Poolside chat- continues here 😁

[Glittertwins]

Did I get this done right??

Ahhhh yes - didn’t think of that.
Snap

Oh yes this was definitely not sarcasm it was a rant at a child who was definitely under 11. I have spent years volunteering to avoid the crazy parents so this one off trip into the spectators gallery was an adventure to say the least.

And definitely not one to be rushing back to!

Can i ask a question here about race suits? My niece is 12, nearly 13 and currently has a second hand speedo junior race suit that i think is age 13 - 14. Does anyone know how that compares to adult race suit sizing?

I swim myself and have both a 22 and a 24 in speedo and I was wondering if either of these might fit her. I know she'd be happy to have a loan. We're located in different countries otherwise she could just try them on, and the next time i see her she'll probably be bigger than me (i'm not very tall)

The sizing is so out there as you probably already know! I know Arena child and adult race suits follow completely different size patterns so expect Speedo to be similar. I know of an average height but very slim teen who has size 21 in Speedo pure valor but don’t know if it’s open or closed back as this also varies! I think she’s no bigger than a 30 in training suits - how does this compare with your niece?

I think she is a 30 in training suits, would need to check with my sister. I seem to have found two different size guides for the junior race suits so I can't even compare actual measurements very well between that and adults.

I can wear a junior size 13-14 which is a 32 so I think it should fit but I know friends who have race suits in 3 different sizes so it's all a bit of a mystery.

One of the swimwear sellers has a really good size chart (I've probably saved it somewhere, but of course I can't find it). The difference between girls' and womens' is primarily the torso loop (it gave a measure from shoulder around the crutch back to shoulder).

In the interim this might help: https://www.nessswimwear.co.uk/blog/post/how-to-buy-a-competitive-swimming-race-suit-that-fits-correctly-a-simple-3-step-guide.html?

As our old coach put it bluntly, a pre-teen doesn't really have a great deal to compress. I remember my daughter trying on a ladies suit at that age and the legs were baggy (which is a shame as it was a great suit somebody hadn't worn before ditching competitive swimming).

So relieved boys are much more simple! Might be worth speaking to a retailer like Mailsports as they’re great for advice

I think I might just send my 22 lzr ignite over, I think for the level she's at (equivalent to county sort of standard) it won't matter if it's not super compressive but looking at the sizing between that and the junior she wears I don't think it will be baggy. Waist size on a 13/14 race suit is listed as larger than that on a 22. It looks like the child ones are a bit more up and down with less allowance for hips and bust.

Swimming sure has got expensive over the past 30 years, when I completed the only equipment I ever had was goggles and a hat. Now it's county sweatshirts and swim paddles and pull buoys and race suits and temporary tattoos! I was at county relays the other week and it was 10 quid just to watch!

And there was no such thing as race suits. Some open meet fees are rather expensive (London Legacy….) as well as counties, regionals etc. I’m able to avoid a lot of that with poolside passes but still!

I am starting to find the cost of swimming quite stressful. I have a DD who’s been swimming for 4 years and is solid at county level. I have a DS who i couldn’t convince to do a different sport (!) who is in the early stages of competing but starting to speed up and wanting to do more and more meets. With the goggles, training suits, race suits, race fees and recently massively increased club fees for both it’s starting to feel more and more difficult. The answer for us partly is to enter them for less races, but they are also under pressure from the club to keep their times up etc to remain in their squads. They get so much out of it so we will keep finding the money but it’s not easy around other rising costs too

Look out for meets that have swim shops and discounts, they add up. The training stuff hasn’t gone up that much overall, my training cossies were around the £25-30 mark aeons ago. The price of the race suits has gone up like a rocket in the past two years. It seemed to start with the lime green arena suit and matching goggles - £90 for the goggles! Tyr and Finis have always been at the top of the price range but Arena is doing its best to go up and Speedo is now looking truly reasonable. Fortunately I’m not buying for a girl, that’s truly daylight robbery.

Its not a cheap sport. Sign up to all the swimwear company newsletters, proswimwear do regular sales which have kept DD in training suits for over a decade. And her current club has an equipment swap, which is great.
But it's the monthly fee and race fees which are harder to try and manage.

I think lockdown stopped us being sucked too far into the madness of competitive swimming. That and the retirement of our vol coach to a £ one and doubling of pool hire costs.

Was it Scotland who banned racesuits for the juniors a few years back?

An Arena Powerskin ST looks the job for a young swimmer and should hover around the £100 mark.

