Swim Like A Champion (a real life journal)

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship -General Update

So Coach Andy wants Bear to do his first shave tonight. Bear's been a little reluctant to do it, but last night I think the excitement of the meet has caught up to him and he's now on board with the suggestion.

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group Championships - Day 1 : Morning

Some quick notes:

- 99 Gold Swimmers Total Qualified for the Meet
- Bear is shaved - didn't like doing it...will have to see how he likes it after warm ups
- Bailey struggled to eat again...not good it is just the first morning
- Bear's new competition suit is real tight...so much so he's uncomfortable
- Seth is dealing with a head cold
- Tho she won't admit it...Bailey is very anxious...hopefully she can covert that to energy during races

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group Championships - Day 1 Finals

Not going to go into detail now because it is too hard on the phone. ..but here are a few quick notes

- Bear made finals in the 200 im
- Bear will also swim 200 back tonight
- Bailey got in 100 fly finals
- Griffin (mentioned in relay discussion) dropped 1.5 sec on 50 breast
- Jack A (relay discussion too) dropped .4 in 50 free

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group Championship - Day 2 Review / Day 3 Preview

Sorry for no update yesterday, phone wouldn't hold a charge...

Day 2 Review

- Twins had greatv swims across the board
- Bear's 400 IM was an amazing race
- Relays were dramatic...and frustrating

Day 3 Preview

- Bailey's strong showings in 100 and 50 fly has her excited about her chances in 200 Fly
- Bear is determined to swim strong in both his big events today
- Relays should be exciting...Bailey's team has seriously out performed seed...and Bear and Nate are killing their frees so far this meet.

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group Championship - Conclusion Quick Thoughts

This meet was exactly why I decided to write this dynasty. The emotions were up and down and the swings could occur in a matter of minutes (especially on Sunday). Unfortunately, I don't think I can adequately explain in text the drama/excitement of the weekend. I have video of almost all the events and I'll see if I can post them somewhere. This would allow you to watch them, before I do the breakdowns.

[Breeze]

Dynasty Update

I haven't been sharing videos and pictures as much as I should, but we don't participate in Facebook, and trying to manage a list of people who has access to view the images seemed a bit burdensome. However, I think we are getting to a point where it really should be part of this experience. Unfortunately, because we've never had any need to post/share images I'm not to familiar with the pro's and con's of the different sites that offer this service. I figured I'd start with Google+, so I set up a new Gmail account to try and manage this away from my personal inbox. If you are interested in viewing the images and pictures posted I guess add the following account to your group - or tell me what account to add to my group (not sure how this part works)...

[email protected]

Please let me know your account name on here, as I'm not really interested in allowing the world to view a bunch of young kids swimming in tight bathing suits.

If Google+ isn't a good solution, I'm open for suggestions, and if the interest isn't there for access, then that's fine I'll just do the write ups for my own journal.

[Breeze]

Dynasty Update

I uploaded the first race of the weekend. Bailey's 200 IM, and it appears to be working. I'll start uploading the others shortly...

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 1 Preliminaries

Writing this up, basically as things occurred:

#1 Girls 11-12 200 IM

Bailey – 2:27.39 : Seeded 16 – Bailey opened the meet with an improvement in the 200 IM. It wasn’t as much of a drop as I would have liked to see, but she did manage a personal best time of 2:26.54. She opened with a very quick 29.94 split in the fly, which was one of the 5 or 6 fastest splits of all the girls in the event. However, her back time was a pedestrian 37.31, and her breast was a poor 46.53 (was hoping for better here as she had been showing signs of possibly swimming this leg in the low 45s). All in all in was nice to see the drop in time, and the solid start to the meet, and her effort was good enough to move up to 14 in the standings.


#2 Boys 11-12 200 IM

Bear – 2:23.50 : Seeded 8 – In the prelims, Bear’s fly was a solid 30.49…I was expecting a little better time from that leg, if I’m being honest, and I was a bit concerned that his fly was going to be off a bit at this meet. He followed that leg up with a back in 35.83 and a breast of 43.59, which was very strong for him. He closed in 30.56. He dropped a total of 3 seconds to finish with a personal best time of 2:20.47, and he was 9, so he qualified for finals that evening.


#13 Girls 11-12 100 Fly

Bailey – 1:05.51 : Seeded 14 – I didn’t really touch on this race in my pre-event write up, mostly because I knew she would swim it. What I wasn’t so sure of was her chances of making finals. 14 seed is a tough spot. That puts quite a few swimmers between you and the 10 spot…so it typically takes a very good swim to get in, and given that Bailey had been flat for a while in this event, I didn’t know if she would be able to do it. However, as the race started Bailey was staying right with the middle of the pool. In fact, at the turn she was in first place by an eye blink. She wasn’t able to hold on over the back half, but finished third in her heat less than a second behind first and only .01 out of second. Her final time was a 1:03.96 and I felt given her finish and time she had a strong change of making finals. We sweated out 2 more heats and finally learned that she was 8 and swimming again that evening.


#19 Girls 11-14 1000 Free (note: event swam 11-14, but scored by age)

Bailey – 11:55.91 : Seeded 12 – The coach was looking for Bailey to hold it around 1:10 splits so she could go under 11:50 with cushion and get the Sectional Cut in this event. Bailey allowed me to do the counting for her, and here is how she did:

100 – 1:05.84
200 – 1:10.21
300 – 1:09.76
400 – 1:09.34
500 – 1:10.94
600 – 1:10.27
700 – 1:11.37
800 – 1:11.86
900 – 1:10.66
1000 – 1:08.75

FINAL – 11:39.00

This was a nice improvement…and it allowed her to climb into 9th place and earn a couple points for the team.


#14 Boys 11-14 1000 Free (note: event swam 11-14, but scored by age)

Bear – 11:07.79 : Seeded 2 – So for basically the first time Bear wasn’t swimming this event just based on time. He was in the heat with the top seeded swimmer (Brendan). They weren’t next to each other due to other swimmers in different age groups getting in between them, but we were able to watch him, and our instructions were to not let him get away especially early where Bear has a tendency to come off his pace a bit. The race started and pretty quickly Brendan established himself his opening 100 was an amazing 59.48 compared to Bear’s 1:04.28. So immediately Brendan opened up almost a 5 second lead. This is where it gets a bit tricky with strategy. I expected Brendan to open much faster than Bear. His stroke is more fluid and he’s a faster sprinter than Bear (honestly, he’s arguably the fastest 12 year old swimmer – sprinter or otherwise in the state). In addition, many good sprinters start out fast for the first 50 before settling into their distance pace, whereas Bear tends to hit his pace earlier and maintain it longer. While Bear is capable of swimming sub 60 on a regular basis, I didn’t expect him to here. I was hoping for a 1:02 high, but I let it ride…not signaling him to pick it up yet. Here is how the race went: (note: the # indicates a signal for a slight increase in pace, and the ! is a signal to really pick it up)

Yards	Brendan	        Bear		Diff
100	59.48		1:04.28		-4.8
200	1:04.64		1:05.94		-6.1	closer split happy about that - #
300	1:05.24		1:05.60		-6.46	starting to worry about disconnection - !
400	1:05.97		1:04.46		-4.49	first split in our favor
500	1:06.80		1:04.51		-2.66	huge split for us, half body behind at midpoint
600	1:06:13		1:03.75		-.28	basically a dead heat at this point
700	1:04.82		1:04.02		+.52	Bear has the lead – but Brendan picking it up - !
800	1:03.72		1:04.30		-.06	200 to go – dead heat - !
900	1:03.61		1:03.88		-.33	Still a dead heat – 100 for championship - !!!

Spoiler

1000	1:02.41		1:02.54		-.46	UGH…half a second in a 1000 – are you kidding 

Total time 10:43.28

He ends up with a silver medal!!!

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 1 Finals

We return to the pool at 5 PM for warm ups, and the meet starts about 6:15. Here are the results from the evening session.


#2 Boys 11-12 200 IM

Bear – 2:20.47 : Seeded 9 – The race starts, and again Bear’s fly is solid with a 30.31 split. Then Bear goes a 35.56 is back, and he basically matches his teammate Nicklas (who is a top State backstroker, and swimming right next to him). I believe this is more to do with Bear being stronger and willing to push more, as Nicklas was about a full second off from the morning split in the backstroke leg, and Bear was down a fraction of a second from earlier in the day. In the Breast leg, swam a 42.28, a very nice time for him in what is his weakest stroke – in fact, he was faster in that split than 4 other swimmers, something that would have been unthinkable coming into this season. He closed the race with a 30.82 free. His overall time was another personal best of 2:18.97, dropping about a second and a half from the morning. He also beat Nicklas this time, moving up a spot to finish 8th.


#10 Boys 11-12 200 Back

Bear - 2:20.89 : Seeded 4 – The 200 back was one of the events that wasn’t swum prelim/finals for the 12 and under age group. Basically, the 20 fastest times swim in the evening, which is why this wasn’t part of the prelim write up. While Bear came in seeded fourth, we didn’t expect him to finish that high. His backstroke turns are a bit weak, and with the drops that occur during the State Meet we expected him to fall back some, we just wanted him to get a top 10 finish and earn some points. The race basically played out exactly how we expected, with Bear swimming a solid time of 2:21.06. Unfortunately, not a personal best, but only .17 off of it, and with the fatigue from the 1000 in the morning, plus the 200 IM twice, the slight increase really wasn’t unexpected. The time was good enough for 10th.


#13 Girls 11-12 100 Fly

Bailey – 1:03.96 : Seeded 8 – We were thrilled that Bailey even made finals in this event. However, she felt that she could have won her heat and was setting a goal in this race to get her time down under 1:03.00. She opened with a 29.10 (a drop of .4 from the morning), and she brought it home in 33.60. Final time - 1:02.70; Which was also good enough to climb 2 more spots in the standings and finish 6th overall.


Points earned on the day

Bear – 13
Bailey - 7

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 2 Preliminaries

#25 Girls 12&U 200 Medley Relay

Gold A Relay - 2:05.42 : Seeded 10 – The race started and Salmon on the back, opened with a 31.73, which was only the 11th best time in that leg out of the 23 teams and Gold found themselves in last place in their heat (but honestly, the split was a personal best for Salmon, so not a bad swim). Julia took off on the breast, and it became pretty obvious, pretty quickly, she was going to outswim her seed time of 35.03, and she did, by about 2 seconds, posting a 32.93 leg, and moving the team up from 10th in the heat to 5th. Bailey dove in, and she swam a strong 28.61 split, but she was out-touched at the wall by a girl who left a fraction of a second behind her. The freestyler swam a 27.81 and held on to the 6th spot. 2:01.08 was the time, a huge improvement over the seed time and a huge improvement from 10th to 6th. Also the time actually beats the 2014 A team, and I wouldn’t have guessed that was possible coming in.


#26 Boys 12&U 200 Medley Relay

Gold A Relay – 2:01.57 : Seeded 3 – This was a tightly seeded event, with Gold 3rd but 2 other teams were less than a second behind. The race started with Nicklas in back getting a poor start. The poor start put him behind several of the teams that were seeded close to Gold. He caught and passed a couple teams in the middle of the pool, but when his leg finished Gold A sat in 4th. The breaststroker Griffen was slow off the blocks in the transition, but he maintained 4th. Bear swam his leg in 29.65, but was unable to close, in fact, he lost ground to the 3 leaders and to the 5th place team, as all of those flyers swam under 28 seconds. The anchor, Nate, was extremely strong, trying to swim down the teams ahead of him. He closed with a 23.96, but he couldn’t catch the team in third, so they had to settle for fourth with a time of 1:56.35. However, the team in 3rd was disqualified because the breaststroker left early, and so Gold A got the bronze medal after all – They also got the Gold Team Record for this event.


#30 Boys 11-12 200 Free

Bear - 2:05.15 : Seeded 10 – This was a real quick turnaround for Bear. He probably had less than 20 minutes rest. Not that the 50 fly he swam was so taxing, but doing a 200 sprint while still recovering isn’t ideal. Of course my worrying was for nothing. Bear opened with a 28.57 (basically the same time as his personal best coming into this weekend), the followed it up with a 31.16. The back half was comprised of 30.77 and 30.55. He finished with a 2:01.05 and was seeded 5th headed to finals that night.


#33 Girls 11-12 100 Back

Bailey – 1:07.32 : Seeded 21 – In this event, it looked like Bailey was at a practice session. Slow deliberate arm rotations…long efficient, but effort could have been better. She actually added a bit of time finishing with a 1:08.44. Because she came in seeded 21st, I don’t think there was any urgency for this swim, and with the 50 fly up next, I suspect, though she hasn’t admitted it, that she was conserving something for that race. She ended up in 23rd place.


#41 Girls 11-12 50 Fly

Bailey – 29:71 : Seeded 19 – I mentioned in the pre-event write up “It would take a monumental drop for her to even sniff the top 10.” Well…Bailey started this race with her typical too deep dive. However, she did manage to surface in contention anyway. At the turn she was running about 8th, but after the turn she managed to get up to 5th - awesome quickness on the flip and really strong underwaters. She ended up finishing the heat in 4th with a time of 28.82. She wanted to get under 29 and she did. This also makes her fly personal best almost identical to her free personal best. When all the heats were finished, she ended up – 11th. So it was a monumental effort, but it came up just short.


