Poolside-Chat-parents-of-competitive-swimmers

[Glittertwins]

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

Mine's at warm weather training camp this week

Ooh what’s that? Never heard of a warm weather training camp before.
Or is it literally just overseas camp (in warmer weather? 😳)

That's literally it

@Hellocatshome they get pretty adept at eating whatever they want with braces on is my experience. Dd eats protein bars etc without any trouble.

Thank you yes I'm hoping it won't be too long before he's eating normally again. The problem is he has a sensory processing disorder so the braces are causing him quite a bit if distress anyway. We have settled ok protein chocolate spread sandwiches for now.

Evening all.

Good luck to all swimming a counties this weekend.

We have weekend 2 5 weeks after weekend 1. Feels a bit underwhelming when we have regionals and national qualifiers lined up already!

No meets for me this weekend!!

Evening @itsgettingweird yes I know what you mean. We have weekend 2 this weekend and I'm not really feeling up for it. Especially as DS only has 2 races (maybe 4 if you include finals) over the whole weekend.

Ds only has 2 events as well - he only does 4 in total!

50m free this afternoon and 100 fly tomorrow!

Good luck to your ds.

Good luck to those with counties this weekend!

Anyone else get frustrated with having to do open meet entries so far in advance? We’ve got one in a couple of weeks where we had to have entries in before counties, for younger DS I went for events I thought he had a chance of regional times in, except all but one are ones he swam at counties and got the regional times in. I wouldn’t have done one of the days at all if I was entering after counties as it is a late finish, 1.5 hours away and we are back again the next day. We had the same problem before Christmas with ending up swimming events at open meets he already had the county times in but we’d done the entries before he got them

I know lots of parents are finding it frustrating.

It's not too much of a problem for us as para swimming works slightly differently and ds times are ok currently - plus he only does 4 events. (He has a WPS classification in March so that may change!).

We enter meets because ds likes racing and takes a lot of them as race prep practice and we are lucky our club does a lot of its own open meets so we don't have to travel too far.

He's up in Sheffield at the World Series in March but then next few are regionals (which is 1.5 hrs away but we are staying as over 3 days) and 2 at his club (Easter and end of May and national qualifiers and 20 minutes away max!) dependant on the outcome of his WPS classification he probably won't even do the May one. It's a last chance national qualifier and I don't want to take a lane away from a swimmer who has a chance to qualify or move up to British if ds already has done enough.

It is annoying, we left entry of a SC meet until after our counties and they just entered the event here and there. LC entries are a bit different so they were done for race distance practice for regionals as well as being in nationals qualifying window

Quick and painless afternoon.

Event 1 heat 5 so we're done in 10 minutes as was 4 free and 9 heats 🤣🤣

Good time too. 0.02 off the PB he set at British.

Massive giggle afterwards

DS to coach "have you any feedback"

Coach "yeah - don't breathe so much" 🤣🤣

Just sounded funny rather than it being funny iyswim?!

Fab well done not so mini weird. Our morning would have been over quickly DS swam a PB in his heat, got a regional time and was first reserve for the final. No one dropped out of the final so you would think we could have gone home. Oh no he wanted to stay and cheer on all his friends so we had to stay for the whole session. Got out of there at the lunchtime break though, not back until tomorrow afternoon so having a sneaky drink while watching the rugby.

Well done mini hello. Fab swim and also great sportsmanship wanting to cheer on his team mates

Certainly down here, we have to get most Open Meet entries weeks and weeks in advance. When the open meet finally arrives lots of swimmers find they are double-booked (especially the younger ones), often because parents are too disorganised to remember what they have entered.

At least these days the organisers don't tend to scratch individual entries (it's more a case of you are/aren't attending). It's annoying being scratched and then noticing that heats are only partially filled.

Counties are a distant memory, but good luck to all those still competing.

@Eccle80 i’d just withdraw from day 2 if that’s the case. It may be a bit of a waste of money but you end up spending more on petrol etc so going is more expensive.

But yeah we enter open meets ridiculously far in advance.

@Teateaandmoretea yes I think that’s what I am going to end up doing as that whole weekend is getting complicated with things my others have on too, and with leagues as well we have so many weekends with swimming things on. I feel bad withdrawing as I’ve only ever done it before for illness etc, but with the costs and time of travel it’s not really worth doing

Well done on the counties performances yesterday, hope today has gone well too

Ds withdrew today. His legs still sore after getting clonus in training on Friday and so he decided he'd be best to rest so he can be on his training for World Series in March rather than risk a few days of non optimal training.

He's not particularly a fly swimmer anyway so fine by me - I've managed to get loads of housework done!

Hope it's better soon, World Series training definitely take priority

Definitely a wise decision from not so mini weird. DS learnt a hard lesson today that at this level some kids will do just enough to get into a final rather than swim their best in the heats. He went into his final in third place after putting his all into the heat but soon discovered a lot of the other swimmers had held back in heats and soon powered past him in the final. But he got a PB in the heat then beat it in the final so is hopefully still happy with his performance.

That's great hello. 2 pbs in the same event in a day is fantastic. And at his age it's all about getting faster.
Some of the early developers can take the risk earlier but it isn't usually something they suggest until older. And some of our older swimmers (17 and O) missed out on finals today because they went slower in heats and because the last 3 are seeded they made the mistake of thinking being seeded 1/2/3 they could just do enough. Of course those seeded 6-12 swimming in layer heats then knew they could make a final going out.

It's just a learning curve.

And disability multi classification you can't afford to do that either! It's all out in heats to make a final by points and all out in final because where you finish doesn't matter - it's all by points!

Ds has finished 2nd/3rd numerous times but gold/silver.

The more experienced swimmers know how to do just enough to get into the final, but it’s a gamble too.

Your DS did well to PB in the heat and even better to PB in the final - lots of swimmers don’t manage that and I’d hope his coach (and DS) is happy with that performance.