Poolside Chat - parents of competitive swimmers continued

[Glittertwins]

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

So many DNAs in the women's 4IM yesterday 😂

Ds FINALLY did a pb in his SC 50m freestyle 😂😂 it's been a year 😆

Also managed to do a small one in his 400m again.

🥳🥳🥳

Well done to him!

My younger son has now achieved his goal of getting all of the county times for next year. The next question is which he actually swims! We will talk to his coach, but whilst there are 4 events he and I both think it isn’t worth entering, the difficult one is whether to do the 400s or not, particularly 400IM as whilst it’s a strong event for him, it is on the same day as 3 of his other best events. Any advice from those with more experience on how to decide what to swim, and how many events it is sensible to do?

It really depends on the age and also what the coach says.
I regret entering all the events that were qualified for when younger because others used to turn up, do one event and get a medal because they hadn't done previous events already! But when they are younger, it is better overall to have a spread of events.
If the 400IM is in a different session to the other one or there is a big gap, the coach will advise as they know the swimmers better.
We withdrew ours from the 100m at winter regionals, even though it was a different session to the 800m as that was the preferred targeted event. Same as the 50m the day before - out of that instead of the 400m

Thank you, he’s 12 (will be in the 13 age group at counties). I’ll see what the coach says. That day is definitely the biggest issue as it’s 4 out of his 5 best events. Two of them he won this year at counties (but without having to swim a 400IM too!). He’d potentially have a final to swim in the same session after the 400IM, then another two events plus a potential final in the afternoon. My biggest worry for him would be that he makes a mistake on 400IM and gets DQed, and then that puts him off for the other events and he gets into a negative spiral and everything goes badly.

I think my DS managed to only ever swim 400IM once (in 8 years of competing). He hated having a lot of swims as he was always a sprinter and he would get tired with a full programme (his coach used to make him swim everything from 50s to 200s).

I would ask the coach - it’s a big swim and if it’s not one of his preferred events and it might impact his performance on his better events then that might be a good argument for dropping it.

My advice was going to be look at potential to final as well as that can double the number of swims!

But he's - always ask coach for advice. Personally I like to go with the information such as "he has 4 swims in this session of which he's ranked to final in 3. I feel it's too much if he was to do 3 events and 3 finals and a 400IM. (And if he's ranked highly in that mention it) What's your advice?"

But that works well with ds coach so I also think it depends on how coaches like you to approach them too!

Thanks both, yes it’s not an easy event, shame they couldn’t put it at the end of the day! Younger DS is generally good with stamina and currently seems to be best over 200m, whereas my eldest who is a sprinter. But it would be a lot with potential finals too, last counties he had 7 events in total, and never more than one plus a final in the same session
I think I am going to print off the event timetable for everything, write on where he ranks, and ask the coach his thoughts, as I know he likes assessing final and medal potential on rankings. He’s currently top 3 on all of the events on the 400IM day, but I can see with finals too it isn’t necessarily optimum to do them all.

Just chipping in here, as parent of DD who used to qualify for just about every event except 1,500m and 400IM pre-covid.

Down where we are the timetable is arranged so that every sex/gender can only swim 3 events per day (what with heats and finals). 400's always used to be on first thing so one day girls would swim 400 free and boys 400 IM. I think that might have changed because this format left a very limited pool of people willing to volunteer to marshall etc.

It was great for the boarders with the pool a walk away; less stellar for those of us needing to drive for an hour each way.

After 2 or 3 years of Counties we just entered events where we figured DD would get to the final and hopefully be inspired to PB.

These days, if we final in 8th place with most swimmers a lot faster, we decline the final and go home (unless we want a Regional time).

Very few youngsters swim 400 IM, especially LC, so it might be a great opportunity to medal at a young age (or leave the pool feeling thoroughly depressed if other swimmers have plenty of LC experience).

DS has signed up to swim to the Isle of Wight across the busy shipping lanes of the Solent and amongst the stinging jellyfish. Its not until September so I have months of worrying about it to come! Why can't he just be happy with the pool 🙈

Where's he swimming from? Sounds like you're heading to my neck of the woods! We can come and cheer him on!

@itsgettingweird from Stokes Bay to Ryde. It is very far away from home for us so I have no idea really where anything is. Also hoping there might be some way DH or I can be in Ryde on the beach when he gets there but also see him off from this side.

Very close to me then! I'm not far from Gosport at all! So can certainly offer advice on the area.

Look at timings but you may be able catch ferry across to Portsmouth and then hovercraft to Ryde.

Depending on how long it's expected to take him if I'm around I can drive you from stokes bay to Portsmouth to the hovercraft. It takes about 35 minutes but only because of going off one peninsular and right down to the bottom of the other.

Ah thats lovely thank you. I will certainly get in touch nearer the time for some top tips. I imagine timings etc will need to be worked out nearer the time to take into account tides and weather etc. I have got an Air BnB booked which is apparently 5 mins drive from the start point but thats as far as I've got.

Now I just need to organise some training swims especially sea swims. The last time he swam in the sea was in lockdown and the waves were bigger than him.

Are you staying Gosport? Stokes bay is a lovely area but just along the coast is Lee on Solent and Hillhead which have lovely beaches and fab when the tides out! You can walk out for ages on the stone banks and there's loads of sand at low tide!

Its an area called Forton near St Vincent College from what I can tell on the map. If it wasn't in term time we would have stayed down longer as it certainly looks like a nice area of the country.

Lunatic!!! Is there a group he can train with if it's an organised thing?

I know! Erm I think there is but as we are North East and the training swims are South Coast its not really possible. I think they do have a particular weekend of training we are going to try to make.

Thanks for the heads up on this - I’ve forwarded to a friend who will love this sort of swim (nutter).

My dad has swam IOW to Portsmouth before.

Ooh can you ask him for any tips. DS seems most bothered about it being salt water and tasting funny, I told him he's not supposed to drink it!!!

I'll ask him! He's done the channel in a relay before too and you have probably met him as he officiates at SE OW nationals

TBF I can understand what he means. I recently visited Iceland and swam in an outdoor competition pool. The thing that threw me off most was the water tasting strongly of sulphur (the air temp being 1 degree whilst the water was a cosy 38 came a close second!). You can't help getting it sloshed into your mouth even in a pool, let alone when real waves are involved. I won't do 'proper' sea swimming for the same taste reason (love a bit of Granny Breaststroke in the sea though 😊).