#42 Boys 11-12 50 Fly

Bear – 30.00 : Seeded 12 – Bear’s 50 fly looked exactly like the fly he swam in the 200 IM, and the fly he swam in the 200 Medley Relay - strong and steady, but not quick. He finished with a 30.06, adding a fraction of a second, and slipping to 14th overall.


#49 Girls 11-12 400 IM

Bailey - 5:13.12 : Seeded 12 – Bailey’s strong swimming so far, had her pumped up about possibly getting top 10 in this event. She started with the fly leg and she went 1:06.78. Honestly, this is slower than I would have expected. Then her backstroke was reminiscent of her back in the 200 IM or the 100 Back, long and deliberate for a split of 1:16.44. At this point I felt she had no shot at the top 10. Her breast was typical 1:32.32, then she closed with a 1:09+ freestyle. This ends up being a huge improvement of around 9 seconds, but it seemed she left something in the pool. The swim time of 5:04.66 was good enough for 11th, but she just missed 10th by .27 seconds.


#45 Girls 12&U 200 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 1:54.10 : Seeded 13 – Because the Gold team was seeded 13, they didn’t make the fast heat and were forced to swim against some pretty poor teams. Ultimately, this could have negatively impacted them if they allowed themselves to be influenced by the competition, rather than just swimming their fastest race. The race started with Gold sending their 4th swimmer to the blocks first. She swam a 28.27, which was about .6 seconds faster than her previous personal best. The rest of the team followed with all of them swimming low 27s…they won their heat going away, and as it turns out, they beat over half the pool in the fast heat as well. Their time of 1:50.05 was good enough for 6th…a big jump up from the seed spot of 13th.


#46 Boys 12&U 200 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 1:46.21 : Seeded 2 – This was another tight one coming in with 6 teams within a couple seconds of each other. Nicklas led off and swam a strong 26.06, and the team is in basically a dead heat with 2 other teams for second. Bear was second and he swam a strong 26.37, which put the team in a tight 3rd, only half a second out of second but only .2 ahead of 3rd place. The 3rd swimmer was Jack A, who posted a time of 26.66, but the team lost ground to two teams, but they only lost 1 spot as one of the lead teams clearly put their two best swimmers out front and their 3rd leg fell way off the pace. The anchor for Gold, Nate dove in 4th place, only an eye blink out of 3rd and about a full second out of 2rd place, and 2.5 seconds out of first, but he immediately started chewing into their lead. The 3rd place team was quickly left behind and the only question would be if Nate had enough pool to reel in the leaders. At the end of the race Gold posted a 1:43.27, basically 1 second behind first and second, as the race was decided by only .06. The time while only good enough for a bronze medal, did break the Gold Team Record for this event.

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 2 Finals

#50 Boys 11-12 400 IM

Bear – 5:00.98 : Seeded 3 – This session started off with the 400 IM, which was a surprise to everyone. , given that the first race listed in the heat sheet was event #29…caught us a little off guard and caused a problem for Bear, but more on that later. The race started out with the Fly and when that opening 100 ended, Bear was in second place after a split of 1:04.83. In the backstroke leg, bear swam another good split of 1:13.31, but he slipped back to third about a second behind second place, heading into his weakest stroke – breast. Bear did an excellent job fighting to stay in contact with the leaders. He managed to swim the 100 breast split in 1:24.39 – for point of reference his personal best in the 100 breast is a 1:23.97. Unfortunately, despite his strong breast, Bear found himself a distant 4th…around 3 seconds out of 3rd and 3.5 out of second (first place was a runaway at this point). Bear was so far behind when the freestyle started that the announcer stated that Brendan (mentioned earlier in the 1000 free) was going to win the event, but that there was a great battle for second between the two swimmers Bear was trailing. Bear was a complete afterthought. At the end of the first 50 in the free leg, Bear had closed to 2 seconds behind 2nd place, and 1.8 behind 3rd – and he was charging. As Bear was heading into the final turn the announcer recognized the charge, and started yelling , and Bear is coming on strong…heading down the stretch with every stroke Bear ate into the 2nd and 3rd place swimmers lead. As they reached for the wall here were their times:

Spoiler

Bear		Quinn		David H
4:42.92		4:42.67		4:42.46

So Bear’s charge came up just short – missing third by .25 seconds and second by .46 seconds. It was amazing to watch. Bear’s final 100 in the 400 free was an unbelievable 1:00.65 – which was a good 2 full seconds faster than any other swimmer in the pool and over 3 seconds faster than the 2nd and 3rd place finishers.

#30 Boys 11-12 200 Free

Bear – 2:01.05 – Seeded 5th – Remember above when I said the switching of the 400 IM to the first event of the evening really impacted Bear. Well the second event of the evening was the 200 Free. After his furious charge to try and earn a medal, Bear got about 15 minutes to rest before he hit the pool again for this event. It was unfortunate, because the fatigue was obvious. He did manage to go Sub60 in the opening 100, but fell off to a 1:03 back half, settling for a 2:03.33 and 9th place. If he had more time to recover he would have had a good chance to hang on to 5th, might have challenged for 4th, and probably would have done no worse than 6th.


#65 Girls 12&U 400 Medley Relay

Gold A Team – 4:23.86 – Seeded 8th – Salmon started off the backstroke again, and she swam a 1:07.08, which was a personal best time, but still put the relay way behind the top teams. In fact, the Gold A team found themselves in 8th. Julia in breast did a 1:13.61 and moved the team up to 6th. Bailey’s split in the fly was a 1:03.56, which put them in 5th. Then the freestyler held on closing in a 59.61. The team finished 5th with a time of 4:23.86, a nice jump from the pre-race seed. Also the time was much faster than last year’s Gold A team.


#66 Boys 12&U 400 Medley Relay

Gold A Team – 4:18.94 : Seeded 3rd – Nicklas started off in the back and swam a very strong 1:03.32. When he got to the wall, the team was solidly in second place, over a second up on the 3rd place team. The second in the water was Grant 2. In the preview of this event, I noted the concern with Grant swimming this leg, due to his history of mailing in his swims, and hoping that Griffin would get moved into this slot before the race. Well the change wasn’t made, despite the fact that Griffin beat Grant in the 50 and 200 Breasts earlier during the meet – and the failure to make that change was huge. In Grant’s defense, he didn’t mail in the swim, rather he tried way to hard, overworking the stroke and going no-where. He finished with a time of 1:17.02 and the team fell all the way to a 5th. In fact, on the strength of Griffins 1:13.32 split the Gold B team was in 6th and only .4 seconds behind the A team. Bear managed a 1:04.83 split in the fly – still 5th, but with a good 2.5 second lead on the Gold B team. Then Nate hit the water for the free leg, and just like the 200 Medley, he immediately began eating into the lead. By the first 50, he was already in a dead heat for 4th and only .6 from 3rd. He blew by both of those teams in the back half and was closing hard on second place, only getting out-touched by .4 seconds. So Gold’s A team took another bronze with a time of 4:17.59 – and they broke another Gold Team Record.


Total Points Earned

Bailey - 7
Bear - 21

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 3 Prelims


#67 Girls 12&U 400 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 4:07.73 : Seeded 11 – Again, because the A team is seeded 11th, they didn’t get to swim in the fast heat. Instead, they entered their heat as the top seed, with very little competition. The opening swimmer, Reagan posted a 1:01.82 – which was the 12th fastest opening leg in the meet. Julia went second and was sub60, finishing at 59.54 – which put the team ahead in their heat, and 8th overall on time at the midway point. The slowest swimmer of the 4 went 3rd, and she only managed a 1:03, but held on to 8th. Bailey closed the relay with a sub60 swim of 59.21 – which was also 8th total. Combined the team swam a 4:03.82, and again significantly outperformed their seed.


#68 Boys 12&U 400 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 3:48.00 : Seeded T1 – The Gold A Team, came into this relay already having earned 3 bronze medals and 3 team records. They were seeded T1, and where hoping for a better result this time out, as the Gold Team was clearly better at 100s than at 50s. The coaches for Gold, after having watched Nate try and close in the last 3 relays, decided they needed to switch up the order so as to not put too much pressure on him. They elected to have him lead off instead. Then the discussion came down to Bear vs Nicklas as the anchor. Coach Andy told the rest of the coaches, Bear will swim his best race no matter where you put him, but Nicklas does better when he’s challenged – so decision made – Nicklas is the anchor. The order ended up being Nate, Bear, Andrew, and Nicklas, and the irony of this change is – Swim Atlanta also changed their order as well. They front loaded their relay with their 2 best swimmers, hoping to disconnect and get the Gold swimmer to think they wouldn’t be able to make up the ground. Here is how it went:
Nate and Quinn (same Quinn that beat Bear in 400 IM) immediately separated themselves from the field. At the turn for the 50, Nate was up by .3, and third was already a full second back. At the end of the 100 things here were the splits:

Nate – 53.32	Quinn – 54.15

Bear was next up, and he opened with a 26.75 in the first 50…but the Swim Atlanta swimmer posted a 25.92 0 so the teams were tied with a split of 1:20.07. On the back 50, Bear lost a bit more time Here are the splits and the overall times:

Bear – 56.49 (1:49.81)	Swim Atlanta – 54.85 (1:49.00)

Down by a little under a second, Andrew, the slowest of the 4 swimmers dove in. He’s more of a distance swimmer, so I was afraid that we might fall a good bit behind now. In the first 50 of the 3rd leg Andrew lost another .8 when he posted a 27.46 to SAs 26.75, but in the back half he closed some and the race was look like this:

Andrew – 57.66 (2:47.47)	Swim Atlanta – 57.29 (2:46.29)

Nicklas had a 1.18 second deficit to make up when he hit the water. He was clearly closing on the Swim Atlanta anchor, and at the 50 turn of the 4th leg the deficit was almost cut in half as it was down to .57 seconds. Nicklas opened with a 26.80 to Swim Atlanta’s 27.55. The question was could he make up another .59 or did he wear himself out on the opening leg chasing?

Spoiler

Nickas – 55.46 (3:42.93)		Swim Atlanta – 57.27 (3:43.56)

Gold wins Gold!!! And they not only broke the team record, they destroyed it by 8 full seconds.

#71 Girls 11-12 100 IM

Bailey – 1:09.28 : Seeded 20 – This was a pretty indifferent effort from Bailey. Her fly was good, not great, her back was deliberate, and a 100 IM is an all-out sprint, there should have been more effort. The breast was pretty good for her, but she couldn’t close on the Free and ended up adding a fraction of the second to her PB – 1:09.33 – and she finished 18th. I do believe there were 2 problems with this race. 1 – she hasn’t swum it in quite a while and she isn’t use to the pacing. 2 – she’s seeded 4th in the 200 Fly, she wants a medal, and she knew she wasn’t going to make finals in this event, even with a great swim, so there was a bit of conserving energy going on.


#76 Boys 11-12 100 Free

Bear – 58.49 : Seeded 13 – Bear looked real strong in this one, keeping up with the swimmers in the middle of the pool in his heat. He finished with a personal best 57.33 and in 9th. So he’ll earn points in this event and he’ll be swimming it in finals.


#85 Girls 11-12 50 Back

Bailey – 31.82 : Seeded 27 – Pretty good swim…a personal best despite the fact the arm rotation was too slow for this sprint. Again, I think it gets back to the second problem mentioned in the 100 IM. Her final time 31.35, and she finished 23rd.

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 3 Prelims

Opps missed one…

#90 Boys 11-12 500 Free

Bear – 5:23.37 : Seeded 2 – In this event, Bear was right next to the top seed, guess who – Brendan, and the 3rd seed, Nate, was on the other side of the top seed. Bear went into this event wanting to beat Brenden and pay him back for the out-touching that occurred on day 1 in the 1000 Free. The coach said, to keep in contact with Brendan early. Like the 1000 Brendan opened really strong with a 58.88. Nate was second at this point with a 59.31. Bear was actually 5th at the 100 turn with a split of 1:01.69. I signaled Bear to pick it up a little and he did, closing on the leaders after he posted a 1:03.77 to Brendan’s – 1:04.20, and Nate’s – 1:05.17. At this point in the race Bear was in 3rd and the top 3 began to separate from the field. 3rd hundred Bear had another strong split of 1:03.38, but Brendan split 1:03.66, so almost no gain there. Nate swam a 1:04.97 and Bear slipped by him into 2nd. Bear lost ground on Brendan in the 4th hundred – coming into the wall 3.25 seconds back, but maintaining about a second lead on Nate. Here I got worried, and so did Coach Andy…we were both afraid Nate was going to sprint the last 100, and Bear wouldn’t be able to do much about it. As it turns out…Nate did pick it up in the final split going 1:03.15, but Bear swam a 1:02.50, posting a final time of 5:16.25 and earning another silver medal.

