to sit at a table with the same people we sit with at practice almost daily. After a short wait food was served, only this was also a problem. Remember there are 450 people, and there are only 2 food lines…with two servers in each line for 5 items of food: Chicken Parmesan – dry but not terrible given the number of people being served Roasted Vegetable Pasta Alfredo – very, very, very bland Cesar Salad - it's salad hard to screw that up... Roll – served cold Cake – white sheet cake...I didn’t eat, but kids said it was good (of course they would think so) Obviously this took forever as well… Finally, everyone was fed and the festivities started. I have to admit that I was concerned about this being terribly boring and long, but I learned quite a few interesting things that I will incorporate below. The first thing discussed a few tidbits about the team, including that Chattahoochee Gold sent 6 swimmers to the Olympic Trials in 2012, and the goal appears to be 10 swimmers in 2016. The second thing on the agenda was recognizing the graduating seniors. This was the largest class of seniors the team has ever had (makes sense considering the team is growing), and this group of seniors basically re-wrote the team record book for the age group this season only failing to break 2 standing records. Some items I found interesting: In the 20 year history of Chattahoochee Gold there has never been a senior swimmer that has not gone on to college. In this graduating class 70% will be swimming for their college teams. Of the kids not swimming in college….1 has had 3 knee surgeries, 1 gave up swimming for years and returned as a high school junior just to be with her friends, and 1 will be going to Oxford (yes the one in England) on an academic scholarship. Some of the universities where the seniors will be going include: LSU, GaTech, NC State, and UVA. -------------------------------------------------------- The next part of the night was handing out plaques to the record breakers of which there were quite a few, including Brett’s friend Jack who broke one of the backstroke records and Bear’s friend Jack who broke a fly event in long course and 3 or 4 in short course. --------------------------------------------------------- Team pins were handed out for 1 year, 3, year, 5 year, 8 years swimmers --------------------------------------------------------- Top point getters on the different team levels were recognized --------------------------------------------------------- Then the big awards were handed out. Unlike many swim teams that hand out a ton of awards for best swimmer, most improved, coaches’ award, and any other title that can be dreamed up, the Gold team only hands out 1 award per age group. It is called the “Gold” award (I know very creative), and it encompasses much more than just swimming. Other items taken into account are: effort at practice, attitude, leadership, personality (friendly, helpful, positive, etc.), and dedication. The kids are nominated by any number of methods (coaches, volunteers, other swimmers, etc.) and the team officials discuss and whittle down the list over a 5 week period. The trophy is a pretty cool one. It has the ubiquitous swimmer on top of a cup, but the cup is on a wooden base with a black plaque on the front that says the age group and Gold Award Winner, below that is a gold plate with the swimmers name and year. The trophy is given to the swimmer for a year, at the end of the year that swimmer presents the trophy to the winner for the current year, and the swimmers plate is taken off the front and added to one of the pedestals the trophy sits on. The previous year winner then gets a small trophy to keep. Each recipient was discussed in great detail with stories about their dedication, efforts, items they overcame and more. This is the award that I felt Bear had a good shot at winning because of his hard work, positive attitude, leadership and more. When the 9/10 girls award came up and the twins coach started talking I knew that Bailey had won…I’ll paraphrase the statements of the coach to the best of my ability: “When this swimmer came to me, she was suffering from a shoulder injury and was unable to swim for over a month. However, she still came to practice every day. She stood next to me on the side of the pool asking questions about who was doing it right, when someone was doing it wrong she wanted to know way, and the whole time she encouraged the other swimmers to keep going.” “When she eventually got back into the pool, she showed patience, worked extra hard to clean up the technique issues that had led to her injury, and she went on to excel getting several sectional cuts. This girl is always one of the loudest voices at meets cheering for her friends and she is very considerate. In fact, just the other day she requested to move down a lane at practice. I asked her why and she said she didn’t want Gracie to be the only girl in a lane full of boys. It’s this kind of thoughtfulness and attitude that makes me proud to award the 9/10 Girls Gold award to Bailey.” I was very proud that she received this award, and thinking back on the season for 9/10 girls across all of the Gold facilities it probably was the right choice. Bailey did work very hard, was extremely positive, was a leader in her lane for practice and was a standout in dry land. She attended 90+ percent of practices and was a top performer in the age group. However, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Not because Bailey won, she deserved it, but because Bailey winning meant Bear wasn’t going to. I doubt with team politics that Gold would have allowed Bailey and Bear to both win the 9/10 age group awards. Moreover, Bailey has been on a roll lately, winning medals, breaking times, swimming in multiple events at Sectionals. Bear on the other hand has been scrapping around, working his butt off but with little to show for it. I was hopeful he would get this award and it would add to his motivation. I’m comfortable in saying that if Bear keeps swimming he will certainly win this award at some point, but it would have been helpful if it was last night. If you’re curious about Brett, he was very focused on what was said. He realized that several of the award winners weren’t the best swimmers on the team, and I believe he sees an opportunity to be recognized in the future. He also heard about several of the senior swimmers that weren’t great swimmers when they were young. They were late bloomers who have developed to the point they are getting a scholarship of some sort to swim in college, and he’s made the correlation that he could easily be that same type of swimmer before he is finished.

