More poolside chat

Yes - was amazing swim last night 😁

Hello - yes 😃

I think that you can be lucky or not with the draw you get in the first 2 rounds and that can make quite a difference. And sometimes a small number of points can make a big difference to place. It’s just a game really.

I can imagine the premier division would be very tough going! I know what you mean about the patchiness, a few key swimmers missing would really affect our overall results. I’m not sure we’d ever have enough depth to get higher than the bottom half of the middle one.

Yeah we’re in the heady heights of middle division final. We only just stayed up last year though. The year before we were in premier, after a farcical promotion where we didn’t even get into the final and that was horrific 🙈. We won’t go up though - I think that final is going to be very tough!

The thing is that with smaller clubs a handful of fast swimmers either way can make a huge difference as in that middle division most clubs are a bit patchy.

This made me laugh too, pretty true here as well 😂 There is always a shortage of boys!

We had Arena league too, I think you are same area as us from what I remember Satisfiedwithanapple, so hope you get your swim at the posh pool! Our club rejoined this year after a couple of years off, before that we were middle division and kept just staying up but it was always tough going and we never seemed to do very well.

Snap, I’m talking about the open. There’s always some dad who fancies it though.

😂
This is definitely true of some of the male age bands for us too, and at the older end had to get 2 male swimmers out of retirement; one was OK as lane swims for fun/fitness, the other still had most of his speed but was so out of shape he nearly vomited after his first relay, then had to roll out of the pool like something from a SeaLife display after his individual 100 😂 (thank goodness the deck was level with the water or we may have needed to call for a hoist!) Certainly nobody could accuse him of not giving it everything 😬

😂😂😂

Our club doesn’t do it.

However Ds would t be chosen as he’s a para swimmer so although a fairly good sprinter as a para he’s nowhere near good enough for relay teams!!!

If they are male, warm and breathing they are in our team 😂😂

We might get our arses kicked in the posh pool for last round as I think we are in line to just about get into the top gala. But at least it will be nicer to swim in 😂😂.

Both of mine prefer relays.

Dd2 had to do 4 relays 🙈😂. So she felt this was enough without the individual.

I’m sure your swimmer would be picked for our team tbf, we have similar issues to Wombat. Dd2 is a 50 metre freestyle ‘specialist’ though - aka she’s not really that good but can get shifting over short distances.

Whats weird about Arena league is how different it is in different places and the huge gaps between divisions. We have 3 divisions were in the middle one and the gaps between middle and top and middle and lower are HUGE.

We've also been Arena League-ing. It's good fun to watch and the kids generally really enjoy it, but they struggle with the lack of rest between races and tonight was a slow pool with a very slippery shallow end wall - there were a lot of complaints from our swimmers! We're a small club so it's hard to get enough fast swimmers to spread the events across and give everyone a rest. DD1 had 2 individual and 3 relays. One poor lad had the same for his age category plus was needed to swim up an age band on another 2 relays to cover an absence. He'll sleep well tonight!

I hope they have a great time - club galas are great fun imo!!!! (As a spectator 😂)

We’re off to the arena league both of them have a tendency to swim badly in team galas and they are both looking a bit knackered atm 🤦🏻‍♀️.

DD2 is moaning like mad cos she has to do an individual event. Mainly because her best mate can’t go (which also isn’t helping enthusiasm)

I think one of the issues is swimmers selecting unis that are well renowned for swimming while not being actual elite swimmers. People who are barely county level looking at Loughborough for example.

Good luck to everyone competing this weekend.

Hope everyone has fun 🤩

Shame so many aren’t able to social swim. I’ve heard a lot of just gone to uni swimmers and looking at uni’s that have swim club swimmers say getting in uni squads can be hard.

Always seems daft to me that as an island nation we don’t have a bigger swim programme in general!

DD is at Leeds. I think they currently have a shortage of fast girls and coach has experience of kids who did minimal training “giving it a go” by doing some proper training. She has a former club-buddy in Swansea who would have had to sign up to 16 hrs/week for their squad.

That said, I think she said a lot of swimmers were turned away from social squad. By the time the school kids, triathletes, waterpolo, canoeists (and probably a lot of other wet clubs) get their booked time at the Uni pool there isn’t much space left.

The difficulty/ease of getting into squads wasn’t something we’d even considered (as she felt sure she was going to give “tri” a go).

(Usually a porridge-eater, so overnight oats is less of a faff at 6 am).