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 3 Finals


#76 Boys 11-12 100 Yard Free

Bear – 57:33 : Seeded 9th - Our evening of swimming started with Bear’s 100 Free, which created a problem – because the very next event was the 200 fly, where Bear was seeded 2nd. Given that the 100 Free and the 200 Fly were back to back, and Bear would have no time to recoup following this sprint, the Gold coaches told Bear to throw the race. They told him that he was coming in seeded 9th, had just gotten a personal best in prelims, and he could swim the best race of his career and still end up 9th or 10th, and that he’d be better off throwing this one, finishing 10th and saving himself for the 200 Fly. Bear wasn’t real pleased with this, and it took multiple conversations to convince him of this logic. He said he didn’t want to mail it in, and he felt if he was going to mail it in, he should have scratched to give someone else a chance to swim it. However, the coaches finally got through to him, and explained that he had earned the spot, and settling for a lower point total wasn’t uncommon in the sport, that it happens in pretty much every big meet at some point. So Bear swam it and finished with a 1:02.21 and in 10th place. In case you are wondering, a good swim and Bear might have had a shot at 7th.


#79 Girls 11-12 200 Fly

Bailey – 2:23.72 : Seeded 4th – This was the last race of the meet for Bailey, and also her best chance at a medal. She was very eager to earn a medal here, especially after watching Bear perform so well. Working in Bailey’s favor was the fact one of the top swimmers in the state, and the #1 seed in this event had to withdraw due to bronchitis. This opened the door for Bailey to get a spot on the podium. In the opening 50 Bailey looked strong, as she made the turn in second place. At the 100 turn, Bailey was basically in a dead heat for second. At the 125 turn, she had fallen back a bit as the girl she was tied with made a strong move during that split…she was in a solid third heading into the wall for her turn to swim the last 50:

Spoiler

When she stopped!!! She was breathing basically every stroke, and her turnover was much faster than it had ever been, as she was on a pace to go 2:18 (which would have been a senior cut), this caused her to hyperventilate. She was crushed, but handled it like a champ – no tears, no lashing out, just a resigned attitude of I missed an opportunity. I was heartbroken for her, as she really has to battle some very big girls to try and get into medal contention, and this was looking like a race she would get on the podium for.

#80 Boys 11-12 200 Fly

Bear – 2:21.44 : Seeded 2nd – All the drama that occurred with Bailey took place right in front of Bear who was stretching and prepping for his turn in the 200 fly. This concerned me a bit, as I was afraid it might psych him out a bit. Brendan, who had beaten Bear in the 500 and 1000 Free swam this event in the morning using a long course time, and he posted a very strong 2:17.42, putting even more pressure on Bear’s swim. In the opening 50 Bear’s 30.81 was 5th into the wall in his heat, and behind the time posted by Brendan. The second 50 was stronger as Bear posted a 34.37, but he was still 4th, and only a fraction of a second ahead of Brendan’s time. However, one of Bear’s best traits is the ability to push…and he swam the 3rd 50 in 34.9…the fastest of all swimmers in this event – by a considerable margin. He blew by the 2nd and 3rd place swimmers and found himself just under a second behind the leader. As they reached the wall for final 25 bear was still charging. He lost some ground on the turn, but came up strong and continued to push…

Spoiler

Bear closed with the fastest 50 split of anyone in the race, closing with a 34…the leader closed with a 34.61…and the race finished like this:

Bear – 2:14.08		Anthony - 2:13.92

So Bear was out-touched for Gold again…this time by .16. So Bear earns his 3rd individual silver medal to go along with his 3 bronze and 1 gold relay medals.

Total Point Earned

Bear - 41
Bailey - 7

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship - Summary

So this meet went about like I expected.

Bailey did well, but she definitely needs to clean up some stuff moving forward if she wants to be more competitive and I feel really sorry for her in the 200 Fly, as she was very excited about her opportunities there.

Bear on the other hand had an extremely strong meet, winning 7 total medals. (3 bronze and 1 gold relay medals, and 3 silver individual medals). Plus he was just out-touched by about .5 seconds in the 1000 for gold, by around .16 for gold in the 200 Fly, and he was only about .25 from bronze and less than .5 from silver in the 400 IM). Those races were extremely exciting to watch, as Bear charges to the wall.

I’ve posted a couple videos on Google+ and I’ll post more if anyone is interested. (Here is a link to…Bailey's 200 IM – not sure how this works, given that I limited access to it, but we’ll see).

Now the twins are prepping for the Southeastern Sectional Meet. I’ve been doing some research into that meet and I think I’ll have some interesting things to pass along, but I want to get closer to the event before I go to the trouble of doing a write up.

Brett is prepping for Northern Divisionals (a week after Sectionals, so twins might swim 1 day at that event). He’s missed quite a few days due to weather cancelling morning practices, sickness (just got over strep), and homework, but apparently reports are his fly is really starting to come around. FINGERS CROSSED…

[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship - General Information

Couple items to report:

- The award ribbons given out for places 4th through 10th say Long Course State Championship on them. Not sure how this happens, but it is disappointing as it skews the whole award. Plus long course awards are a different color scheme

- Bear is still missing 2 of his medals (Relay Gold, and 500 Free Silver). He was originally missing 3, but 1 was found. The coach isn't confident they will turn up. Again not sure where the mistake is here, but given the info from the first bullet, I'm betting it is with the award team from the meet.

If for some reason Bear's medals don't turn up, I guess I'll be going to the Georgia Swimming organization to try an get them to reorder medals for him. Bear's pretty depressed by this...

[Breeze]

General Update

So we had a scary moment last night. The kids went to morning practice without issue. Spent the day at home because the schools were closed due to concerns about the weather. The snow/ice rolled in around 4, and came down pretty steady most of the afternoon and into the event. At about 8, we were getting ready for dinner, and Bailey was fixing her baked potato, when she passed out. She stumbled backwards into the fridge, then fell to her knees and hit her head on the floor pretty hard right by the temple.

If you've been reading along for a while, I'm guessing I've mentioned her propensity to do this. It happened several times when she was younger, and we believe it is related to her problems eating early in the morning, especially when she is tired. She hasn't actually blacked out in a while, but she did pull herself out of a race at one of the Grand Prix meets because she felt she might.

When she came to, she sat down to eat and of course reported she had a headache. Which, after banging your head on the floor is to be expected. Then she reported blurry vision in the eye next to the temple she bumped. That was pretty concerning, but the vision cleared in about 5 minutes, so we just noted it. We figured everything was ok until she vomited about half a hour later, and then a second time about 15 minutes after that. At this point we figured she had a concussion and I was going to need to take her to the ER, in the middle of a wintry mix with ice on the roads.

We called the pediatrician before leaving, and after a long discussion, his opinion was the entire thing was caused from her being dehydrated. So we were to give her 2 tablespoons of watered down Gatorade every 20 minutes for the next 4 hours (did I mention it was about 10 PM at this point - and I got up at 4:30 AM and she got up at 5:00 AM).

It was a long night, but she seems fine today, and hopefully, this has illustrated, albeit in a rather painful way, the need to stay hydrated. Maybe she'll actually listen now when I tell her she needs to drink something.

On doctor's orders, Bailey will miss practice today in order to fully recover (she's not happy about it, but maybe this will also reinforce the need to hydrate).

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals – GaTech – 3/12-3/15

So Coach Andy emailed us the events that the kids are currently scheduled to swim at Sectionals. At this meet, kids can swim up to 3 events a day, but no more than 8 individual events in total. Here is what the schedule currently looks like:

Bailey

400 IM
50 Fly
200 Back
100 Fly
50 Back
200 Fly
100 Back
200 IM

200 Free Relay – A Team
200 Medley Relay – A Team

Not surprisingly, Bailey is all Fly, Back and the longer IMs. I was a bit surprised to find out Bailey will have 2 relays. I didn’t think four 11-12 year old girls actually had Sectional Cuts (and it is possible they don’t, because the event is local, they may be bringing girls in just for the relay). I’m going to assume the relay will be the same girls from state – Julia, Reagan, and probably Jordan, but I’ll clear this up when I know more.

Bear

1000 Free
200 Free
100 IM
100 Fly
100 Free
500 Free
200 Fly
200 IM

200 Free Relay – B Team
200 Medley Relay – B Team

As for Bear, he’s got some problems because of the schedule. Coach would like for him to swim the 400 IM, but it is swum the first day along with the 1000 Free, and there is basically no way to swim both competitively. The coach has him in the 1000 because it is his better event right now, and he’s only 3 seconds from a team record, and the coach really wants him to break that record. Also, the 1650 is the last day of the meet. Right now Bear isn’t scheduled to swim it, because it is unclear if the event will be scored 11-12s and 13-14s, or if it will be scored 14 and unders. Once that is determined Bear’s schedule may change.

Also surprisingly, Bear is currently on the B relay for both Free and Medley. When I found that out, I was shocked…so I looked into it. Basically, it all comes down to a mistake in the entries at the state meet. I don’t think I noted this in my state write-up, because I figured it would get corrected and there would be no fallout…but during the 200 Free Relay, Bear’s A team swimmers where listed under the B Team results and vice versa. So the leadoff leg on the B team was credited with Nicklas’ 26.03 time…which is not only faster than Bear, it is close enough to Nate, that it shuffled the Medley relay moving Nate to the fly leg, and giving the kid who erroneously is credited with Nicklas’ time the free leg. It is extremely frustrating, and I have pointed out the error to Bear’s coach. Hopefully it will get fixed, because this change not only aces Bear out of two strong relays, it will cost Gold over 2 seconds and probably several spots in the standings and points for the team.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals – GaTech – 3/12-3/15

So we heard from Coach Andy last night, and yes, as expected the 1650 will be scored 11-12s and then 13-14s. So we were left with the dilemma of “what should Bear swim”. Adding a short sprint to a schedule isn’t a really big deal, but adding a 1650 takes some major thought. In our (coach and my) discussion we basically determined that if Bear wanted to swim the 1650, that we needed to make sure it was the last thing he did for the weekend. That after his tough schedule, the 1650 was likely to completely tax his system and prevent him from swimming well after that event. This meant that we’d have to make sure that Bear’s seed time in the 200 fly wasn’t automatically going to place him in finals. Also we had to determine what event he would need to drop, and after some discussion about the 100 Fly, and the 100 Free, it became pretty obvious the right choice would be the 200 IM. It is scheduled for Sunday with the 200 Fly and the 1650, so no need to tax him further on the last day. Coach wasn’t terribly thrilled about him not swimming either of the Ionger IMs, but he felt that was going to be the best bet.

So at practice Coach Andy pulled Bear aside and talked with him about his options, and as you probably guessed Bear wants to do the 1650. In fact, he wants to get the team record in that event, which is a 17.41.20. Bear’s PB, in case you are wondering is 18:33.00 swum in December. Given that Bear did want to swim the 1650…here is what happens:

Bear’s seed time in the 200 Fly has been adjusted by adding 10 seconds, which will insure he swims in the morning. This is going to be interesting because my initial peeks into the potential seeds indicate Bear has a strong chance of being top 10. The only problem is that he does better chasing a rabbit (as noted by his strong finishes at State), and in this arrangement all the speed will have to come from him, because he should be faster than those he’ll swim against. Also he will be dropping the 200 IM.

The Psych Sheet is supposed to be out early next week, and I believe we’ll have 1 last chance to make a change to his schedule after that is posted. It will be very interesting to see how he stacks up against the best from the Southeast.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals – GaTech – 3/12-3/15

The Psych Sheet is out, so I now have a better grasp on what we’ll be looking at for Sectionals. A couple of items before I get into what the kids will be swimming. As you may recall in my past write ups for big meets I talk about how differences between kids gets compressed, and a good or bad swim can significantly impact the place of the swimmer. This is even a bigger factor in this meet, where 1 second can make a 20+ spot difference in where a kid finishes (I’ll try to illustrate that a bit with the write up). Also, in this meet, medals are awarded for top 10 finishes in individual events, and top 3 finishes for relays.

With that said, here is where things stand:


Day 1

#3 Girls 11-12 400 IM
Bailey – 5:04.66 : Seeded 26 – Bailey is middle of the pack in this event. We’ve talked a bit, and she realizes she needs to improve her non-fly strokes, but obviously that improvement isn’t going to take place before this race. However, an improvement of 1 second would give her shot to finish in the top 20.

#6 Boys 11-14 1000 Free
Bear – 10:43.28 : Seeded 2 (56) – The seeding in this one may seem a bit odd, but remember it is being swum 14U, so the seeding in the parentheses is overall, the regular seed is where he is for 12U. If you are wondering he is 8+ seconds behind the top seed coming in, and about 13 seconds ahead of the 3rd place swimmer. While this seems like a bunch of time on both ends, the distance swims can have wide swings in time, so hopefully Bear is feeling good and can post a strong time. Remember, he is also going for the Gold Team Record here…he needs to cut about 3 seconds to get it.


Day 2

#8 Boys 11-12 200 Free
Bear – 2:01.05 : Seeded 18 – Bear’s time right now places him in line to make the B finals in this event. However, this is one of those tightly bunched events. An improvement of 2 seconds could put Bear in the A final…but a poor swim, and he could end up outside of the top 20. I expect he’ll end up about where he is seeded.

#15 Girls 11-12 50 Fly
Bailey – 28.82 : Seeded 29 – A good seeding in this even for Bailey. This is one of those races where her small size really hurts, and with a good swim, she could challenge for the B final. Currently she’s only a half second behind the girl seeded 20th, and a better dive could speed her up a half second.