05-15-2013, 09:42 AM	#283
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	I have an image of the Gold Award winners, but the increased dropbox security isn't allowing me to simply make access to the image available over the Internet. I have to specify users that are allowed to view the images. I looked at photobucket, or rather tried to but we are blocking that at our firewall at work. I'll try to get the image up tonight...

05-16-2013, 03:28 PM	#284
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19 --------------------------------------------------- Bailey *200 Free – 2:56.47* – could improve some here as she’s beginning to learn how to swim longer distances better *50 Breast – 50.42* – No idea what to expect…she’s getting better at this stroke again, but not sure she’s all the way back yet. *100 Fly – 1:29.49 – She swam this well just last month. Even a slight improvement would be good this time around 200 IM – 3:23.93* – I expect she will improve some here. Second time swimming this event, she’ll know better how hard she can push *100 Free – 1:20.37* – Bailey should be much faster than this time. Most of her contemporaries that she was swimming with or faster than in short course are around a 1:18…so I expect she’ll come in closer to that time than the 1:20 she swam last month *200 Fly – NT* – not sure about this one. Bailey’s fly is strong but a 200 can be tough and it can also lead to bad habits. When fatigue sets in a swimmer’s form will start to break up and I’ve seen kids that completely ruined their stroke trying to swim a fly event too long for their strength. I honestly don’t care about the result here, I just don’t want her to develop any bad habits. *50 Back – 40.67* – could get a cut… *400 IM – NT* - I expect Bailey will do pretty well here, if her Breaststroke holds up. It may actually help her. If she’ll relax and use the Breast as a recovery stroke, she may hold her streamline longer and get a better kick. We’ll see… ------------------------------------------------- Bear *200 Free – 2:55.40* – I expect a huge improvement here. I outlined why somewhat in the 500 Free swim from the last meet. He had so much more to give in this race last time out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 3+ second drop. *200 Breast – NT* – He might drown. His form is much better but for some reason he isn’t getting the critical early grab on the water in the pull phase, which invariably leads to an inefficient stroke. If he does that for a 200, I’ll be watching for quite a while. *50 Free – NT* – He has a time here…37.59. Not sure why he wasn’t listed with it. I expect he should beat that time 800 Free – NT – Bear is excited about this one. He feels he can get another state cut. I hope he does, as it would go a long way to boosting his confidence. *100 Free – NT* - He actually doesn’t have a time in this. I’m surprised to find that out, could have sworn he did, but nothing is coming up in the USA Swimming database. I expect his time will be similar to Brett’s 1:20.30 *100 Breast – 1:56.79* – If he gets an early grab he beats this time, if he doesn’t he won’t. It is that simple. *50 Back – 46.76* – I’d like to say he’s going to do better in this one. For some reason he just doesn’t seem to get any better in back right now. Because of that, I don’t expect much of a change. *400 IM – NT* - I don’t expect much. Strokes are still in transition…back half of fly will be a problem, breast catch will potentially be an issue, and the back is pretty flat right now…. -------------------------------------------------------- Brett *200 Free – 3:00.59* – seems to be talking about pushing himself harder in the longer events, we’ll see if he’s going to do it. *100 Back – 1:45.10* – if he believes in his count could improve here. *200 Breast – 3:37.50* – This is his time from last year at state. He’s gotten much better at pullouts and he’s working harder and faster, so this should go down. *100 Fly – NT* – Will continue to swim this until he gets a good time. He’s back to working hard on it at practice, and he’s doing a better job of pointing his toes and keeping his feet together. Still will be a challenge to complete a 100 fly