Poolside chat: Calling all parents of competitive swimmers!

[Marypoppins19]

I thought it might be helpful to share our highs/lows/questions/thoughts in one place. Who’s joining me!?

@itsgettingwierd mine are not at regional standard either DS10 made counties in 2 events this year and last. But I love this thread to see the experiences of the pro parents

Ds has just turned 15.
He's at an odd stage of his swimming as he's registered with para swimming but they want more evidence for assessment. The stumbling block seems to be the fact his condition doesn't yet have an official diagnosis. But then even if he gets last that bit between 14 and 0 points lost he remains mainstream swimming. His diagnosis is spasticity of muscles, hyper reflexes, contracture of arms and gene variant (originally they suspected CP but it's genetic. However if they diagnosed CP they'd test him 🙄)

He probably won't ever get county times. He's has reduced muscle power in his legs as well due to his disability and that'll always make that odd second or 2 difficult to obtain.

🤞 for club champs tomorrow and being able to gain 3 more pbs - even if it's just a small gain!

Wow queen. Nationals! That's impressive! What strokes and distances does your ds swim? How old is he?

We don’t do arena league either. After great first gala of season DS now injured and unable to swim for last fortnight. We have regionals soon and he has a dozen swims but not sure he will be taking part as hasn’t trained for two weeks. He is 15 but will swim open age so no medal prospects but useful to have up to date times. Well that ship has sailed I think!

@itsgettingweird - that must be really frustrating re assessment, but sounds like he is having great club champs!

Very happy boy this evening! 2/3 PB. (100fly and free) Last event was 50 fly and none of them got a Pb. It's understandable at 8pm 😂

My DS wasn't picked for arena league which actually was a bit of a relief. He's done junior league for the last few years but now too old. We're at a large club with lots of very good swimmers including world champions. It's our local team so makes sense to stay but my DS is one of the slower ones despite making county times in most strokes and it does feel like his squad don't get the same attention as the elite squads. Still he is only 12 so plenty of time to catch up. He did really well in Sept in our club sprint gala despite them being told to not worry about times but concentrate on technique, he got 5/5 PBs so I think he's starting to gain some strength. He's struggled with breaststroke for years as he has hyper flexible hips but he hasn't been DQ for months now and is slowly getting closer to a county time. He's been playing water polo too through school which I think has helped with core strength.

Any East Region swim parents? If so, what do you make of the new Regionals/ Meet set up this year? I’m looking at several weekends in different places, different events at different meets and my brain hurts!

That sounds really tough Queen, especially if your counties are also going to be spread over multiple weekends too and relatively close to each other timing wise.

Thankfully just one weekend for both for DD's age grouping in London region.

I had a quick look too - I do hope South West aren't planning the same thing (traditionally the 15+ and long distance have each swam 2 weekends in one place and the

@Madcats East region always do their finals at the end. This year we went back to our hotel and DS fell asleep. Because the signal was poor we missed frantic calls to get back to the pool as DS had been on the reserve finalist list and was called up half an hour before the final due to a last minute pulling out. His last race had finished 5 hours earlier! That was a bit crappy.

Currently we are in both Luton and Norwich for the regional weekends, likely to need to do the Summer Meet as DS will probably make the slower time over 200 races, rather than the new, much quicker regional time.

I’m not keen on the new system. It’s a lot of travelling to different places and it’s more expensive. DS is seeing the times as a new challenge and is up for giving it a go. I need to follow his lead! He had a much better attitude than me!

Queen we are South east! Regionals not really an issue with me as ds won't be swimming them. Will only make county team. Have heard comments that they didn't get K this year and so there's various venues including a Friday?

Ds has been moved up! He's currently 2nd squad and although not moving fully to top yet will train with them for 2 hours once a week, both morning sessions are top 2 squads anyway and Monday 2 hours is usually both squads together but will swim in top squad lanes.
He's a very happy swimmer this evening

Aw, congratulations to your DS itsgetttingweird, that's lovely news!

Week one competed of two for half term here, with DD going through the most gruelling of schedules, 3 days this week accumulating 5 hours per day. Broken is her most frequently used word, I am secretly proud of her, and hope she has a good regionals next weekend as a result of all the hard work.

That’s great, @itsgettingweird!

@ealing, that is a very gruelling schedule. Tired just listening to it!!