#20 Boys 11-12 100 IM
Bear – 1:08.51 : Seeded 79 – This is a funky race for Bear. He hasn’t swum this race since December, and his Breast has improved significantly since then. In fact, if you take his 200 IM from State (a much more taxing event) and cut the time in half it comes to a 1:09.4…so he could drop a couple seconds easy, and a 1:06.5 would be seeded 39…

#23 Girls 11-12 200 Back
Bailey - 2:26.12 : Seeded 55 – Bailey didn’t swim this one at State, so it’s been a couple months. Hopefully, she’ll drop some time, but based on the fact she didn’t drop time in the back events at State, I’m not sure she will.

#27 Girls 11-12 200 Free Relay
Gold Team A – 1:55.70 : Seeded 26 – This relay will be towards the bottom of the standings, which really isn’t terribly surprising given that none of the girls on the relay team even has a state cut in the 50 free. Not sure who will be on the relay or what order they will swim, and I don’t think I’ll know until the day of, or even after the event, as there is no banquet for Sectionals to announce this information.

#28 Boys 11-12 200 Free Relay
Gold Team A – 1:43.52 : Seeded 5 – I’m going to assume the Gold team actually fixes their issues (noted in a thread above) and gets the relays correct. Bear’s relay is seeded 5th, but they are only .5 from second…this one could be very exciting. It will also be exciting to see if they switch the 200 Free like they did the 400 free at State, having Nate lead off and seeing if anchoring and chasing motivates Nicklas into a better swim.


Day 3

#37 Girls 11-12 100 Fly
Bailey - 1:02.70 : Seeded 16 – As you can see, as the fly races get longer, Bailey’s form helps to overcome some size limitations. Hopefully, she’ll iron out the problems with going deep on her dive to improve her time a bit and she’ll be able to make the B final. I’d say she has a shot at the A final, because the 10th spot is only 1 second faster, but the 10th spot is also a Georgia swimmer who is one of the superstars in the sport, so I honestly don’t expect Bailey to challenge for that spot.

#38 Boys 11-12 100 Fly
Bear – 1:05.04 : Seeded 38 – Again, this is an event Bear didn’t swim at State, so his seed time goes back to December. I would expect he’ll drop time here…especially since his relay splits at state were faster (event taking into account the rolling start). I could easily see a 1:04 low or 1:03 high…which might be good enough to sneak into the B final

#42 Boys 11-12 100 Free
Bear – 57.33 : Seeded 37 – Hard to get a read on this one. Bear won’t challenge for anything here, and unfortunately, he’ll probably miss the heat with a bunch of kids he knows and would like to race, but I’m sure he’ll push and he could drop some time, but a top 30 finish would be good.

#49 Girls 11-12 50 Back
Bailey - 31.35 : Seeded 74 – Bailey could improve here, she managed to drop some time at State, but she can go faster. She needs to clean some stuff up and increase her effort.

#54 Boys 11-12 500 Free
Bear - 5:16.25 : Seeded 6 – Bear is going to want to challenge for a top 3 in this race…the top seed is way down at a 5:06 and second is around a 5:11, so I don’t think he’ll touch those times, but 3rd and 4th are 5:15 lows, and 5th is only .1 faster. This one could get very interesting…especially with some strong kids right on his heals...

#57 Girls 11-12 200 Medley Relay
Gold Team A – 2:02.31 : Seeded 19 – This is a much more respectable seed for Gold, and it speaks to the strength of Bailey’s fly and Julia’s breast. They still are middle of the pack at best, and they’ll get stuck in an outside lane in their heat, but it could be tight and with good swims they might sneak up on a couple of teams.

#58 Boys 11-12 200 Medley Relay
Gold Team A – 1:57.27 : Seeded 11 – This is strange, as the boys that should be in the relay (again assuming Gold gets their errors figured out) are the same ones that swam at State – and there they managed to post a 1:56 low, so not sure where this seed time comes from. Regardless, Gold will do good to get into the top 10. It would also be nice to see them lower their team record time.


Day 4

#71 Girls 11-12 200 Fly
Bailey - 2:23.72 : Seeded 12 – This is an extremely interesting one. Bailey is seeded 12 with the top 10 getting medals. Remember that Bailey desperately wanted one at State but failed to finish this race, due to hyperventilating, and she was in a position to finish 3rd. This time she’ll need to beat a couple of people seeded above her, but had she finished this race during the state meet, even with a poor final split she’d have dropped 3 seconds. Given a ballpark time of 2:20, she could be as high as 7th coming into this. The one big problem she will have, is she won’t be in the A heat with the rest of the fast girls, so she’ll have to post a fast time and hope it holds up (which might be better anyway – as it might reduce the pressure and maybe allow her to relax and not over breath again). I really have my fingers crossed on this one – as it would be a real boost to her self-confidence.

#72 Boys 11-12 200 Fly
Bear – 2:24.08 : Seeded 17 – This is another funny one…in an earlier post I outlined how things in this meet were going to change in order to give Bear his best chance to do well in this race and the 1650. We’ll in order to insure Bear would be swimming this race in Prelims before the 1650, the coach added 10 seconds to his seed time, and that worked, as Bear will be swimming with the fastest non A final kids. However, Bear’s real time of 2:14.08 would have seeded him 3rd, with a good 2 second lead on 4th. Hopefully, he’ll pull away from the field in his 200 fly heat and his time will stand up and he’ll end up with another top 3 medal.

#81 Girls 11-12 100 Back
Bailey – 1:07.32 : Seeded 72 – Bailey failed to drop time in this race at State. She should drop time, in fact, if she doesn’t it’ll be disappointing, but her Back has been off a bit, and she still needs to increase effort on the back. I’m just guessing here, but I’d say if she does well in the 200 fly earlier in the day, she’ll do well here, if she doesn’t do well in the fly, she’ll not do well here either.

#85 Girls 11-12 200 IM
Bailey 2:26.54 : Seeded 64 – If her breast improves this time will drop. Also like the 100 back, based on how she does in the 200 fly, it will impact my expectations.

#88 Boys 11-14 1650 Free
Bear – 18:13.00 – Seeded 3 (52) – This is the other end of the 200 fly equation noted above. Again this is swum 14 U, so Bear’s real seed is 52, and 3rd for 12Us. However, the coach dropped his seed time by 20 seconds hoping to get him into a faster heat - his real seed time should be 18:33 (as he hasn’t swum this since December). Even with the 18:33 time he’d be 3rd in this event for 12 and unders. The top 2 swimmers in this event come in with times of 18:08 and 18:10…so Bear could be in striking distance. Unfortunately, he won’t be swimming in the heat with those two kids – they will be 1 heat after him (unless the coach fudges his time again). Bear wants to break the team record here too, but it’ll take a herculean effort to do that, he’ll have to drop 45 seconds from his real 18:33 time. To beat the team record he’ll need to hold 1:04s for the entire race…

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals – GaTech – 3/12-3/15

The final Psych Sheet has been released. There were a couple of changes, they are noted below:


Day 2

#15 Girls 11-12 50 Fly
Bailey – 28.82 : Seeded 28 – A good seeding in this even for Bailey. This is one of those races where her small size really hurts, and with a good swim, she could challenge for the B final. Currently she’s only a half second behind the girl seeded 20th, and a better dive could speed her up a half second.

#20 Boys 11-12 100 IM
Bear – 1:08.51 : Seeded 81 – This is a funky race for Bear. He hasn’t swum this race since December, and his Breast has improved significantly since then. In fact, if you take his 200 IM from State (a much more taxing event) and cut the time in half it comes to a 1:09.4…so he could drop a couple seconds easy, and a 1:06.5 would be seeded 39…


Day 3

#42 Boys 11-12 100 Free
Bear – 57.33 : Seeded 38 – Hard to get a read on this one. Bear won’t challenge for anything here, and unfortunately, he’ll probably miss the heat with a bunch of kids he knows and would like to race, but I’m sure he’ll push and he could drop some time, but a top 30 finish would be good.


Day 4

#85 Girls 11-12 200 IM
Bailey 2:26.54 : Seeded 65 – If her breast improves this time will drop. Also like the 100 back, based on how she does in the 200 fly, it will impact my expectations.


Still no confirmation on the relays being corrected.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals – GaTech – 3/12-3/15

Just a quick note: I looked into boys 11-12 400 IM because it is Bear's other strong event, which he isn't swimming because it's not only the same day as the 1000, it is back to back with that event, and he preferred to swim the 1000. Had he elected to swim the 400 IM, he'd be seeded 5th, only 2 seconds from 2nd place. I really wish the scheduled were more accommodating, I'd really like to see him swim the 400 IM again.

[Breeze]

High School Swimming

Finally some good news for Brett. Last night was the high school swim banquet, and Brett did receive his varsity letter! He was 1 of about 5 Freshman to earn a varsity letter.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals

Going for the team record in the 1000...fingers crossed

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Breeze

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals

Going for the team record in the 1000...fingers crossed

Ok...gotta do one of those splits write ups with the spoiler tag...which is to hard to do on the phone.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 1

#3 Girls 11-12 400 IM
Bailey – 5:04.66 : Seeded 26 – Bailey’s 400 IM was an interesting race. She opened with a 1:04.62 fly leg, which given her personal best is a 1:02 seemed a bit off, so I was afraid we were about to see a pedestrian swim, even if she was way out in front of her heat already. However, her backstroke looked much stronger than it has in a while and he posted under a 1:15 and remained in first through the entire 100. Then came the dreaded Breaststroke, it still wasn’t good, but she held the lead through the first 25, and managed to swim both splits in the 46 low range. Then she closed with a 1:08 low freestyle; totaling a 5:00.18, over a 4 second drop in time. However, she only managed to move up a couple spots, finishing 24th.

#6 Boys 11-14 1000 Free
Bear – 10:43.28 : Seeded 2 (56) – So with two goals in mind, Bear set out in this race to earn a top 3 finish and get the Gold Record, which would require a swim of 10:40.77. Bear was told by his coach to try and hold 32s…and he told me he was going to try and get him to actually stay below 32.2s (or 1:04.40/100) in order to make sure he gets the record.

Here are Bear’s splits

100    -    1:02.22  -  Opening 100 is always ahead of time, so this isn’t surprising
200    -    1:04.95  (2:07.17)  -  Already behind his time, signaled at 150 to pick up pace a little
300    -    1:04.18  (3:11.35)  -  Back on pace
400    -    1:04.59  (4:15.94)  -  Back off pace slightly
500    -    1:04.46  (5:19.93)  -  Still slightly off
600    -    1:04.43  (6:24.39)  -  Still off
700    -    1:04.69  (7:29.08)  -  Off again, just barely…but still slipping

What you can't see b/c I'm posting 100 splits is that - with all these slight
misses on pace, one of the 50s is good typically around a 31 low, but the
other is not - usually a 32 mid 

800    -    1:03.85  (8:32.93)  -  Back under for the split, and in a good position now…
900    -    1:04.77  (9:37.70)  - Slipping back…said he thought he was going to puke after his 850 turn, which caused a slow down on this split

needs to close in a 1:03.07 to tie record!!!

Spoiler

It was going to be a tall order asking Bear to go basically swim 63 seconds at the end of a 1000…but that’s basically what he was going to have to do…at the:

950 turn – he went a 32.58…and that .18 really was a problem…now Bear was sitting on a time of 10:10.28

He sprinted the last 50 hard, and managed to post a 30.55…and amazing finish, which added up to:



10:40.83

.06 from the record. This is so hard to even comprehend. This number is so small, he actually could have gotten this time by getting off the blocks at the start of the race a hair faster.

This left us with a couple of ideas after the race. Coach Andy was initially suggesting that Bear go for the team record in this event, by setting it up in the 1650, going our hard and getting the record, and then doing his best to hold on for the last 650. He also suggested trying to swim it at Northern Divisionals.

So that was half the battle. As for the place finish. The top seed ran away from the pack, posting an amazing 10:29.89. Second place, ended up being a sleeper…as I indicated in the pre-race write up there can be significant drops due to the distance, and not knowing how long it has been since they last swam the race. In this case, the kid came in with a time on the cut, managed to drop 1:07.66 seconds and post a 10:38.33…

Then there was Conner. Conner, is actually the swimmer that beat Bear in the 1500 at Long Course in 2014 to get the bronze. Conner wasn’t in Bear’s heat, so he didn’t get to go head to head and adjust his swim accordingly.

Conner started out with the following splits:

100    -    1:00.43  -  Well ahead of Bear (1.8 seconds), but not surprising Bear’s opening split was one of the slowest
200    -    2:04.23  -  Opening the lead a bit more on Bear – (~2.9 seconds)
300    -    3:08.57  -  Now leading Bear’s time by around 2.8 seconds
400    -    4:13.10  -  2.74 seconds up now
500    -    5:17.75  -  2.18 seconds up
600    -    6:22.33  -  2.06 seconds as Bear’s time keep slowly eating into Conner’s
700    -    7:27.59  -  1.49…as this is getting tight with 300 yards to go
800    -    8:32.69  -  .24 – if they were side by side you couldn’t tell who was winning
900    -    9:37.53  -  .17 – Who’s going to have the better kick

Spoiler

Conner’s 950 split had him at a 10:09.54 – as he opened his lead on Bear, back to .74

Then in the last 50 Conner swam a 31.33 to Bear’s 30.55 – I’ll pause here for a second in case you want to do the math:





Bear gets 3rd by .04 seconds

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 2 - Prelims

#8 Boys 11-12 200 Free
Bear – 2:01.05 : Seeded 18 – Following Bear’s tough swim the night before, he was a bit sore that evening, so he lathered up with Aspercream and took some Advil. I was a bit concerned he’d be fully loose for this one because of the soreness, but I probably shouldn’t have been. Bear does a great job of taking care of himself, and doing good warm downs. He opened his race with a strong 28.15 split, then followed it up with a 30.07 (58.22), and in the back half he went 31.50 and 31.06 to close with a 1:02.56, and a total time of 2:00.78. This swim was good enough for a tie for 14th seed and a spot in the B finals.