without getting DQed *100 Free – 1:20.30* – Hoping for an improvement here again. Not sure we’ll see it. Kick is getting better, but still has a long way to go. *50 Fly – 47.64* – Could improve here. His opening 50 is ok, it isn’t until fatigue set in that he gets sloppy, and with the improvements I’ve seen, I think he has more speed in him *100 Breast – 1:37.31* – He was pretty quick on this last month. Not sure he’ll improve on this time only a month later. We are doing some exercises to try and get the shoulders, lats, and middle back stronger…so maybe? *200 Back – NT* – He could be pretty good here. His back is very smooth and consistent. The problem is picking up the pace to race. So a longer event might serve him well. Don’t misunderstand. I don’t expect him to post a fast time, just solid splits and a decent time. (assuming he trusts his count) Last edited by Breeze : 05-21-2013 at 07:53 AM.

05-17-2013, 09:26 AM	#285
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League Update So our Summer League Swimming starts tonight, however, we aren't planning to attend. Tonight will be the neighborhood Time Trials, so it's more like a exhibition that is used for 3 reasons: 1. So the new parents and learn how the meet goes and what is required with their volunteer positions. 2. For the coached to get an updated time on what the kids are swimming so they'll know what events to put the kids in. 3. To make a little extra consessions money for the team coffers ------------------------------------------------------- There are also a couple of reasons why we aren't attending. The biggest one is that the neighborhood pools is outside and unheated, and the kids (who when to 1 practice last week) reported the water is very cold, and when the sun goes down it's going to be too cold. Also the kids have a year round meet tomorrow, and they don't need to be up late swimming in cold water for a meet that isn't going to matter. Finally, we aren't going to participate because of Bailey's age group...it is going to be pretty intense and we'd rather have Bailey just swim for fun and this Time Trial is going to start the whole process of who belongs on the A relay. I'll update how competitive Bailey's summer age group team will be later...

05-17-2013, 11:29 AM	#286
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League Swimming Here is a breakdown of the top girls in the 11/12 age group: Code: 50 Free 100 Free 50 Back 50 Brst 50 Fly 100 IM Bailey 30.19 1.07.57 35.20 44.34 33.44 1.17.43 Rayley 30.45 1.07.39 36.94 43.03 36.19 1.22.28 MK 29.98 1.07.37 35.13 39.35 37.07 1.14.10 KJ 30.76 1.06.93 35.14 41.54 31.28 1.16.84 CR 29.71 1.07.81 34.58 43.71 34.20 1.21.33 CF 31.89 1.10.17 37.87 45.32 38.20 1.23.45 Reese 33.14 1.12.49 38.34 41.10 35.17 1.23.85 Jordan 35.42 1.21.69 44.57 43.99 42.02 NT This should give you an idea how tight the age group is. These times are from the year round short course season, so they are several months old, but they are still a pretty good number to build from. There are a couple of other year round swimmers, but they typically have been a few seconds off the ones listed. If they've stepped up in abilty this will get even tighter. The girls in italics are 12 the rest are 11... As you can see with the exception of Breast, Bailey is typically one of the top swimmers out of the 8. Even when she is 4th like in the 100 free she isn't far off of the top times. Problem for Bailey is that based on the breakdowns, she might struggle to be on the A relays...in fact, right now the A medley would be: Back - CR Breast - MK Fly - KJ Free - Bailey (but I'll bet Rayley gets this spot as her freestyle has dramatically improved during long course) Free Relay is very similar... CR MK Bailey Rayley But KJ has also shown big improvements in LC...so Bailey will be in some tight races... Unfortunately, this has the potential to get ugly...and we'd rather Bailey not be involved. If she clearly belongs on the A team, then fine, if it is debatable, we're probably going to just let the other child have the spot. Bailey will get her turn next year when the 11/12s should be significantly stronger than they will be this year (assuming everyone comes back).