Shop-wise we used
Pro-swimwear
Alleyns
Simply Swim

I have fond memories of the swimwear provider who used to rock up to meets with a box of £10 training suits and cheap racesuits.

Meet fees are creeping up and I feel for parents whose kids still want to swim 7+ events while they decide what their strengths are (which usually changes).

Yes meet fees are creeping up.

it all costs a lot even if you’re doing local meets.

start doing county comps and you’re adding in cost of race suit.

start doing regional meets and you adding cost of hotels and eating out.

then if you get to national level races are extortionate and hotels are extortionate and travel can be 4/5/6 hours.

Problem is of your child does qualify for counties or regionals etc you feel compelled to take them and it’s what else is sacrificed to cover it.

and training gear etc.

it would be interesting to compare fees and what it includes. I think we are expensive but for what we get probably about average.

National 1 squad
9 swim training sessions (inc 2 LC)
3 land training sessions
sports psychology

what would you estimate fees are a month?

As you are in the south I'm going to estimate £150 a month?

I pay £100 a month for 14hrs pool including LC and 2hrs S&C in the North

Close hello just a little under that (by not even a tenner 😂)

for the number of hours it’s really cheap but it’s not cheap iyswim?

Yes I know what you mean. I worked out I pay £1.44 and hour which wouldn't even get you into a public swimming session or into a gym so it is cheap but it's not cheap at the same time.

I find the worst part is the away galas even though we AirBnB so we can cook our own food etc it still costs at least £300 each away gala once you add in race fees, spectator fees, accommodation, fuel etc and we do at least 5 a year and that's without Nationals.

This past year we pay £72 for 4 1/2 hours/week with one paid for coach and loads of volunteers in the local council-subcontracted 25m pool.

£72/month

The financial pain is real - on the face of it, it has the appearance of a cheap sport, but the reality is very different once they start going to open meets, qualifying for stuff and asking to go to training weeks & camps! Our assistant head coach still moans years later about how it cost him the best part of £1k to watch his daughter spend <30 seconds in a pool (Nationals: travel and accomodation, plus he'd promised her a new top end suit if she qualified. He hadn't realised just how much women's suits were until it was too late... 😂)
DD1's fees work out at £2.30/hr if I price land training as free (it doesn't happen every week so hard to add into the calculation!). DD2's fees are £4.10/hr. Our top squad pay just under £2/hr if LT is assumed as free. My Masters sessions are PAYG at £3.75/hr, but we only have a poolside coach one session a week (although a number of us swimming are coaches).

We are fortunate on the kit front as items of clothing and equipment are always passed along within the club. We've even been lucky enough to be given 2 Arena ST suits, which are perfect for DDs' ages (very robustly cope with less-than-gentle handling!). We've just got to the stage now where DD2 has outgrown the smallest clothing items and fins we were given for DD1, so they have been gratefully rehomed, continuing the chain.
Pretty much everything else, from training suits to equipment, I've bought second hand from Vinted and Marketplace. We have a lot as we (obviously!) all have our own kits, plus I have a bag of tricks to use as a coach - there is no way I could afford to stump up for all that without scouring second hand sites. Snorkels were all brand new (there are limits to what I'll use preloved 😂), plus a specific kind of hand paddle for DD1 that I couldn't find anyone selling on. Costume-wise I'll buy mine new as I'll wear them out not grow out of it, and DD1 has had a couple of new (bottom end!) race suits where I couldn't get the right size/brand/condition preloved one in time.
It is the costs per race that are crippling for us: we are solidly in that phase where everything needs to be swum fairly regularly as it is too soon to claim a specialism, even if they have current favourites, although I have had to negotiate with DD1 over breaststroke to a minimum of twice a year for each distance 😂

For further afield meets, have none of you taken to caravanning? You can keep it packed up with things to make it feel like a home from home, it is quick to set up/pack down, and some sites are incredibly cheap (as little as £10/night) if you a member of one of the caravanning organisations.

Congratulations to those National qualifiers! That's a fantastic achievement! 🥳

We probably spent as much as a holiday for 3 sets of nationals last year. It’s the accommodation and food that’s the killer there plus the hidden cost of taking time off work that can’t be used for an actual holiday. No idea how it will pan out this year, hopefully we can avoid 3.

Wombat the accommodation cripples me as I couldnt caravan and can’t even often find air B and B because if ds accessibility needs.

DD swims in Ireland and we only have 2 LC pools. So all the big events are there and there are an increasing number of campervans parked in the venue over the years. Which is a great solution, if you already have one.