#15 Girls 11-12 50 Fly
Bailey – 28.82 : Seeded 28 – Didn’t really shallow out the dive, but she was soooo close to pulling off a strong underwater, in fact, she was only a few feet from a strong breakout. As it turned out, she added a faction of time to her seed finishing in a 28.90, which placed her 35th overall. This was disappointing to her. She didn’t expect to make the B finals, but she was expecting an improvement in this race. In fact, the lack of improvement bothered her for a while and from her comments, threatened to undermine her confidence in the fly moving forward.

#20 Boys 11-12 100 IM
Bear – 1:08.51 : Seeded 81 – In the pre-race write up I mentioned a couple second drop would be attainable, and a 1:06.5 would be seeded 39th coming into the event. I guess I was a bit prophetic, as Bear swam a 1:06.44…unfortunately, that time was only good enough for 46th

#23 Girls 11-12 200 Back
Bailey - 2:26.12 : Seeded 55 – Bailey’s back start was excellent here, and after breaking out, she really had strong efficient pulls. She also appeared to be working harder than I’ve seen in the back in a while. She could still increase the turnover a bit and she’d see more time drops, but even without the increase stroke rate, she opened with a 1:08.42, only about 1 second over her 100 Back personal best. She finished in the 1:10 middle and posted a final time of 2:18.93. That’s a huge drop and she climbed all the way to 17th.

#27 Girls 11-12 200 Free Relay
Gold Team A – 1:55.70 : Seeded 26 – Bailey led off this relay, and she swam a 27.86, which is a personal best, and because she had the leadoff cold start it is an official time. The rest of the team managed splits of 28.82, 29.54, and 27.00. They finished with a 1:53.22, an improvement from the seed time, and they were in 25th place (out of 28 teams).

#28 Boys 11-12 200 Free Relay
Gold Team A – 1:43.52 : Seeded 5 – The team did switch the relay order to match the order from the 400 Free at State. However, while Nate is an awesome freestyler, regardless of distance, he is much better in the 100 and 200 frees than he is in the 50s. He opened the relay with a strong 24.69, and Gold was in first, with 2 teams less than .5 seconds back, and 3 more less than a second back. Bear was second, and he swam a strong 26.13, but the team slipped to 3rd – less than .75 from 1st. The 3rd swimmer only managed a 26.55, and the team slipped back to 4th, with 2 swimmers on their heels. Nicklas went 25.92 but lost ground to another two teams, and the boys ended up in 6th. They did however break their own team record from state by going 1:43.29.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 2 - Finals

#8 Boys 11-12 200 Free
Bear – 2:01.05 : Seeded T14 – Bear came into this race, really focused on having good turns. Problem was, he was so focused he says he lost count on the laps. He probably did, given his splits look like this:

28.32
30.54
32.49
30.54

That 3rd split is a full second over what he did in the morning and the major portion of his swim being about a second slower overall with a time of 2:01.87. After re-watching the video he appears to reach for the wall on the 150 turn as if he's about to touch the timing pad, when he sees the kid next to him flip, so he flips and continues on, but he's lost all momentum at that point and he falls off the pace a good bit. He finished 19th…

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 3 - Prelims

#37 Girls 11-12 100 Fly
Bailey - 1:02.70 : Seeded 16 – Bailey opened this race with a very slow 29.23…a full second above her personal best. She closed pretty well with a 33.91, but she failed to swim a personal best coming up about .4 off (1:03.14). She was again unhappy with her fly swim and really starting to lose confidence. However, she did finish 18th, which qualified her for finals, and I kept emphasizing that she'd get another shot at the race that evening and she should focus on swimming that one well.

#38 Boys 11-12 100 Fly
Bear – 1:05.04 : Seeded 38 – My prediction of a 1:04 low or 1:03 high was pretty good as he swam a 1:04 on the nose. However, it wasn’t good enough to get him into the B final. He finished 27th.

#42 Boys 11-12 100 Free
Bear – 57.33 : Seeded 38 – Opened with a 27.68, pretty close to his personal best on record, and then he swam a strong 28.88 back half to finish in 56.56. A pretty big drop and he managed to finish 27th.

#49 Girls 11-12 50 Back
Bailey - 31.35 : Seeded 74 – Good back swim earlier in the meet, gave me hope this would be a strong swim for Bailey. She could have worked the arms a bit faster, but she did get a personal best time of 31.04 and she moved up to 56th.

#57 Girls 11-12 200 Medley Relay
Gold Team A – 2:02.31 : Seeded 19 – Courtney was doing back again, and she managed a 31.42 to open, but the team was trailing most of the pool by then end of her swim. Julia swam a nice 33.72 split followed by Bailey’s split of 28.71 moved the team up to about 6th in the heat, but the freestyler lost a bunch of ground when she only managed to swim slightly faster than Bailey’s fly, posting a 28.11. They improved on their seed time, which I’m pretty sure was their time from State going 2:01.96, but they didn’t move up in the standings, settling for 19th.

#58 Boys 11-12 200 Medley Relay
Gold Team A – 1:57.27 : Seeded 11 – So this relay was the same 4 kids from State, but not in the same order. In a real surprise the team flipped Nate and Bear, having Nate do the fly and Bear do the freestyle. The team was in the second to fastest heat, coming in tied for 11th seed with another team only a couple tenths behind. The race completely illustrated how close these 3 teams were as Gold opened with a Nicklas’ 29.44, and things were really tight across the heat with splits ranging from 28 lows to 30 highs. Griffin in breast swam a 33.12, and at this point the team was 3rd in the heat with 2 teams an eye blink behind and two more teams only 1 second back. Nate’s fly split was an extremely strong 27.81, putting Gold second in the heat by a fingernail. Bear dove in, and blistered his split, going a 25.88 – passing the team that had the lead and beating them by .04. The team ended up 10th overall with a team record breaking time of 1:56.25.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 3 - Finals

#37 Girls 11-12 100 Fly
Bailey - 1:02.70 : Seeded 18 – From the start Bailey appeared stronger in this race than she was in the morning. Her opening split of 28.91 was a good third of a second faster. Back half remained strong, and she cleaned up a few things as well to drop more time going 33 low rather than 33 high. Overall she swam a personal best 1:02.07, and moved up to 13th overall. This caused a full 180 in the confidence level, and all of sudden she was quietly excited about her chances in the 200 fly. Also, I managed to point out to her, had she swum the 1:02.07 from finals in prelims, she would have made the A final, and earned a medal. Hopefully, this accomplished 2 things : First- I hope it further improved her confidence level, because she would realize how close she was to the A final and that she’s capable of getting there, and second – I hope it illustrated to her the need to clean up her races at all times, so she can maximize her efficiencies and improve her times.

#54 Boys 11-12 500 Free
Bear - 5:16.25 : Seeded 6 – Bear swam this even in the finals because he was seeded in the top 10, and this was done as a timed finals event with the 10 fastest swimming at night. Bear opened this race a bit faster than he normally does going out in a 1:00.45. I believe he went a bit faster because he knew this would be a fast race coming in, and he saw how quickly the rest of the heat went out. Even with the increased pace, Bear made the 100 turn last in the heat (and actually behind several other swimmers that swam earlier in the day). Again, this isn’t a surprise based on Bear’s style. After the 200 split Bear had moved up to 8th. However, despite the fact Bear was holding basically 31 high fifties for most of the rest of the race, he could only reel in 1 other swimmer, finishing 7th overall (earning his second ESSZ Medal). He did manage a personal best 5:14.54, which he was happy about, but Nate beat him this time around…which he was disappointed with, but not surprised by, given how well Nate had been swimming and how strong his freestyle had been.


Note: Bailey was actually quite funny after this evening, telling Bear he needed to give her one of his medals, that he didn't need anymore. It sounds kind of petty written here, but it was actually delivered in a cute, teasing way, which was nice to see from Bailey, as she at an age where she can be quite difficult.

[Breeze]

2015 ESSZ Age Group Sectionals - RESULTS

Day 4

#71 Girls 11-12 200 Fly
Bailey - 2:23.72 : Seeded 12 – This was the big race for Bailey…she was excited going in, knowing she had a chance to get top 10 and earn a medal. As I mentioned in the pre-race write up, I was concerned that Bailey wouldn’t have any competition in her heat and that might slow her down…well – the race started and Bailey was in first after the first 50, but only .22 seconds ahead of second place. After the second 50 she was second in the heat with a 1:04.04, .07 behind. At this point it became obvious Bailey and the other girl were going to battle the entire way. At the 3rd 50 Bailey was sitting on a 1:40.02 now .27 seconds back. Bailey tried to make a move on the next 25, and she actually pulled slightly ahead, but she lost the lead on the turn, when the other girl’s underwaters were much better. Bailey was unable to real her in and she ended up losing the heat by 1 second. She did manage to post a 2:17.54. This is obviously a personal best…it exceeds what I expected she’d be able to do, it would have been good enough to earn 3rd place at State had she been able to finish that race, and it is a Senior Cut…meaning she’s earned the minimum time to swim against the 15-18 year olds in their State Meets (by the way, it wasn’t mentioned earlier, but she also earned her Senior Cut in the 100 Fly). Unfortunately, she finished 2nd in her heat, which means her time will have to beat 2 people in the evenings fast heat in order for her to get into the top 10. That is a bit concerning…

#72 Boys 11-12 200 Fly
Bear – 2:24.08 : Seeded 17 – Bear, like Bailey didn’t get to run away with his heat. At least not early. He opened with a 30.49, and Conner (yes the same kid from the 1000 that Bear just barely beat) had a 30.63. At the 100 Bear’s lead over Conner was less than half a second. In the 3rd 50 Bear started to pull ahead and he finished strong opening up a several second lead over Conner, and winning his heat. He ended up adding less than a second from his true personal best time of 2:14.08, when he posted a time of 2:14.94. However, unlike the uncertainty I felt with Bailey’s swim, I was pretty confident Bear’s time would hold up and he’d end up with a top 10 finish and another medal. We’d just need to wait and see how high his finish would be.

#81 Girls 11-12 100 Back
Bailey – 1:07.32 : Seeded 72 – Bailey’s improvement in the 50 and big improvement in the 200 had me expecting more of the same in this race. And she didn’t disappoint, dropping to a personal best time of 1:06.84. I do believe she can go faster, with quicker arm rotation or not…but after the 200 fly and towards the end of a 4 day meet – this was a very nice effort. She ended up 67th.

#85 Girls 11-12 200 IM
Bailey 2:26.54 : Seeded 64 – With improved back and her breast starting to come around, I was hopeful for another strong swim…but it wasn’t to be. Bailey really appeared spent, opening with a 29.97 fly, followed by a poor 37.54 back. The ultimately finished the race in 2:27.21. Interestingly, Bailey wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of a long weekend. While she added about .75 seconds…she also moved up to 57th in the overall standings.

#88 Boys 11-14 1650 Free
Bear – 18:13.00 – Seeded 3 (52) – So even before this race started the Coach told him to not worry about the team record in the 1650, or the 1000 either. He wanted to take the pressure off and allow Bear to just swim his race. Prior to Bear swimming we watched the two top seeds go and we noted that they swam the following times 17:57.15, and 18:16.50. Coach and I felt Bear would be the 18:16 time for sure, and the coach said he felt the 17:57 was attainable and he was going to signal accordingly. Here are his splits:

100	-	1:10.64
200	-	2:07.04
300	-	3:12.13
400	-	4:17.23
500	-	5:22.80
600	-	6:28.64
700	-	7:33.98
800	-	8:39.39
900	-	9:44.64
1000	-	10:50.10 – at this point Bear is 4 seconds ahead of pace for 1st
1100	-	11:56.12 – holding 4 second lead
1200	-	13:01.52 – holding 4 second lead
1300	-	14:06.97 – holding
1400	-	15:12.81 – holding
1500	-	16.18.42 – holding
1600	-	17:23.42 – 3 second lead
1650	-	17:53.78 – closed in a 30.36 after swimming 1600 yards

For perspective – last year during Bear’s 11 year old short course season, his personal best for a 50 free was 30.11.

Obviously, this is a personal best and put Bear in first place. But Conner (yes the kid from the 1000) was still to swim. We were concerned based on how close he was to Bear in the 1000…and as soon as the race started we realized we were right to be concerned. Conner immediately started churning out 50s between 31 high and 32 low, which put him well ahead of Bear (who was turning 32 mids). We watched for signs of fatigue, but after the midway point he was still going 32 lows and an occasional 32 mid. We resigned ourselves to the fact Bear wasn’t going to get a Gold. His time did hold up for all the remaining 11/12 year olds and he took home the silver.