05-18-2013, 11:02 PM	#287
thealmighty Pro Starter Join Date: May 2003 Location: heaven	Might have missed this answer but how does the age stuff work? Are they grouped every two years (even age the older, like 11-12s)? Seems an entire year older in an age group, at the twins age, could be a MAJOR advantage. __________________ Check out The Unofficial FOFC Movie Guide Here

05-21-2013, 07:51 AM	#289
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19 --------------------------------------------------- Bailey *200 Free – 2:56.47* – Bailey took this race out faster than she did last time, completing the first split almost 2 seconds faster than a month ago. However, her back half was slightly slower than last time so she posted a personal best but it wasn’t a significant improvement 2:55.43 *50 Breast – 50.42* – Still struggling with this one…she does look better than she did earlier in the season, but something is still off - 52.10 *100 Fly – 1:29.49* – In my pre-race write up I stated that given the fact she swam this well last month and it is a difficult and long race I didn’t expect much of an improvement, what I didn’t tell you (and should have) was that Bailey had much different ideas. Bailey said coming into this race that she would get the state cut in it. She was going to need to drop almost 2.5 seconds to get there, but when all was said and done, she dropped 3.5 and finished sixed overall with a time of 1:26.02 *200 IM – 3:23.93* – Huge improvement here. Bailey posted a very strong 3:16.56, Breast is still holding her back in this event. *100 Free – 1:20.37* – Pretty much as I expected, she was much faster, only she was faster than I expected. As I stated, I was looking for something in the 1:18s, and honestly a 1:18 low was what I was expecting, she went a 1:17.37. I knew 1:20 was a poor swim for her. *200 Fly – NT* – This was a tough one. Bailey was stressed out about it for days. When the race started she did a nice job of over emphasizing the “wiggle” in the stroke to try and create a deliberate but efficient stroke that would enable her to conserve energy. However, by the time she finished her 100, she wanted to hang on the wall at the turn, but she was urged off and ultimately she only stayed on the wall for about a second. By this time her stroke was already looking bad, and a third of the way down the pool for the 75 meter portion the inevitable happened, she swallowed water and couldn’t breathe. She stopped, at which point she was dqed. She tried to go again so she could finish, but she only got about 4 strokes in before she did it again. She was about to restart for a third time when the coach told her it was ok to get out. I felt bad for her, but I have to admit I wasn’t surprised. She tires so much even during a 200 Free, that I felt a 200 fly was going to be too much. *50 Back – 40.67* – didn’t get a cut…in fact, didn’t improve. I think there was still a fatigue issue from the 200 fly. She finished in – 41:30…so still a good chance at a cut here. *400 IM – NT* – Bailey’s 100 fly in this was a pretty good 1:30.7. The back was clearly a recovery stroke for her as she went a pedestrian 1:45.00. The breast was a battle as she posted a poor 2:09.12, which was slowest of the 8 girls swimming and a full 4 seconds slower than the seventh place girl. The free was a pretty quick 1:31.88. All in all she posted a very solid 6:56.70 and earned her second state cut… Last edited by Breeze : 05-21-2013 at 07:52 AM.