Still injured here. No regionals as wont be fit enough. Missing first time in six years. Not happy... and very sick of swimming pull as can’t kick. Realistically won’t compete until after Xmas.

Mock GCSEs almost done, which is nice and now half term week off. Just one exam when back and then await results.

Open meet here tomorrow. Aiming for 4 pbs but he only set 2 of them 2 weeks ago so maybe a leeetle optimistic! 2 are months old so he should technically smash them!

Swam in top squad lane this morning due to numbers. Same set for both squads but obviously has to work harder as the swimmers are faster!

Sorry to hear about injuries. My ds mostly swims with pull due to his legs anyway. He loves a pull set as he storms them

Injuries are tough esther, wishing him speedy recovery and even if it's just pull only in-pool, the pull will be so much stronger on his full return.

Great news about the near completion of mocks too. Does that mean he doesn't have another set pre may or does he have another set to go in new year sometime?

Thank you, @ealingwestmum, going to give full stroke a go this week and see how things are.

Has further mocks in core subjects inc RE in February but these are the proper ones now really. Proper results day too when they go back - makes it seem quite real!

Wow! Lots of swimming need to catch up on. I love it when I see our little thread back at the top of the topic page. 😃
@itsgettingweird I’m really pleased to hear of your DS’s promotion! That’s a sign that all his work is paying off and being noticed. Excellent news.
@estherfrewen I’m sorry to read that the injury is still causing a problem. I hope that the mocks are going well. A real shame that regionals will be missed.
@ealingwestmum gosh! Her stamina must be amazing. Wishing her lots of luck next week!

Local winter league for us tonight. DS was generally quite pleased with his swims- although they were all quite close together and by the end he was finding it tough going. Working towards regionals next week now.

Good luck for the open meet, @itsgettingweird!

I miss the leagues, @queenoflouisiana, we don’t do Arena League anymore and it was always nice to do something team based. Hope regionals go well next week.

Gosh, I thought this thread had died down. I am currently poolside on day 2 of an open meet. We finished 45 minutes early yesterday! At one point the warm ups had 16+ girls in each lane, but it seems quieter today.

DD really wasn't in the mood yesterday, but seems a bit brighter today.

Reception (and the rugby on the TV), is a popular place.

Well done to weird, and good luck with the meet.

That’s a very quiet open meet, @madcats! Hope today goes well. Thread got busy all of a sudden again.

DS off to pool soon to try and kick before his upper body gets so big his little legs won’t support him anymore. I’m hoping this month without kick will demonstrate how fast he could be if he used his legs from time to time.......

Not a bad day for ds. Pb in 50 back. Hit his times in fly and free (0.1 out but only set one of those 2 weeks ago!). 100fly was 4 secs out (whoops!). But he'd fallen asleep and I'd woken him for it and you could see he wasn't feeling it today anyway! (Which makes the other 3 even better!)

Not got a meet now until December (and it's LC) so hopefully upping his training and 6 weeks off competing should bring some good times!

Madcats we find our girls heats seem have to 100's of swimmers sometimes for 50 free and breast! They far outweigh the boys in numbers.

Soooo...watching hour 397 of warm up at winter regionals in Basildon. Hope the weekend is going well for you all, be it at winter regionals or other meets.

😁 @queenoflouisiana - don’t you love the warm up

Hope everyone having a good one who is swimming. I have one frustrated DS who doesn’t know what to do with himself as all friends at regionals. Injury improving slowly and he has been swimming full stroke. Looking at January return to competitions so he can perhaps swim counties for up to date times before GCSEs hit.

That must have been hard for your DS esther. He's nearly there, and hopefully will come back fighting fit on his county meets early new year. We really struggled through the last 18 months with DD's ongoing injury. Came to a choice of: stop swimming her best stroke that she'd reach regional finals with across all distances and switch to others, or give up swimming altogether.

This weekend she still is 2 years behind on her best times for that stroke as it still heavily impacts her knee, but has made massive improvements on free and back, which was great, and she finished the weekend in a good head space.

Having been a swimming parent for several years now and seeing mainly swimmers who were 13 yrs+ this meet (with a handful younger), it really hit home how, no matter how innately talented or less so in their early years, there is a massive cross over in the later years. And how all shapes and sizes can succeed, as there are so many other factors in play. I was clearly feeling very philosophical in my will to while away the hours.

Hope your weekend was successful queen, and any others racing also...