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

At this point we headed home, and we had to keep an eye out for the results of the 200 flys to see how the kids ended up. We were only watching the live result times, so we don’t have any information on how the racers looked, but here is how things turned out.

#71 Girls 11-12 200 Fly
Bailey’s time from earlier in the day was a 2:17.54, but she was also 2nd in the clubhouse. WE knewo there were at least 4 girls she absolutely wasn’t going to beat, because their times put them in the top 20 in the nation. So that left 6 swimmers that Bailey might beat in this heat, and 5 spots in the top 10 that she might fall into. As it turned out – comparing times, Bailey’s opening 50 put her ahead of all 6 of the other girls (in fact it put her ahead of 2 of the 4 with national times). In the second 50 she maintained her lead on the rest of the field, and 1 of the top 4 girls. After the 3rd 50, Bailey was still holding off the 5 non-elite girls, she was close to 1, only .25 back, but the 4 top swimmers were all separating from her time. In the end…Bailey’s time held on to beat 5 of the girls that were in the A final that weren’t national level swimmers, and she finished 7th overall. Earning her medal!!!

#72 Boys 11-12 200 Fly
As I said in the write up above, I felt Bear’s time was going to hold up. After seeing the results – I wish he had an opportunity to swim in the fast heat. The winner of the race swam a 2:08.21, and ran away from the field, but the next times were:

2:13.24
2:13.41
2:13.51

Given Bear’s heart and fight, I expect if he had been in this race (without the fatigue of the 1650), he’d have been challenging all of those times. As it was they were only about 1.5 seconds faster, and Bear had no-one close to him after the 100 turn in his heat. While seeing that race would have exciting, I was thrilled with how this turned out – Bear got second in the 1650, and 5th in the 200 fly, earning his 4th medal of the meet.

[Breeze]

2015 TWS Northern Divisional Meet – 3/20 - 3/22 @ Mt. View Aquatic Center

Bear – only planning to swim on Saturday. He isn’t worried about his swims, and is just doing it to hang out with his friends. Seed times do not take into account his swims at ESSZ Sectionals.

#24 (d2/s2): B 11-12 100 Free (57.33Y )
#36 (d2/s2): B 11-12 100 Back (1:09.18Y )
#42 (d2/s2): B 11-12 50 Fly (30.00Y )


Brett – Not sure what to expect from Brett. It has been quite a while since he’s had a year round meet. He’s also been fighting off a cold the last few days so really unsure what we’ll see…

#8A (d1/s1): B 13-14 500 Free (5:55.14Y )
#26 (d2/s2): B 13-14 100 Free (1:00.65Y )
#34 (d2/s2): B Open 200 Breast (2:37.34Y )
#40 (d2/s2): B Open 200 Back (2:28.59Y )
#86 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:14.17Y )
#92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Back (1:11.44Y )
#104 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Free (28.34Y )

[Breeze]

2015 TWS Northern Divisional Meet - RESULTS

Bear

#24 (d2/s2): B 11-12 100 Free (57.33Y ) - Bear’s real personal best is a 56.56…in prelims he swam a 56.98, and qualified 4th for finals.

#36 (d2/s2): B 11-12 100 Back (1:09.18Y ) – Swam a good 1:07 mid in this race, but was DQed. Not exactly sure why. Asked his coach, and his coach never received the official reason from the officials. He believes, as I do, that it was failure to initiate the turn…which while his turns weren’t sharp, they were ok, and the call of failure to initiate is pretty ticky-tack.

#42 (d2/s2): B 11-12 50 Fly (30.00Y ) – Swam a 30.08 in prelims and qualified for 4th in finals.

#48 Boys 11-12 200 Yard Free Relay – Well, if you’ve been following along recently, you are probably aware of the swimmer Brendan from the State Meet about a month ago. Well, he was swimming in this meet, along with many other top swimmers from the Marietta Marlin’s team. Whereas, Nate, the horse on Bear’s relay didn’t swim, obviously, you can probably guess what happened. Gold finished 2nd…

As you can see, even though Bear is coming off of the biggest meet of his life, he still maintained strong swims close to his personal bests.

DAY 1 – FINALS

#24 (d2/s2): B 11-12 100 Free (56.98) – Swam better in Finals going a 56.61…but only managed 4th place in what was a tight one for 2nd through 4th.

#42 (d2/s2): B 11-12 50 Fly (30.08) – At the turn in this one Bear was in second, but he had a mediocre turn, and lost ground. He finished 4th with a time of 30.10. His biggest disappointment wasn’t failing to get in the top 3. He really wanted to go under 30 seconds in what will be his last 50 fly that really matters.


Brett –

#8A (d1/s1): B 13-14 500 Free (5:55.14Y ) – swam a 5:51.48…which is ok. His real personal best from high school was a 5:45, and honestly he should be sub 5:30 at the very least, but better than his old seed time.

DAY 2

#26 (d2/s2): B 13-14 100 Free (1:00.65Y ) – In this race, I timed him (no scoreboard for the boys pool, so we didn’t get official results until much later in the day, and I had him at 59.8 – so sub60, and the manual lane timer had him a 59 low…unfortunately, the official time had him a 1:00.09. Still a personal best.

#34 (d2/s2): B Open 200 Breast (2:37.34Y ) – Still struggling with his breast as he only managed a 2:45.45. However, even in the open event, swimming against 15 to 18 year olds, he managed to make the B final seeded 18th.

#40 (d2/s2): B Open 200 Back (2:28.59Y ) – Long, slow, deliberate strokes still…and time reflects it as he swam similar times to the last several 200 back races. 2:29.95.

DAY 2 – FINALS

#34 (d2/s2): B Open 200 Breast (2:45.45) – We talked a bit before this race, and I told him after his recent growth it seemed to me that his timing was off, and that he might want to go back to his more natural stroke of kicking his hands forward in order to get his rhythm back. He tried it in warm ups but he didn’t feel comfortable with it. However, during the race it became obvious pretty quickly that it helped – he was swimming much faster than he had been, and other than pullouts (which were better but still not good enough), he was doing well. He ended up with a 2:39.90 – not his personal best, but much closer than he’s been in months. This excited him a good bit…

DAY 3

#86 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:14.17Y ) – The Breast from the finals on Saturday carried over to Sunday morning. Brett was strong and fast, finishing with a 1:14.58, almost getting a personal best, and coming closer than he had in months. This also qualified him for the B finals.

#92 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Back (1:11.44Y ) – See the 200 Back – The first 25 looked like he was going to pick up the pace, but then he settle in and finished with a time in his typical ballpark – 1:12.06.

#104 (d3/s5): B 13-14 50 Free (28.34Y ) – More of the same from Brett. Finished 28.76 with NO underwater work off the dive or turn – with a little effort underwater he’d have had a personal best.

#110 Boys 13-14 Medley Relay – Brett managed to get on the B medley relay team. Obviously he was swimming the Breaststroke. He swam a good leg, coming in on my hand time at about 35.15. This was a good time, but with a rolling start I was expecting him to be in the 34s…The team did good for being the B team, finishing 5th overall.

DAY 3 – FINALS

#86 (d3/s5): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:14.58) – Whatever he figured out on Saturday night, he lost on Sunday night. This was an ugly swim, and it was obvious early. He went back to his pre-fix times coming in at a poor 1:17.76. To make matters worse, he lost to a CRC Teammate that he had never lost to before. He was pretty upset about this one, but honestly it isn’t surprising. It is tough to change a stroke, and not have lapses where you go back to the way you’ve been practicing for months. Hopefully, he uses this as motivation and doesn’t let it discourage him.

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

Brett - Post Race Wrap-up

This was in my opinion a very disappointing meet for Brett. He hadn't swum a meet in quite a while, and he was poised to at very least to get a few personal bests, and he only managed to get 1. Honestly, I am very pleased with the life he showed in his breaststroke races (unfortunately, it ended on a bad note with his time in the 100 Breast finals). However, the consistent times and no effort to change his approach was frustrating.

Brett's in a bad position right now, as the new coach doesn't provide much feedback. He's a coach that believe in internal motivation - and Brett is a kid that needs constant reminders and queues on what he's doing wrong. The two don't mesh. We've told Brett that what he's currently doing isn't working, and that his results should illustrate that. That he needs to make changes in practice and really focus (tough for a highly ADHD kid) on making improvements and changes, and that without them, he wasn't going to improve.

He said he would do it...we'll be keeping an eye on it to see.

[Breeze]

Gold Team Update

So there have been some big changes for Gold at our pool. To express what they are it is probably easiest if I simply post the announcement from the team:

Dear Cumming Chattahoochee Gold Swimming Families,

This email is to let you know about some staff changes that we have coming up at the Cumming Pool. After much consideration, we have decided not to renew Coach Todd’s contract for next year. His last day on deck is today, April 2, 2015.

I know that everybody likes him, and finds him to be a reasonable, responsible person, but to put it simply, the last few months have shown that we need more focused leadership. Coach Andy Eaton will assume the position of Head Coach at Cumming. Andy has an excellent track record during his time coaching with Gold, including a successful season serving as interim head coach last summer. Andy brings the right combination of coaching and management skills to the head coach position. Before Gold, Andy was captain of a DIII national championship team. After college, Andy had a successful business career, implementing IT projects for Accenture and later owning a successful online business. Most importantly, he's expressed a strong desire to restore the program back to the tight ship we want it to be. Andy interned under Neil, who interned under me, and I'm confident he will run the kind of program that makes Gold an exceptional team.

The plan for the coaching coverage will be similar to last summer, with Andy responsible for National, Senior, and High School. Through long course, he will write practices for the Sectionals Group, be on deck for Sectionals as much as possible, and develop a replacement for that position.
Please help me welcome Coach Andy to his new responsibilities, and in wishing Coach Todd good luck in his future endeavors.

I post blurbs in this thread from time to time covering a number of topics, and I don’t recall if I got into any specifics regarding Coach Todd, but at this point, I should probably take a minute to provide some background information.

Let me start by saying the Coach Todd is a GREAT guy. He’s extremely personable, kind, and friendly. He also has an incredible background as a swim coach, having coached 2 Olympians, and one of his former swimmers is the #2 recruit in the State. However, he is also very laid back and unorganized (in fact, having talked to him numerous times, I suspect he’s ADD). As part of his laid back nature, his philosophy for coaching involved swimmers being internally motivated to be great, which for this sport especially has quite a bit of merit. Problem is, he provided no external discipline. Kids were cheating left and right at practice, getting out of the pool, and generally goofing off, and he didn’t crack down. This led to a considerable amount of frustrations, initially from the National Team parents then it trickled down to the Senior families.

Moreover, Coach Todd messed up the taper (which I believe I covered earlier) before State for the older kids, had swimmers in wrong events and age groups, and his swimmers didn’t perform well at any of the big meets, including some highly regarded swimmers that are being recruited by some large Div 1 teams. He was also criticized by numerous families for not providing enough feedback to the swimmers. (Understand, I do believe some of the frustration on the parents side of things stemmed from the change in philosophy. Neil was a big disciplinarian, so the switch to Coach Todd was a complete 180).

On a personal level this is huge. We were already wrestling with what to do with Brett for next year, because Coach Todd’s style doesn’t work for Brett. While Brett was a champ getting up at 4:30 three days a week and going to practice, that dedication didn’t automatically translate to improvement. Brett’s only natural stroke is Breast, and without more supervision and direction he simply churned laps at practice, and Coach Todd allowed him to do that. In fact, we were also considering what to do with the twins in 2016 when they would be moving up to the Senior/National team. We weren’t thrilled about them swimming for Todd, as we’ve seen to many talented swimmers go backwards this season.

Our only concern now will be, “who takes Andy’s place on Sectional next year?” Coach Andy said he’ll have pretty high standards when looking for a new Sectionals Coach. Also working in our favor is that fact that both of Andy’s kids will still be on the Sectionals Team next year, so he’ll have a vested interest in finding someone good.

[Breeze]

Gold Team Update

Didn't take long to find a replacement for the Sectionals and Sectional Advanced teams (twins group). Here is the announcement email:



This message is to welcome Coach Ryan L’Roy to the Gold coaching staff at Cumming! Ryan will be taking over as lead coach of Sectionals and Sectionals Advanced. He will also assistant coach during National/Senior/HS practice and help with precomp. He has over 10 years of coaching experience, including working as a head age group coach for SwimAtlanta and as a head coach in Minnesota. He's coached several Junior Nationals swimmers and has had multiple top 10 nationally ranked swimmers. His full bio is included below.

Ryan’s start date is 4/20. The plan is to take the time to properly transition him into his new role. I’ll work with him closely over the next several weeks to bring him up to speed with our program and culture, and to ensure a smooth transition. Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions. In addition, Coach Pat is visiting Cumming to meet with parents to answer any questions about our most recent changes (and anything else) on Thursday, April 16 at 6:00. We’ll meet in the conference room next to the pool deck.

Coach Andy



Ryan L’Roy Bio:

Ryan swam competitively for Tualatin Hills Swim Team in Beaverton, Oregon from the age of 7 until he moved on to swim at the University of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. Ryan was an Oregon Zone Team member, as well as Junior National and Senior National qualifier during his swimming career. At the University of Minnesota, Ryan was a member of 3 Big Ten Championship Teams and received both the Hardest Worker award as well as the Jerry McCaul award.