05-21-2013, 08:49 AM	#290
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19 ------------------------------------------------- Bear *200 Free – 2:55.40* – So this race was difficult to assess. Bear was good enough to make the fast heat in an outside lane, meaning the middle of the pool was going to be quite a bit faster than he was. He start off and while he got left behind he looked like he was doing well…then he got to the wall did his turn and his head popped up immediately coming off the wall. He finished the 100 but didn’t swim very hard, he pushed for the back half, finishing with a poor time of 3+ minutes. However, the time didn’t matter because he managed to miss the wall on the first turn. In fact, when he got out of the pool he kept saying “I can’t believe I missed the wall”. One of Brett’s friends (Hunter) that was cheering Bear on turned to my wife (who was on deck timing) and said, “He really shouldn’t say that so loud.”…but an official overheard Hunter and responded, “We got the DQ already, so it didn’t matter.” I was very pleased with the way Bear handled this… *200 Breast – NT* - This took forever, he tried hard, and he had moments where he looked good, but he still has a ways to go in this event. Moreover, he really doesn’t like the long Breaststrokes, he says they are too slow…(and he means the race is too deliberate…not that he’s too slow, though I’m sure that is part of the issue). He finished with a 4:03.53 *50 Free – NT* – Slight improvement here, and in fact, Bear’s seed time was an outside line, but he managed to win his heat and beat 1 kids time from the last and fastest heat. He finished with a 36.35 *800 Free – NT* – Bear was one of only 3 kids swimming in this race. 1 of the kids, Parker (who you’ll probably hear about more as we get closer to State) is a BIG 12 year old, who will turn 13 right after state…and John, also a really good 12 year old, but not a big kid. The race started and Bear was instructed to stay with John, who apparently was instructed to stay with Parker. Almost immediately Parker jumped out to a lead with John about a body length behind, whereas Bear decided when he saw the initial pace to pass on trying to stay with John, and he fell back a good bit. However, Bear was still posting really solid splits. In fact, this is another of the races where I wish I could create a graph that would move based on the splits because Bear and John ended up having a very interesting race. I’ll let you deduce from the splits. Here they are: Code: Bear John 100 1:28.95 1:19.50 200 1:34.75 1:30.39 300 1:33.75 1:33.25 400 1:33.00 1:34.47 500 1:32.98 1:34.26 600 1:28.83 1:32.28 700 1:26.76 1:30.15 800 1:22.15 1:27.05 Total 12:01.17 12:01.35 After the 500 split Bear began to close on John, after the 600 split the coach looked at me (as I was flipping the lap counter) and she said, “Bear’s trying to catch John”. After the 700 split she smiled and said, “I think he’s going to catch him,” It was pretty exciting for a 12 minute race. After the race Bear’s Coach shared the splits with Brett’s coach and the team’s head coach, and they were all blow away by Bears 1:22 split in the final 100…Brett’s coach even stated, “That’s crazy fast for final 100…” *100 Free – NT* - Bear improved here, but not as much as I or he would have liked he posted a 1:19.90. I was hoping for about a second faster, but felt a 1:19 low was very doable (again I think it is important to note that his personal best is a 1:19.90 and he sway a 1:22.15 in the final 100 of an 800 free). *100 Breast – 1:56.79* – Swam almost exactly the same time, with a 1:56.88 *50 Back – 46.76* – Another small improvement with a time of 45.21 *400 IM – NT* – Bear fought hard on this one. His fly was a 1:47.37, only a couple seconds off his personal best, then he swam a 1:43.24 back, and a 2:03.44 breast, followed up with a 1:28.69 free. Overall time was a 7:02.74. He just missed the State Cut by a couple of seconds…but…he’s ok with it. He really didn’t like this event. He was also disappointed following this race. With his recent struggles he’s back to feeling like he isn’t as good as his siblings. I believe in his heart he thought he might get Bailey in this one due to the distance. And in fact, he out swam Bailey in everything but Fly…I also believe without a shadow of a doubt that if he wants to swim this and he does it again, he can get the cut…but I’m not sure he wants to swim it again…

05-21-2013, 11:36 AM	#291
