Poolside Chat - parents of competitive swimmers continued

[Glittertwins]

Getting a bit close to the end of the previous one!

Definitely the best way to address it

Eccle I found that quite astonishing when I saw it. Maybe because we weren't involved until ds was 12 and he didn't get classified until 17 so we didn't really see all the age group swimmers iyswim? Also because coincidence in the middle and he moved from a small club to the city club either side.
But we turned up and we noticed some of the big hitters from pre covid at the club who all went within a year. I'd thought it covid until I saw that stat.

I've often wondered if the younger swimmers who aren't winning are better at focussing on race technique because they are still trying to win iyswim?

Am I explaining myself well? Or rather asking the question properly?!

Welcome skankingwombat. This is a fab group. Hope it's useful.

Covid not coincidence 🤦‍♀️🤣

Get the technique right first and when they grow they will get the strength and stamina to work with it.
Strength and lousy technique is not good and could lead to injury.

You just need to take it at your own pace and do what you feel comfortable with is my advice.

They develop in their own way and at their own pace. Balance of life and interests is important.

Definitely! They both really enjoy it, which is the main thing. I suspect the youngest is mostly into it for the social though 😂 I always pity the coach who gets her lane (and their ear chewed off)!

3.5yrs in and watching how it's run, I think our club have the balance right with the very youngest swimmers - the single hour a week is plenty, but they can start them learning the beginnings of skills such as diving and turns which they wouldn't do in council-run lessons (the littlies get very very excited about doing this), they continue to get the basics nailed down, and crucially, enroll them before The Other Club does 😬 (they have a 7yrs+ policy rather than our 'level of required competency, regardless of age' approach)
The top squads understandably have high training hours, but it's the bit in the middle where it's harder to get the balance - the right amount to progress well but not burn out. My 9yo is definitely one of those who is behind the pack in growth for now, so I don't want to push it. It's been wonderful reading about all of your swimmers' successes, and I'd love for her to carry the enjoyment through for years to come.

Thank you, I have signed up to Off The Blocks and will take a good look once I've been approved.

On a different note: any tips for transportable calorific nut-free snacking please? We have signed up to this year's swim week for the first time which (in contradiction to what I said above about not overdoing it 🙈) will be a crazy amount of hours compared to what they're used to, although hopefully a lot of fun with their friends! It sounds like it will be a great week away. My eldest in particular is already very skinny and can't afford to be in a calorie deficit, so I need to make sure she's getting the most bang out of her food. There will be a lot of eggs and avocados being offered for breakfast and they can be fed plenty of nuts when we're safely back in our accommodation, but even after a normal session they leave the pool starving. I will need to chuck snacks at them the moment they emerge from the changing rooms!

I make large quantities of flapjack and out loads of dried fruits into it, there's also some great protein flapjacks we got from Amazon which had come from a swim camp.
Malt loaf, dried mango, fresh grapes in small tubs are inhaled here.

And post training hot chocolate!

Yes flapjack was my suggestion too!

You can make them and add cherries, raisin, mixed peel etc.

Or banana and oat muffins. I use silicone vases and have an air fryer to can batch cook things like this and store in large clip lock container and they last all week.

Milkshake or hot chocolate is also a good shout. If you buy cartons of milkshake (off the shelf,f ones) again they last as opposed to ones that require a fridge!

My ds also loves a pan au chocolat! We buy the multipacks of individually wrapped ones. I would just advise not more than 2 and afterwards as the mastery causes him reflux if he eats them before he swims.

Pepperoni. Tuc biscuits that come with the cheese already inside.

Ds swam a 400m free last night. Did really well. 7 sec pb on his sc time but importantly 3 secs outside his LC conversation time he set at British in the summer. So good place to start the season (and he is worse at sc because if his legs 🤣🫣)

Oh and managed to do a 200m pb on first 200m! Think that impressed him more 🤣🤣

Ooh nice one there and with such a good swim at Sheffield too. Always nice to get a split PB too

Back in the days when DD trained hard, we would make her drink a protein oat milk before early morning swims if she hadn't managed breakfast (Fuel brand; she still scoffs Kgs of their granola if I see it on offer). She got through a lot of cheese omelettes after an evening swim as a tween.