Ryan graduated with a degree in History from the University of Minnesota in 2003. He began his coaching career at TWIN Cities Swim Team in Minnetonka, MN where he coached numerous state qualifiers, State Champions, High Point award winners and Junior National qualifiers.

In 2007 Ryan became the Head Age Group Coach at Roswell location of SwimAtlanta. During his tenure, he coached multiple Ga State Finalists, State Champions, State Record Holders and nationally ranked swimmers. Ryan was an Assistant GA Zone Coach in 2009 and the following year (2010) fulfilled the role of Head Zone Coach when the team placed 2nd at the Southeastern Zone Championships.

Ryan was most recently the Head Coach for TWIN Cities Swim Team in Minneapolis, MN where he began in the spring of 2011 and led the program for the past 4 years. The team grew from 50 swimmers to over 130 swimmers under his watch. While with TWIN Cities Swim Team Ryan ran all aspects of the program and was the Senior Group coach. Under his tutelage, the team produced numerous state finalists, sectional qualifiers, Grand Prix finalists, an Olympic Trial qualifier, Masters World record holder, and a second place finish at the 2015 Spring Sr. LSC Championship meet.

Ryan now lives in Cumming, GA with his wife who was a collegiate swimmer at the University of Tennessee and their 19 month old twins.

[Breeze]

General Update

So it looks like Bailey and Seth are "dating" again. This is the second time (not sure if I mentioned it earlier). They don't really date because up until now, they don't really do anything alone as they are always with the group of swimmers. We'll see how this progresses through the Summer...

[Breeze]

Gold Grand Prix Meet 4 @ Cherokee Aquatic Center - 4/25

The 4th and final Gran Prix Meet for Gold, and the last short course race of the year-round season.

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

Bailey
#419A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Back (31.35Y )
#425A (d1/s1): G 11-12 100 Back (1:07.32Y )
#433A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Breast (41.48Y )
#447A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Free (28.23Y )


Bear
#406A (d1/s1): B 11-12 50 Fly (30.00Y )
#426A (d1/s1): B 11-12 100 Back (1:09.18Y )
#434A (d1/s1): B 11-12 50 Breast (41.08Y )
#454A (d1/s1): B 11-12 100 Free (57.33Y )


Brett
#412B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:18.17Y )
#426B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Back (1:11.44Y )
#440B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:14.17Y )
#454B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Free (1:00.65Y )

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Breeze

General Update

So it looks like Bailey and Seth are "dating" again. This is the second time (not sure if I mentioned it earlier). They don't really date because up until now, they don't really do anything alone as they are always with the group of swimmers. We'll see how this progresses through the Summer...

I guess since I posted the above, I also need to post that the relationship is over - Again.

[Breeze]

Gold Grand Prix Meet 4 - RESULTS

Kids still aren't in shape following time off for Spring Break, and this is pretty much just an intramural meet, so I didn't expect much:

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

Bailey
#419A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Back (31.35Y ) - Back looked like it was slow motion - very reminiscent of Brett's stroke - 34.03
#425A (d1/s1): G 11-12 100 Back (1:07.32Y ) - Looked like a longer version of the 50 - 1:12.84
#433A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Breast (41.48Y ) - Was hoping for some improvement because there is room to improve in this stroke, but no...42.31
#447A (d1/s1): G 11-12 50 Free (28.23Y ) - Couldn't drop time here either, but did keep it reasonably close - 29.09.


Bear
#406A (d1/s1): B 11-12 50 Fly (30.00Y ) - close to his PB with a 30.38...
#426A (d1/s1): B 11-12 100 Back (1:09.18Y ) - Actually got a pb with a time of 1:08.78
#434A (d1/s1): B 11-12 50 Breast (41.08Y ) - Another PB here with a nice improvement to 38.28. It's been a while since he swam the 50 breast so this one wasn't a complete surprise.
#454A (d1/s1): B 11-12 100 Free (57.33Y ) - Added here - 59.06


Brett
#412B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Fly (1:18.17Y ) - 1:20.85 - disappointed, was hoping due to the time between racing this event he'd drop, but at least he didn't add a ton of time like some did.
#426B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Back (1:11.44Y ) - Added, but actually attacked this race better than he usually does. If he was in better shape, I believe he'd have dropped a couple seconds. 1:13.74
#440B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Breast (1:14.17Y ) - Looked pretty good, added time swimming 1:16.41, but he's swum that time or slower recently when he was in shape.
#454B (d1/s1): B 13-14 100 Free (1:00.65Y ) - Managed like Bailey to stay reasonably close to his PB - 1:01.41

[Breeze]

2015 Citizen Kane Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center - 5/1 - 5/3

This is the kickoff for the long course season (even though the kids haven't practiced in a long course pool yet, and won't until the end of May). Again, I don't expect much from the kids in this meet, due to still being out of shape, not practicing in a long course pool, and having just had a meet last weekend.


Bailey

# 1 Girl 13 & Over 200 Medley 2:45.66L
# 5 Girl 13 & Over 50 Free 33.40L
# 9 Girl Open 800 Free 10:36.92L
# 11 Girl 13 & Over 100 Free 1:13.16L
# 13 Girl 13 & Over 200 Fly 2:43.08L
# 17 Girl 13 & Over 100 Back 1:19.50L
# 23 Girl 13 & Over 400 Free 5:13.89L
# 45 Girl 13 & Over 200 Free 2:34.79L
# 47 Girl 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:37.77L
# 49 Girl 13 & Over 200 Back 2:46.59L
# 53 Girl 13 & Over 100 Fly 1:15.59L


Bear - isn't feeling well...so he could struggle this weekend.

# 2 Boy 13 & Over 200 Medley 2:54.40L
# 6 Boy 13 & Over 50 Free 33.32L
# 10 Boy Open 800 Free 10:22.19L
# 14 Boy 13 & Over 200 Fly 2:46.48L
# 18 Boy 13 & Over 100 Back 1:24.79L
# 20 Boy 13 & Over 200 Breast 3:37.24L
# 24 Boy 13 & Over 400 Free 4:58.55L
# 46 Boy 13 & Over 200 Free 2:25.08L
# 48 Boy 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:42.02L
# 50 Boy 13 & Over 200 Back 2:54.36L
# 54 Boy 13 & Over 100 Fly 1:21.19L


Brett - he's getting a new training routine, which I'll detail after this meet is over, but because of his new approach, I don't have a feel for how he'll do in a race.

# 2 Boy 13 & Over 200 Medley 3:01.33L
# 6 Boy 13 & Over 50 Free 34.75L
# 12 Boy 13 & Over 100 Free 1:14.79L
# 18 Boy 13 & Over 100 Back 1:27.60L
# 20 Boy 13 & Over 200 Breast 3:09.71L
# 24 Boy 13 & Over 400 Free 5:28.07L
# 46 Boy 13 & Over 200 Free 2:37.73L
# 48 Boy 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:30.09L
# 50 Boy 13 & Over 200 Back 3:02.36L

[Breeze]

2015 Citizen Kane Invite - RESULTS

Note: I missed most of the meet Friday (I didn’t get home from work in time to see, so I’m going on second hand reports, and on Sunday I had to time a lane, limiting my ability to watch the kids and provide feedback.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bailey – Bear has been complaining recently that EVERYONE has been cheating at practice (except Tommy and him of course)…including Bailey. The wife watched practice recently and was shocked by how much cheating was taking place, and she did confirm that Bailey was right in the middle of it with the rest of the team. I believe this is because they have a new coach and they are pushing their boundaries, and he hasn’t locked it down yet…but I suspect he’ll be doing it soon. Regardless, this cheating combined with the fact the swimmers still aren’t in shape from Spring Break, combined to really cause Bailey’s performance to suffer…

# 1 Girl 13 & Over 200 Medley 2:45.66L – 2:48.80 – not a terrible swim for her, keeping it within a respectable range of her best time.

# 5 Girl 13 & Over 50 Free 33.40L – Managed a drop 32.26 – so maybe she won’t be that far off this meet afterall.

# 9 Girl Open 800 Free 10:36.92L – Added a bunch of time in this one - 10:53.85 – but it is a distance event that being out of shape becomes more obvious the longer the race goes.

# 11 Girl 13 & Over 100 Free 1:13.16L – Another nice drop in the Free from last year, down to a 1:10.37

# 13 Girl 13 & Over 200 Fly 2:43.08L – DNF – once again Bailey psyched herself out of this race (in my opinion). She said she wasn’t feeling well even before starting, but I’m pretty sure she was just making an excuse. She finished the 100 at a good pace, but then climbed out and didn’t attempt to finish the back 100…very disappointing for someone who identifies themselves as a butterflyer (and someone who finished top 10 at the Sectional Meet in the 200 Fly…)

# 17 Girl 13 & Over 100 Back 1:19.50L – Added a bit of time – 1:20.47 – Start was great though, so that is a good sign.

# 23 Girl 13 & Over 400 Free 5:13.89L – Another longer swim another big add in time – 5:22.79…

# 45 Girl 13 & Over 200 Free 2:34.79L – With a drop in this one, she managed personal bests in the 50, 100 and 200 Free, but added a bunch of time in the 400 and 800 Frees – not sure how to explain that other than out of shape (or potentially lack of effort because in her mind she was more out of shape than she really was). - 2:34.64

# 47 Girl 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:37.77L – Ugly adding of 4 seconds…1:41.29…was hoping her slight improvements might hold up, but she still has a long way to go in this stroke.

# 49 Girl 13 & Over 200 Back 2:46.59L – Another poor swim in a longer race – 2:53.01…

# 53 Girl 13 & Over 100 Fly 1:15.59L – Added here as well – 1:16.33…I do believe some of the time adds at the end of the last day are carryover fatigue…

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

Bear

# 2 Boy 13 & Over 200 Medley 2:54.40L – Bear starts off his weekend with a huge improvement – dropping 13.5 seconds in this race – 2:40.82

# 6 Boy 13 & Over 50 Free 33.32L – Drops 3 seconds in this one, and now will be looking to go under 30 seconds – 30.24

# 10 Boy Open 800 Free 10:22.19L – Another almost 17 second drop, finishing in 10.05.37, he wants to be in the 9 minute range by state, and I think he’ll get there easily.

# 14 Boy 13 & Over 200 Fly 2:46.48L – Started this race real strong, back half really was a struggle though…did drop time posting a personal best 2:39.00

# 18 Boy 13 & Over 100 Back 1:24.79L – went a 1:19.49, but was out on a much faster pace in the opening 50…so I think there is more time to drop in this one before the season is over.

# 20 Boy 13 & Over 200 Breast 3:37.24L – Bear’s breast has been improving a bunch, as I noted during short course season, this race illustrated just how much. From last year when he was in pique shape, to the opening of this season he dropped 19 seconds, 3:18.23

# 24 Boy 13 & Over 400 Free 4:58.55L – Strong swim…lacked his explosive back half but still did well – 4:54.66

# 46 Boy 13 & Over 200 Free 2:25.08L – Dropped 5 seconds 2:20.28

# 48 Boy 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:42.02L – Like the 200 showed a good improvement – 1:35.69

# 50 Boy 13 & Over 200 Back 2:54.36L – Again, the back half of this 200 he fell off pace a good bit, something that will be cleaned up before state – still swam a 2:46.43

# 54 Boy 13 & Over 100 Fly 1:21.19L – dropped about 6 seconds to finish out a meet of all personal bests – 1:15.22

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

Brett – So Brett has a new training routine, I’ll get into details in a post after this one, but suffice it to say, that Brett was instructed to ignore his times, and focus on being long with his strokes…

# 2 Boy 13 & Over 200 Medley 3:01.33L – Didn’t get to see it, but being long in his stroke must have helped as he dropped over 8 seconds – 2:52.67

# 6 Boy 13 & Over 50 Free 34.75L – Managed to drop in this event as well, though not as fast as he had hoped I’m sure – 32.41

# 12 Boy 13 & Over 100 Free 1:14.79L – Was much longer in his reach then he has been recently in this one, and he posted a personal best time of 1:11.43

# 18 Boy 13 & Over 100 Back 1:27.60L – Nice long strokes, and a good turnover in the first 50 (faded back half), but posted a 1:24.42. I actually counted his strokes (coach is working on getting his stroke counts down by having longer reach and more efficient pulls) on the back half of the 100 – and he did 45 (unfortunately, I lost count on the opening 50)

# 20 Boy 13 & Over 200 Breast 3:09.71L – Much better in this one – Good dive and pullout, then nice long strokes, that had him really challenging the lead swimmers. I was able to count is strokes in this one, and he had 24 on the dive lap, followed by 27 and 28…but as I mentioned, he was really challenging the leaders in this race, and in that last 50, he tried to race them. His stroke got quick and choppy and his efficiently went out the window. He ended up doing 35 strokes on the last lap, a significant increase as you can tell. It was obvious he was overworking, and it was obvious that it was killing him, as he slowly lost grown with each stroke. He still managed a personal best 3:09.35, but had he stayed long, I believe we were looking at a 3:07 low.