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19 ------------------------------------------------- Brett *200 Free – 3:00.59* – Brett definitely pushed himself harder in this event. His rotations were faster, but without shortening the stroke. He kicked much harder too. He still needs to get his legs higher in the water to be more affective, but it was much, much better. Final time 2:51.73, a 9 second improvement over last month… *100 Back – 1:45.10* – Again the effort was better. Still needs to increase his rotations. In fact, one of the assistant coaches from another pool was standing next to me during this race, and he was watching the kid in the lane next to Brett, and at one point he commented, “I’m not sure who the kid next to Tommy is, but he’s got an extremely powerful stroke. In fact, if he’ll increase his rotation he’d be really fast.” Brett improved here by 7+ seconds with a 1:37.93. *200 Breast – 3:37.50* – Brett was seeded third coming into this race, but at the 100 he was holding a slight lead on the field with a split of 1:37.65 (second was 1:37.77 and third was 1:38.49). However, going back on the 75 leg I noticed his swim cap looked a little funny. Before he reached the wall, the cap was all distorted on his head, and it just got worse coming home. It ended up that during the dive into the streamline water got under the cap and caused it to balloon on his head. He tried to knock it off when he dove into streamline by rubbing his arms against the side of his head, but it stubbornly held on. Before he finished he had a huge bubble bobbing forwards and backwards during his stroke. I’m sure it caused significant drag and slowed him down. I don’t know how much of an impact it was, but knowing it was there was a huge distraction and definitely caused a serious impact. He did improve his time regardless posting a 3:24.17. I believe he’s capable of a 3:21 high… *100 Fly – NT* – Swallowed water on the 50 leg…stopped and got out. His coach was going to chew his butt, but before the coach could say anything to him, he apologized and told the coach to put him back in this event at the next meet, that he was going to get a good time. By the way, his form looked much better, but he was stiff and with very little explosion. Probably do to overthinking and not racing. *100 Free – 1:20.30* – After the 200 I felt we could see an improvement here and we did. Personal best of 1:18.39. *50 Fly – 47.64* – Like the early part of the 100, he had a very stiff and deliberate stroke. He finished with a disappointing 50.26…but the form is getting better…and the coaches are still convinced that he’ll ultimately be a great flyer… *100 Breast – 1:37.31* – Went out hard, wanted to win his heat (which would have made him second. His buddy Jack won outright with a 1:29.89 and Brett wasn’t getting there). At the opening 50 he was close. Faded on the back half a bit, but still improved by a couple of seconds to a 1:35.39 *200 Back – NT* – The long efficient stroke worked pretty well for him here. He went out in 1:39.48 and came home in 1:43.09. The 3:22.57 wasn’t a great time, but he didn’t embarrass himself and he probably would have in this event a couple of years ago. Interestingly, Brett would need a 3:07.99 to get a state cut in this event. While the 14 or so seconds seem like a bunch, it isn’t uncommon to see kids drop a significant amount of time the second race at that distance. So while I don’t expect him to get this cut, I won’t put it out of the realm of possibility either.

05-30-2013, 06:59 AM	#292
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League – meet at Grand Cascades We open our summer season (minus the time trials which we didn’t attend) at the juggernaut that is Grand Cascades. Last year we swam against them to end the season and were whipped by around 300 points. I expect it to be worse today. My kids will swim the following: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *100 Medley Relay : B Team – Breaststroke Leg* - (I did email the coach and I told her Bailey wasn’t swimming this stroke well, but she put her in it for the relay anyway) *50 Free* – I believe she but Bailey in this one so she can get a current time to compare to the girls that swam at time trials in order to come up with her Free Relay teams, but what the coach failed to take into account is that during time trials the kids were hand timed, and Grand Cascades has a full touch pad system, so it will be electronic times… *50 Fly* *100 Free Relay: B Team* – Bailey will be the anchor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bear *100 Medley Relay: A Team – Fly leg* (probably should be in the Back leg, but it won’t matter, this team isn’t beating GCs relay anyway) *50 Free* – Not sure why she choose this event for Bear *100 IM* – Bear will get killed in this. Poor kid just turned 11 and he’ll be racing some top notch year rounders who are almost 13. Brett’s buddy Jack will race Bear in this one… *100 Free Relay : A Team* – Third Leg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brett *100 Medley Relay : A Team – Breast leg* *100 Free* – Brett will get killed by his buddy Jack in this one *50 Breast* – could have a good race here. Another boy (one I’m not familiar with) has a time very similar to Brett’s seed time. Not sure if that is from the GC time trials or last year, as Brett’s seed time is from last year. 100 Free Relay : A Team – Brett will anchor the team. He shouldn’t Riley should, but again it won’t matter.

05-30-2013, 07:00 AM	#293
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	General Update Brett completed his first two a day practice yesterday. He was tired but pretty proud of himself for his effort.

