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!?

Hi @WidowTwonky - sorry to hear about the hay fever. DS has a chlorine allergy/intolerance so feel for your DS. Honestly over the years nothing helped - probably not what you want to hear! We tried everything. He would come out of every session streaming with red eyes and never had a sense of smell. This started a couple of years after starting squads and built up over the years. Salt water pools were the only things that didn’t trigger it - on holiday he was fine. During lockdown he realised how it felt to breathe properly! Now he only swims once a week in a different pool he is fine. The two council pools he used for training in squad were notorious for chemicals - lots of kids complained over the years - the water had a miasma you could see just hanging over the water and chemicals were regularly added whilst the kids were swimming.

Anyway, am rambling now. The chlorine issue isn’t hayfever, but over the years we tried various sprays and Piriton etc etc and he got no relief. I will be interested to hear if someone else has a solution though.

Our local council pool certainly whacked up the chlorine levels after reopening because of covid.

Widow, apologies if it sounds overly optimistic, but is it worth talking to your GP (or pharmacist) for hay fever suggestions? I am sure my DB used to get hayfever jabs every spring.

He wouldn't try open water swimming instead? My daughter loves it (no chemicals).

As for breaststroke, it is a notoriously difficult stroke to learn to swim. A few 'get it' right away. Others (like DD) either have brilliant or absolutely dire races! Eventually nearly all of them get the timing right (so maybe her peers have simply caught up). If swimming it well is important to you I recommend investing in a private lesson or two with a decent coach. I've done it a couple of times before Counties/last meet for Regional times.

I've heard of a few breaststroke's becoming backstrokers at 14/15.

Much driven by the need to save their knees Madcats

Hi all - just wanted to say hello as a parent just entering the world of competitive swimming! My 8yo has just started at a club and I’m getting used to spending 3 nights a week in the stands. She’s improved so much already in the few short weeks since she joined and although she’s v much in the ‘entry/learning’ lane it’s the only thing she can talk about at the moment!

Hi @Pes0penguin, glad she is enjoying it so much!

Welcome Pes0penguin.

It's interesting how different everyone's club sessions are. We are still 6 in a double lane, no changing rooms and definitely no spectators.

I've not seen DD swim indoors since February 2020, but I got into audiobooks and noise cancelling headphones. Feel no shame in turning up with a cushion!

I bet she'll be asking for a legsuit within the year!

I think we’re lucky that the pool has a large spectator area raised very high from the actual pool - plenty of room to have two (usually more!) seats in between!
We’re not allowed into the changing rooms but the swimmers do use them after their swim (not before) and we meet them outside.

I confess I don’t even know what a leg suit is/is for!

we are also not allowed inside....swimmers are also not allowed to use changing rooms - they go in with swimmers and come out wet with a onesie on top, fine at the mo but in winter...not looking forward to that - or sitting with 2 toddlers in my car in the rain for an hour! after a 40 minutes drive to get there....grr hate covid.
but still its all my dd talks about, so we carry on the madness.....

No spectators and no changing rooms here either, much as I don’t miss waiting 20 minutes for them to come out, I know they enjoyed the chatting and messing around! They use the spectator area to change and leave bags, so until they can use the changing rooms again we wouldn’t be able to have spectators. I’m fortunate that as a Covid liaison I am at some sessions so do see them swim.

Leg suits are the girls’ costumes that have cycle short type legs rather than the high leg style

@WidowTwonky

Is your pool a deck level pool? If it isn’t, then you can get a layer of chloramines sitting above the water surface which will aggravate hay fever / breathing issues.

We’ve also found that Benadryl works better for DS than Piriton, so that might be worth a try.

Thanks for that ekofisk. We swim at 4 different pools and Tuesday nights are definitely the worst so something about that pool/setup.

He’s been prescribed fexofenadine by the gp and just started it this week. She did say to take over the counter tablets as well as those if it’s still bad so might give Benadryl a try.

Also no changing room or spectating here either. But we do have a level 4 this weekend and another planned for July. Whoop!

Oh and his coach suggested a nose clip too. So he’s been getting used to that for the past week!