On the rare occasions she competes, we fall back on pesto pasta (with some cheese & tomato in a vacuum snack flask) or a chunky chicken soup, humous and carrot sticks, babybel cheese, pepperami... fruit (satsuma/apple/blueberries). Twiglets are good at hot meets (well that's how I justify them).

The key is to not scoff huge amounts between races.

Our snack staples for open meets are mini flapjacks and rice cakes - good for a quick boost without being too heavy.

Well done to your son @itsgettingweird, always impressive to get a pb on a split as well! I agree I think if you aren’t winning at the younger end you are constantly looking at what you can do better and trying to improve, whereas if it comes easily, especially if it is due to early growth and power rather than technique you don’t work at it as much then get caught up. There seems to be a big drop out at 14/15 - a lot in our club around my eldest’s age have given up recently.

We’ve had a good start to club champs, both have had good PBs, including youngest taking nearly a second off his 50 free which he set in the county final all the way back in January and hadn’t been able to get particularly close to since. He does work hard in training and done a lot to improve technically since then so it’s nice to see it finally actually leading to a better time for him as he’d been getting frustrated.

Well done on pbs eccle

My did that with his 50m free for a few years. A good swim, then hovered around his old pb for 6-8 months and then another pb.

Now he's hovered around his pb for a year! He's hoping to finally get sub 27 tomorrow 🤞

Same thing happened here. Swim a PB and then never get anywhere close for the next 6 months or so. Happened regularly!

Oh yes this is DS's favourite trick. It tends to go swim a PB at Ponds Forge get no where near it until he swims at Ponds Forge again. I'm half tempted to move lol.

Well done with all the PBs! Our Club Champs has finished for my 2 now (just a few 13yo+ events still to be held). They both hugely improved on all their times, but are still at an age where it happens pretty easily. We only have 1 internal gala and 1 open meet to go this year now.

Thank you for the snack suggestions, I shall pack a selection to choose from. Good shout about flapjacks and muffins - we won't have baking facilities there, but I can easily make some to take and hide them from DH to ensure the right people eat them. They eat seeds, so I can chuck those in too.
I hadn't heard of Fuel before, which is surprising as exercise-obsessed DH is forever going on about protein-fortified products (although I generally ignore him about food, because his approach to a healthy diet in practice is woeful 😩) I will check them out! They are very partial to granola and already prefer oat and almond milk to the moo-y kind.
Yes, at galas they're fed a strictly portioned Haribo diet with an occasional pot of blueberries between races. I really, really don't want to be the parent of the child who is sick in the pool, worse still if it is a substantial amount that reappears 🙈

Hello 🤣🤣 he's starting early for when it's usually swims at Ponds forge that count the most!

Sounds great womble. Make the most of when this is a quiet time of year. When they get to counties age and winter meets standard this phase is usually mad busy with qualifying meets!

I'm usually done in by Christmas and I don't even have to do the training 🤣

Welllll.... that was an eventful afternoon meet!

Ds sa,she's his 200m free.

Was lined up to do his 50m. We were evacuated. 6 fire engines came. Back in 30 minutes later and did his 50m free straight off - and swam his PB time!!!!

And his coach has to,d him he needs to start racing the 800m free as practice for his 400m - he was less impressed with that news 🫣🤣🤣🤣

Smashed his 200 that should have said!

Fantastic Not so Mini Weird. For some reason I have been at a disproportionate amount of galas where we get evacuated for fire alarms. They did well to get you all back in after 30 minutes. One memorable occasion DS got evacuated 1400m into a 1500m 🙈

They did considering it was an actual fire!

Some little shites set fire to an umbrella in an old part of the building at the back that's unused and some leaves just outside in the park

We did say thank god it wasn't a few hours earlier during the 1500!