05-31-2013, 08:41 AM	#294
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	Summer League – meet at Grand Cascades The meet when pretty much as expected. Last year we lost 556 to 234, this year it was a bit better...485 to 308... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bailey *100 Medley Relay : B Team* – Bailey and Reese flip strokes heading into this race. It was funny, Bailey really didn't want to swim Breast because of her struggles right now in that stroke, and apparently Reese has similar feelings about her fly (though I think Reese's fly is better comparitively speaking then Bailey's Breast)...as it turns out it was a very good decision, as Reese actually won the 50 breast for the age group, and Bailey was 3rd in the 50 fly (only losing to our A swimmer and GCs A swimmer- more on that later). I didn't get to see the race, but was told they did very well, and they killed the GC - B team, so them must have done pretty good. *50 Free* – Bailey did good...her time wasn't overly impressive 30.87 but it was good enough for second only losing to her SA friend that was termed the beast a few years back because of how well she was swimming and how big she was. She also beat some pretty good girls in the heat, Reese, Caroline (but Caroline was wearing a cast...which comes off next week - so this could get interesting), and Jaeden, another old friend from SwimAtlanta *50 Fly* - I warned Bailey prior to this race that she really needed to pay attention on the start because the buzzer wasn't very loud and the starter was pretty quick to get the kids off the blocks. Unfortunately, my warning didn't help...she was last off the block, by ALOT (sigh)...anyway, she swam well despite that, as she closed hard on the opening 25 and was only a touch behind at the turn. Bailey's turn was a bit sloppy, which cost her, but she finished with a good 33.97, losing to KJ by 1 second and the GC Flyer by .5 seconds, with a terrible start... *100 Free Relay: B Team* – Race was over by the time Bailey hit the water, they couldn't catch first or second and they weren't going to get caught for 3rd... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bear *100 Medley Relay: A Team* – Missed this race too...in fact, when I walked into the pool the Free swimmer in the relay had apparently just touched the wall, because he was waiting for the rest of the event to finish...Spilts say Bear swam a 37.xx leg in the fly... *50 Free* – Bear did well here. He wasn't going to be the A swimmer from GC, but he did beat their B swimmer with a solid 32.08 (and another poor turn, poor kid just hasn't figured out his taller body yet). *100 IM* – As expected Bear got killed. Brett's buddy Jack swam the event in 1:03.91...Bear didn't even get a personal best as he posted a 1:24.xx...not a great swim for him, but he did finish 2nd. *100 Free Relay : A Team* – Bear missed the wall again on his turn...dark, poorly lit pool, he lost his perscription googles and as I said above, he just isn't comfortable with his new body yet. He was very upset feeling he had let the team down. Of course he didn't because he'd have needed to give Brett (anchor) about a 7 second lead for him to even have a chance to hold off Jack...As it turns out they finished 2nd with a decent time considering the missed wall on the turn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brett *100 Medley Relay : A Team* – (race is described above)...poor split in the low 40 second range - I'm sure the 2 hour practice a few hours before had an impact *100 Free* – Brett swam a pedestrian 1:12.xx, as he cruised most of the way. I understand way, Jack swam a sub minute, and he wasn't going to catch Jack, and the 3rd place swimmer was well behind and wasn't going to catch Brett, but I want to see him work on sprinting during the summer. We talked about this after the meet...we'll see if he takes it to heart. *50 Breast* – just like bailey in the fly, I warned him about the start, and just like bailey he didn't execute and was basically still on the blocks when everyone else was in the water. Again swam in the 40 second range...mid 40s this time, and was disappointed, felt he should have won (and he should have). The bad start hurt, and the fatigue from a hard practice was clearly a factor here. This loss might actually be a good thing in the long run though. Because GCs breaststroker beat Brett, they will probably keep him in that event at the county meet, and Brett can beat this guy. Had Brett won, they may have moved Jack to breast and Brett can't beat Jack... *100 Free Relay : A Team* – (Race is described in Bear's write up)...Brett swam a uninterested 33 low...again he couldn't catch Jack and the 3rd place team wasn't going to catch him... Last edited by Breeze : 05-31-2013 at 08:43 AM.