We’ve found the children’s Benadryl liquid the most effective but I think it’s trial and error as to what works for you.

From experience, I’d be wary about non-deck level pools, especially if pools are being dosed up and swimmers can’t shower prior to entry.

Has anyone heard anything yet about qualification for their counties next year? I was wondering whether they’d next to adjust qualification times, and whether level X times would be accepted or not given limited opportunity for other competitions. DS is desperate to qualify in something again, and frustrated he doesn’t know what he’s aiming at!

Nothing beyond the festival of swimming for our region eccle80

@Eccle80 Somerset have timetabled Counties for 2022 and it looks as if they plan to work to the same sort of timetable as usual.

Looking at their calendar they have a meeting on 17 July to agree promotors conditions. I can see there is a development meet scheduled for October (but that USED to be for the slower swimmers).

I think they will have to use level X, or a club time, as I just can't see that there will be sufficient meets for children to qualify otherwise (ones round here tended to be massively over-subscribed at the best of times).

DD will have to miss out on Festival of Swimming as she hasn't had the opportunity to compete since February 2020. Covid rates are soaring amongst teens round here (so I am slightly relieved TBH).

Thanks Madcats, I agree I think they would be sensible to use level X to give them a decent shot at getting times, as I can’t see there being many open meets and potentially restricted numbers on those there are. Just don’t want DS to get overexcited if he gets a potential county time in a level X only to find it’s not eligible!

I think the times might be easier next year too - certainly for the festival of swimming this year the times are much easier than usual (phew!) - I think it’s fair enough to keep them that way until 2023 counties/regionals as a lot of kids won’t have had the same training opportunities this year.
We have our first real meet this weekend, which is exciting - no spectators though so will be in the carpark for 6 hours - glad the weather looks rubbish!

I hope you’re right. The impression I have is that there has been both more drop out than there would usually be, and that the ones still swimming haven’t quite progressed as fast as they would have done (unsurprisingly with so many months out of the pool!) Plus I can’t see there being the usual volume of open meets in the autumn so there won’t be as many opportunities to try and get the times. It will be interesting to see what the counties do, hopefully they will release something soon so they at least know what they are aiming at.

How exciting to have a real meet! Nothing on the horizon here yet. Do you have to stay in the car park or can you go off and do something more interesting?

Just dropping back in, I was on this thread ages ago. We've had a frustrating return to swimming, DD (15) picked up a shoulder injury and then as soon as she was back she had to SI, shoulder still isn't 100%. So she's missed our second lot of level X, all our club champs and most of this last few weeks training. She has lost a lot of fitness. She doesn't enjoy club champs (or any meets come to that) so wasn't too sorry about missing them but it means she hasn't got any recent times apart from level x at the end of last year.

No changing room use here, no parents on poolside (we have a chaperone rota). Half the club are currently SI.

We have to stay in the carpark! 7 hours - there’s a costa nearby luckily but I don’t want to go too far away cos she’ll be out in the breaks etc ( I assume - details haven’t been very forthcoming yet!) I’m excited to see how well she does - her level x times were ok considering they weren’t proper races (& done on a busy week before & after school) but hopefully will be better this weekend. It’s so hard after so much time out!

Carpark for us tomorrow as well for the Surrey counties, just had to re-activate meet mobile as well!

Hope the meet is/was good for your DC Fingerscrossed, first meet for DD after 2 years out (injuries prior to covid), just relieved she’s getting back into competitive pool at nearly 18 when so many giving up!

Hello! I am wondering if I can join you as I enter the slightly confusing (for me!) world of swimming. DD has always been a very good swimmer and had the advantage of growing up in Singapore where she had a pool at home and a swim team opportunity at school. We are now back in the UK and she wanted to swim again ASAP so we went for a trial at a swim club near us. They were impressed with her training so far and her potential and offered her the opportunity to train twice a week, going up to three times once she turns 9 in November. She's so excited and had a great time so far, she's hoping to be able to do some competition once she's 9. I'm not from a swimming background at all so I'm still trying to recover from the cost of this Dryrobe that she's after