Poolside chat- continues here 😁

[Glittertwins]

Did I get this done right??

Final weekend of us taking it easy before the nationals qualifier window mayhem starts. What's everyone else up to?

It's our counties relay day tomorrow always completely hectic and loud and general organised chaos. DS has had to pull out injured but I had already volunteered so I am going without him for my sins.

Our tried a relays day and it was mayhem as well!

Our counties is over 3 weekends.

Weekend 1 10-14 400's, LD and most relays.

Weekend 2 youth (all events) with older relays

Weekend 3 age 50-200's with some younger relays

I'm sure a relay weekend would be madness and I'm not sure it would fit in with our schedule!

National window for us opened Sept 2024. DS swam all 4 events at counties and British is 600 BPSP at a level 1 meet to be considered for invite. So now he has to just wait to see if he's invited to compete at British.

So job half done 😂😂😂

Next event for us is Aquatics GB champs in April. Is anyone else heading up there?

All age and youth do LD in weekend 1.

Very close to 2 champs times. Not sure if this year will be the one or it will be next year.

The times are extremely tough.

Who's competing this weekend to get the qualifying window off to a start?!

Yep driving to our AirBnB now. He's not really in the mix for National times so actually quite nice to feel a bit more chilled about the weekend than pretty much everyone else in his squad.

Where have you gone to?

Ds squad are in Sheffield. We are not!!!!

(He has a longer window and takes much longer to recover so interrupts his training too much)

We are in Sheffield as well 👍

We're racing but nicely local so that helps.

no racing for us this weekend, but yes to the next 3 weekends.

i haven't really got my head around how to qualify for Nationals. Can anyone explain it to me? i know ots invitation only but based on what? top fastest 19/24 swimmers? and how many times do you have to maintain that rank to be considered? we hover around the top 30 ish, we jump to 10th and then slide down again when everyone else completes.

For British summer nationals / Next Gen, it's the top 24 (18 for distance) per age group per event that has been swum in a 50m pool, level 1 licence, between this weekend and the beginning of May.
There are other criteria on the younger age groups as to who can swim 50s.
The next 20 fastest (might be 24, haven't checked as trying to avoid) will be invited to swim at the home nations summer meets for England, Wales and possibly Scotland. Again this has to be in the same qualifying window and licence conditions but event criteria can be different.
Just to make it even more annoying, in the last 4 years, they have made changes to the selection, the numbers, the event criteria every single year. It's messed us up this year :(

On the closing day that is your ranking place that counts.

So for example if your age group invites top 20 to British for 200m free and your home national invites top 24 - and you are 43rd within your own country you'd be invited to nationals. If you are 17th in British rankings you'd be invited to aquatic gbs next gen competition.

You will always go up and down because there'll be qualifying comps each weekend inbetween now and closing window. The first 3/4 weekends those who are ranked comfortably at top may not have even competed.

It's a really difficult time for the swimmers because there is literally no point to aim for - it's just about going your absolute best and hoping it's better than a lot of other peoples. 😂

Yes, it really is dependent on how others swim too, especially in exam years as many (us included) will drop off training to concentrate on exams whereas those who have far more coursework or are vocational based work may have it spread across the year and so don't drop the training.

thats really helpful, thank you. I'm secretly hoping he doesn't qualify this year (feel awful about this!) because we have a mega holiday booked which clashes! I don't think he'll quite make it anyway, but it will definitely be his goal for next year. I'll have to find some more level 1 meets to enter...

Absolutely no hurry.

We came into swimming quite late overall - ds was 12.

He hadn't even been to his first counties when many of the clubs "stars" had done it all, been to numerous nationals and won medals at them and then decided to quit!

Swimmings such a complex journey but to succeed you do really have to be in for the long haul!!!!

Being a late started and late bloomer doesn't seem to have held my ds back so far so I'm always routing for the quiet ones with head down and who train hard.

Youngest age group is currently 13/14. It was 14/15 in 2022 so things annoyingly do change. At least you are aware of it now, we had no idea and had already got the holiday booked and paid for!

I don’t need to worry about that when booking holidays. An advantage of not being that good 😂

We’ve not got anything this weekend, but lots coming up.

My younger one is hoping to try and make British, but there are only 20 places this year for 13/14, whereas last year it was 28 (and he was around 30th in his age at the end of the window for his best event so it seemed like there was some shot). I suspect he won’t make it, but it’s worth a try! We’ve got one level 1 as a club next month plus regionals, then I’m looking at another to take him to separately.

Sheffield this weekend for us too 👋🏻

Hope everyone's weekends went ok.

For our swimmers who've never done Ponds forge they are glad they got to experience it before possibly qualifying for nationals - it is a huge place and quite overwhelming!

We had a L3 swimming gala last weekend in an incredibly hot leisure centre (warmer than usual ... a child fainted apparently). This was our first meet this year. Right now very proud of how DC is juggling first year of secondary school and training 5x a week!

Yes I always forget how daunting Ponds Forge is if you haven't been there before. DS got an unexpected medal at the Sheffield Gala so that was a bonus also now he's that bit older we only popped into Ponds to watch his races and spent the rest of the time walking and discovering some nice little pubs, helped a lot by the lovely sunshine.