# 24 Boy 13 & Over 400 Free 5:28.07L – Stroke started out good here, but got choppy. He would see coach signaling him to get long, and he’d correct, only to fall back into bad habits. Ultimately it cost him, as he added time in this one – he finished with a 5:33.47

# 46 Boy 13 & Over 200 Free 2:37.73L – On Sunday the Free approach was better, as he stayed long for most of the race and finished with a 2:34.07

# 48 Boy 13 & Over 100 Breast 1:30.09L – Was excited to see how he’d do in this one, after his strong start on the 200 Breast. Unfortunately, when the race started he immediately got into his short quick rhythm. Coach wasn’t pleased, but he did manage a personal best anyway – 1:29.43

# 50 Boy 13 & Over 200 Back 3:02.36L – Strong start, faded back half, but still got a personal best 2:57.27

[Breeze]

Brett Update

As I mentioned in the write up for the Citizen Kane meet, Brett has a new practice routine. In fact, his practice instructions are unique to him so much so, that he isn’t even doing the same workout as the rest of the team.

Here is how this whole thing evolved. If you’ve been reading for a while, you may recall during short course of 2013/14 Brett was really starting to make some progress in his off strokes (non-Breast), especially in the distance freestyles. He was making so much progress Coach Andy felt he’d have a legitimate shot at getting a State Cut in the distance frees sooner rather than later. However, during long course of 14, Brett felt he had a great shot at a Breast cut, and seemed to regress a bit on the other strokes due to being too focused on his Breast time. That was followed by the Coach Neil disaster/departure, which was deflating to Brett because he really liked swimming for Neil. Combine that with the arrival of Coach Todd and his hands off approach, and Brett floundered badly, so badly that according to Coach Andy – His strokes have completely fallen apart.

Now, for all intense and purposes, he’s starting over. The coach wants him to work on long strokes and reducing his stroke count, rather than speed and time. In fact, Coach Andy believes part of the reason Brett’s strokes deteriorated was due to his attempts to keep up in practice with a faster lane (which Brett elected to swim in because Coach Todd at least paid marginal attention to that lane, whereas he completely ignored the other 2 lanes, which is probably where Brett belonged). Now Brett is to ignore interval training to the point where he’ll get in trouble if he actually beats the interval. He’s expected to get lapped on a regular bases, and he’s to ignore all of that and just work on form.

Brett’s actually excited about this, and I think it is the right approach for sure. Will it work, I don’t know. It won’t hurt that’s for sure, and his improved times with only a couple of days of long stroke practice indicated it will, but we’ll have to wait and see.

[FrogMan]

dang, didn't realize it's been two years since I last posted in here...

I started reading, then got swamped and stopped but all this time I kept receiving the notifications that you had updated the thread and I always meant to come back to read a bit more and follow your kids. I wasn't even sure if all three were still swimming, I only knew you had posted something so at least one was still into it. Great to see that all three are still very active and from what little I've read in the last page, all progressing nicely.

My son Matthew turned 11 in January and with it, entered the age group levels of competition, with preliminaries and finals at most meets. Before that, he was in what we call around here "Provincial Development" or with meets being done with only timed finals and no medals being awarded but ribbons given if a swimmer beat his previous best time in the event.

I don't even remember how deep I went about how it's done around here and I must admit, I probably knew VERY little about the world of swimming two years ago as he was only 9 and had almost two years of under age group swimming to do before the "real" meets would start.

I'm going back to read partly from the start and hopefully can come back and chat with you about your kids and were my son is now. I'll only say he's starting to give us goosebumps, dang I love seeing him swim.

With that tease, I'll go back to reading.

silly question that just occured to me, your pools are in yards, right? When you say "50 free" that's a 50 yards race, right?

I'm asking because our pools are in meters and I was mentally comparing times at about the same age between Matthew and Brett...

later!

FM

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

dang, didn't realize it's been two years since I last posted in here...

I started reading, then got swamped and stopped but all this time I kept receiving the notifications that you had updated the thread and I always meant to come back to read a bit more and follow your kids. I wasn't even sure if all three were still swimming, I only knew you had posted something so at least one was still into it. Great to see that all three are still very active and from what little I've read in the last page, all progressing nicely.

My son Matthew turned 11 in January and with it, entered the age group levels of competition, with preliminaries and finals at most meets. Before that, he was in what we call around here "Provincial Development" or with meets being done with only timed finals and no medals being awarded but ribbons given if a swimmer beat his previous best time in the event.

I don't even remember how deep I went about how it's done around here and I must admit, I probably knew VERY little about the world of swimming two years ago as he was only 9 and had almost two years of under age group swimming to do before the "real" meets would start.

I'm going back to read partly from the start and hopefully can come back and chat with you about your kids and were my son is now. I'll only say he's starting to give us goosebumps, dang I love seeing him swim.

With that tease, I'll go back to reading.

silly question that just occured to me, your pools are in yards, right? When you say "50 free" that's a 50 yards race, right?

I'm asking because our pools are in meters and I was mentally comparing times at about the same age between Matthew and Brett...

later!

FM

Hey FM,

Glad to see you're still reading, and your son is still swimming. I was wondering if he was still involved.

To answer your questions...when I say 50 if it is short course season then yes we are talking 50 yards. The kids swim in 25 yard pools so the 50 is 2 laps. When it is long course season we do 50 meter swims, as the pool is converted to Olympic length and 1 lap is 50 meters. So if you want to compare apples to apples look for long course times in the old write ups, or if you want, I can look up the results online and just post what Brett's times were at 11...

[Breeze]

FM,

Figured I'd go ahead and post Brett's PBs from his 11 year old long course. (interestingly, his 11 year old long course season is when we moved him over to Gold)...

Stroke	Course	Age	Time		Swim Date	
50 FR	LCM	11	38.68		7/7/2012	

100 FR	LCM	11	1:29.17	        7/7/2012	

200 FR	LCM	11	3:13.87	        7/7/2012	

50 BK	LCM	11	47.45	        7/7/2012	

100 BK	LCM	11	1:45.10	        6/16/2012	

50 BR	LCM	11	47.72	        6/16/2012	

100 BR	LCM	11	1:44.22	        7/7/2012	

100 BR	LCM	11	1:44.22	        6/16/2012	

200 BR	LCM	11	3:37.50	        7/18/2012	

50 FL	LCM	11	46.96	        4/28/2012	

50 FL	LCM	11	46.96	        4/28/2012	

200 IM	LCM	11	3:32.07	        7/7/2012	

[FrogMan]

That's a very interesting fact about SC/LC. Also didn't realize when you'd get to LC, it would all be in meters.

When comparing, in fact, I said Brett but I think what triggered the thought of yards vs meters was comparing to Bailey's first times in your thread when she was competing in 10U and I realized she was 9 or so and soooo much faster than Matthew It was in the short course season of course so once converted the times made a bit more sense.

Thanks for Brett's times, here's a link to Matthew's times over at SwimRankings.
Swimrankings, Switzerland

Pretty much all meets in Quebec use their software so all his times are in there. Not sure if I cas sort/filter by what age he was when he did a PB but seeing how he is 11 years and about 4 months old, we probably can compre most of them. I went ahead and pulled his PB as they stand now. Matthew has done a grand total of 3 timed events on a long course and they all happened a couple weeks ago in his biggest meet so far (will get into it eventually). As I said before, short course for us is 25 meters and kiddos under 11 don't do long course around here. In fact, even for kids over 11 in the intermediate kind of competition levels, I don't see separate short course and long course seasons around here (will also eventually talk about it). I know he's got a long course meet around the end of the month but then he's got a short course meet around the end of June...


To make it easier to compare, I pulled his PB and added them next to Brett's times. If only one time is present, it's a LC time. If there are two times, the first one is a 25m SC time and the second one is converted by using the utility found at Swimming World http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com...onversions.asp

Stroke	Course	Age	Time		Swim Date	
50 FR	LCM	11	38.68		7/7/2012	36.83

100 FR	LCM	11	1:29.17	        7/7/2012	1:23.23/1:24.13

200 FR	LCM	11	3:13.87	        7/7/2012	3:07.55/3:08.55

50 BK	LCM	11	47.45	        7/7/2012	49.33/50.03

100 BK	LCM	11	1:45.10	        6/16/2012	

50 BR	LCM	11	47.72	        6/16/2012	48.87/49.47

100 BR	LCM	11	1:44.22	        7/7/2012	1:44.50/1:46.00

200 BR	LCM	11	3:37.50	        7/18/2012	

50 FL	LCM	11	46.96	        4/28/2012	35.53

200 IM	LCM	11	3:32.07	        7/7/2012	3:13.48/3:17.08

Did I ever tell you that our boy is a fly beast? Amazes everyone that he swims faster doing fly than he does doing freestyle, lol!

He's also got a PB of 1:30.39 on the 100 fly on a long course. It's always amazing to see him get out in front in a medley but then he gets semi-destroyed in back which is really his worst style, heh

Gotta go, I'll post back at some time about his recent meet, where he's at and a bit about how competitive swimming is structured in Quebec, if you're interested.

FM

[Breeze]

Awesome input...nice to hear. Your son is a bit like Bailey - her fly isn't faster than her free, but it's really darn close.

Looks like Matthew has some good times...I'll peak in on the site you provided from time to time...


By the way, 1 piece of information I think you'll find interesting given that you are in Canada:

You may recall that during the State Meet, Bear's 400 Free Relay team won the Gold Medal, and in my write up prior to the event I talked about the kids on the relay teams...3 of them were always the same (Nate, Nicklas, and Bear), well the 4th kid on that Gold Medal Relay - Andrew (13) is a dual citizen, and his dad told me last weekend that he has already received 1 cut time that would allow him to swim in the Canadian National Championships. Now in order to actually compete in the meet, a swimmer must have 3 cuts, but he's close on several others, so one of Bear's teammates might be swimming in your National Championships at the end of the Summer.

Note: If you want to find my write up on Andrew it's here: http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...=83008&page=11

[FrogMan]

I'm still reading from the start, I'll eventually get to Andrew but that is very interesting indeed. Crazy coincidence, our oldest son, also named Andrew, also has dual citizenship.

At the time of my first posting in this thread, I was just starting to learn about cut times in Canada and more specifically in Quebec. Was learning but not really paying much attention to what was needed since I knew it wouldn't matter for another couple years anyway since they don't really apply until a kid turns 11.

The "Federation de Natation du Quebec" (FNQ) is the governing body for swimming in Quebec. They act right under Swimming Canada and rule over swimming competitions and such in Quebec. Prior to this season or was it last season, anyway back in 2013, there was three levels of cuts that Matthew could aspire to when he'd turn 11: Provincial development, P1, P2.

At the time, IIRC, he needed two provincial development cuts in order to be allowed to compete in that level of meets but my memory is kinda vague about it since they changed it since that time.

Now, the old provincial development cut is now called "A", P1 is now AA and P2 is now AAA. There's also a Quebec Cup cut but a kids needs to be 12-13 (different age for boys and girls) in order to enter and the times are so outrageous we've not even started looking at it

I've included the FNQ standard times for both boys and girls, in both short and long course. What you see on the left are for kids 10 and under and mostly for Regional development. Actually have never really seen a kid be blocked from competing at that level.

For a kid to be allowed to compete at a certain type of meet, A, AA or AAA, he needs to have three cuts of that level in at least two different styles.

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

On top of the Quebec Cup cuts, there are the National Championships cuts as you mentioned. A kid from our club got a couple of those in that last meet.

My understanding is that once a standard is achieved, it's good forever. For example, unless they change the standard before he turns 13, Matthew already has one cut at the age 13 level. His 100 fly time of 1:30.39 in long course is good enough to meet the standard of 1:32.75.

Hope this kind of makes sense.

FM

[FrogMan]

As for Matthew, he's developping nicely. He's weak in free and back but pretty strong in fly (there's an understatement) and surprisingly convincing at times in breaststroke. At other times, he can get out of it, not enough to get DQed but enough to slow himself down a bit and look more average than anything.

He's a tall kid and has yet to really develop muscle control which is kind of his downfall in free and back. He often wobbles from side to side in free with very long, kinda slow strokes. The same can be said for him while doing backstroke, where his head bobbles and he can look almost vertical at times.

When doing fly, he's very energetic, has got a GREAT kick and just needs to grow up a bit and gain some endurance before he can take on a 200m event. He has so far refused to even enter one.

As for endurance and I would say mental toughness, his young age kinda shows as he can start a 200 event (IM or free are the only ones he's entered so far) strong, then have two slowish middle 50 splits, then finish super strong in the last 50, showing he has yet to learn how to pace himself or even block out fatigue...

FM

[Breeze]

Thanks for the times and the explanation, it's a very similar process down here for big meets, so nothing you explained seems peculiar.

Your experiences with Matthew are very common in the sport. Growth can really cause havoc with a kid's strokes...and tall kids are impacted in a more pronounced way (we don't really have the tall issue, but we've had problems with growth in the past). The reluctance to swim longer events is normal, and holding back when he actually does swim them is also typical, but once he figures it out, it becomes really awesome. You talked about loving to watch him swim, wait until you start seeing him gut out a 200 fly, 400 IM, or distance free. Also, once he starts embracing those races, I suspect two things will happen - 1, he'll get those cuts pretty quickly, and 2 - his sprints will quickly start to improve as well.

I'll be interested to hear how he's doing, please keep me informed.