Poolside-Chat-parents-of-competitive-swimmers

[Glittertwins]

Hopefully this will work as we’re at 999 on the other!

DD swam in twin block braces with no issues. She took them out to race though! Keep painkillers on hand though, on adjustment day she'd always have a headache.

As it happens I am sat with DD at the dentist waiting to have the last 3 of her baby teeth pulled out.

Braces to follow when the adult teeth bother to move down.

I'd been worrying about music; I completely forgot about racing!!

Well the orthodontist said today he definitely needs twin blocks and he can remove them for swimming. So between swimming and eating (which we all know there is a lot of) that will be a fair few hours without them in each day but we will just have to see how it goes.

My other concern is with his tic disorder and general hyper sensitivity if there is something even slightly different eg a different label in his clothes etc he cant leave it alone and will just pick and pick and pick at it. I'm not sure how he will tolerate it.

Taking that into consideration, wouldn't fixed braces be a better option?

They definitely would but apparently fixed braces move your teeth not your jaw and its his jaw that needs moving 🙈 honestly being back the swimming gala stress cos I prefer that to the bloomin teeth stress 🤣

I never considered that but I'm pretty sure my jaw didn't need moving. I hope he gets used to them quickly.

My DD kept her twin block braces in to eat. When you are using the muscles it gives more benefit (or something).

What have people got coming up the rest of cycle 1?

We have a L2 SC this weekend and a L3 (our club so very local!) LC first weekend in December.

Para winters is in Glasgow in 2 weeks but we aren't going as it's impossible when I don't finish work until 4pm on Fridays.

We’ve got a couple of L3s and the arena league. Not doing that many events though cos of other things on. Dd1 has the county times anyway, there is one more she could do with getting but it’s deffo harder than the others (even now it’s her highest county age group placing 🤨). Dd2 has 2 and is going to have a go at a couple of others. Whether she swims them will depend on what mood she’s in though. She only likes swimming 50 freestyle she doesn’t see the point in the others 🤦🏻‍♀️😂.

Dd1 has had a really bad run of training etc with illness and then period pains at the galas when she wasn’t ill. She’d swum the county times before the summer though which is lucky, it would have been stressful otherwise. Hopefully it will mean she swims some pbs at counties though as a lot of the events she isn’t doing again till then.

Arena League last night and the final in Dec. Couple more L3s coming up and that is it until Counties

Yes that's us until counties too.

Our counties runs over 6 weeks every other weekend.

Ds is first weekend and the last weekend. He's qualified for 6 but only racing 4. He'll do those 4 at regionals and then may drop down to just 2/3 for summers depending what he qualifies for and when.

Good to see so many getting county times and PBs. I love it when they don't race something for a few months and then smash it

We are doing the L2 because winter nationals must be swam at L2 meet.

His squad it was a target meet so I just signed up because I was meant to.

It took a few weeks for me to realise that a) he can't even compete at winter nationals and b) if he was doing the para one he had times anyway.

Oh well - it's his last SC for another 9 months or so so might as well just enjoy it 🤷‍♀️🤣

Yeah dd1 is an all rounder and county times are straightforward but regional times are unlikely unless she swims some big pbs at counties/ straight after. There are a couple she may be touch with, but on current performances it’s not looking good. National short course not in this life…..

Enjoying it is the main thing. At least one thing we’ve had a lot of practice in recently is coping with and moving on from disappointing performances 😂. Fingers crossed it will turn around.

Dd2 otoh just smiles and waves.

We had Arena League last night, then still to come are the last few club champs events and a couple of open meets. Eldest has 4 county times and is close on everything so hopefully will manage a couple more, younger has 6 and may have a chance on one or two others. I think county have misjudged the times for the 10/11 and 12 age groups by going back to 2020 times this year, there don’t look to be many qualifying in his age group and there weren’t many at this year’s counties even with the relaxed times. He hasn’t got the time in something he is ranked second in!
We’re waiting to see what the regional times are too, younger potentially has a chance depending how much faster they are than this year, and eldest is hoping to have a chance on a couple too, he was close this year and is improving rapidly at the moment after a bad year

I think a lot of people have faith that county times are based on something. I’m absolutely convinced they aren’t. They made ours faster after covid by taking 2 seconds off all the events across the board 🤔. They have this year put the girls 10-11 back to what they were prior to Covid but not the boys. All makes perfect sense.

Ds is fine for county and regional times. Para times aren't really that tough because lots of counties only have 3/4 swimmers and regions 5-10. (Each sex not in total!)

Also as each different classification has different events that can lower the numbers too. Although at that level the S14's can swim 50 and 100m free so it increases numbers.

This years summers will be where we will have to see. Last year they relaxed the qualifying criteria to top 24 and over 350 BDPs for British. It meant ds qualified 6 but swam 4.

However although 2 of those he'd have qualified under previous criteria his 400m free and 100m fly were a lifetime away 🤣🤣 he's not now after doing a 3.8 sec pb over H and F in fly and 6.2 in free. In actual fact I've just checked and he'd get in for 400m free under old criteria and if he can knock 4 secs (ish!) off his fly he'd get that too!

He's no hope of ever qualifying for the other 2 at British when relaxed rules stop and I'd be surprised if he even figured at nationals. (Irrelevant because he won't be swimming them anyway!)

He won't ever qualify breast stroke in anything - not even para!!! Watching him swim that is a sight to behold 🫣🤣

I think a lot of it is not really being able to judge where swimmers would be.

Our counties has scrapped auto times and have really easy consideration times this year. But they have swimmer limits - 24 is max amount and gets less with each distance.

Unfortunately those swimmers coming through after covid who didn't really compete before (and parents) are lured into a false sense doing it this way.

Recently at regionals people couldn't work out why their child didn't qualify when 30s inside the 1500m qualifying time. Tried to gently explain when inside the time and not even making too 100 rankings published it's not likely you'll get a swim when they are taking 28 swimmers.

I really wish clubs and SE would make things clearer and actually more uniform across the nation tbh.

It is funny how some of them just can’t do breast stroke despite being really fast at the others. It also tends to be boys, or at least the ones I can think of anyway.

Ours let more than 24 in. Last year they brought all the timings forward. I think it could be full this year though.

My ds has no abduction in his hips, his left ankle has literally no movement and his right not much and his left side has more spasticity than his right.

He has the leg drag exemption.

But even then - despite all his power being in his upper body - he just cannot get or do breast.

He's really slow and awkward 🫣🤣🤣🤣

I've often wondered if because he's a free and fly swimmer he just doesn't have the "right" muscles iyswim?

That's 24 per sex per age group.

They still let more into ours than that but it’s uneven across the age groups so probably it evens out as that.

I thought fly was actually meant to go with breaststroke?

Dd2’s breaststroke is beautiful. Dd1’s is clunky, the coaches regard it with some horror but she has county times in it (which when the times came out for the counties caused a few laughs amongst her mates).

DS has 4 County times which is 4 more than last year so he's happy. He might get a few more as we have a level 3 mid December and entries don't close until January. Our County times are harder than our regional times and they don't use consideration times so you either qualify or you don't. Which sometimes leads to events with 1 person in which makes no sense to me.

I thought fly and free usually went together?

Plus he isn't that great at fly beyond 50m. But S9's have to swim 100m!!!

That doesn't make sense.

Our counties times are hard despite being easy to achieve due to numbers and our regionals are tough too. If you medal at our regionals you are very likely to make British in that event and final!

And if you final you're very likely to make British.

And if you qualify you're more than likely make English's nationals.

I have a feeling there will be more rejections than accepted entries at our counties this year based on consideration times. I hope I'm wrong though as that just seems like madness!