Poolside chat- continues here 😁

[Glittertwins]

Did I get this done right??

he has county times for the 100 back & both 50 events. He doesn't have times for either of the 200ms.

I'll look at the schedule. it feels like a full time job managing this.

Last night of British or any big meet really he has pizza and chocolate brownie 😂

For those who kids don't eat the pasta a tuna baguette is also good or sandwiches.

Being a swim parent is definitely a full time job 😂

We've been away this weekend at my brother wedding 5 hours away!

Tonight I'm dropping him at training and then going to do the food shop and make tomorrow's lunches, hand out some washing and go back and get him. Luckily he's training for 3 hours this evening as they have a theory session after training so I have time.

I sat and wrote my shopping list during my lunch break 😂

We stopped at a Lidl an hour from home yesterday to get lunch stuff for today and this weekend I'm going to be batch cooking again to stock us up.

After 2 weekends of a meet and then wedding it's getting rather desperate here 😂

Already for that restaurant booked for winter nationals!

@StrawberryThief1930 we had arena league and then open meet on Sunday this weekend. We just did the afternoon of the open meet and had a lie in.

I don’t know about chasing times, I think I’m kind of of the opinion these days that if they’re meant to get them they do. If he hasn’t been to counties before then I’d stick with what he’s most comfortable with, 200s are full on for little ones. Were a freestyler family, dds both have 50, 100 and 200 free and dd1 has 50 fly. Dd2 is very close to 50 and 100 breastroke but I am very meh about whether she gets then.

And yes for anyone who’s followed my previous pessimism over dd2 she’s suddenly got much better. She swam a 5 second pb for 100 free yesterday and 9 seconds faster than when she last did it 🤷🏻‍♀️😂😂😂

At the start of the year looking at the county times I reckoned the chance was zero (she just got 50 free last year and this year is hugely faster)

well done to your DD - great pbs!

Wow that's some time!!!

The thing to remember re distance is that last year nationals changed so younger 12/13yo only swam 200's. They need to be focussing in them if that's what they want to aim for.

Otherwise pick their favourite with a few not faves per meet to mix it up a bit.

Our coaches will ask swimmers to do just sprints at some meets or just 2/400 at others.

Sometimes add a distance.

They'll do all events over the qualifying period but they tend to encourage them to mix it up rather than chase a time with just an event or 2 over and over.

But all clubs train differently, so meets differently and coaches sometimes want full say over what swimmers do and some want the swimmers to choose.

With regards to choosing events. Ar our club swimmers are allowed to choose with a general rule of thumb as 2 events per session. They then tell the coach their selections and the coach may guide them to change a few if they think they should be doing something different.

I used to have a spreadsheet and guide DS on events based on how close he was to varying qualifying times. Now I just let DS chose and we only look at qualifying times if he specifically asks. I think actually DS has swam better this way. He has started swimming a stroke he hasn't swam for years because he enjoys it even though it's not a strong stroke for him. At the end of the day it is supposed to be fun.

your coaches sounds great & very involved. our club isn't like that. the parents/kids choose what they like but i think I'd get advice if i asked.

DS likes them all! part of the problem of choosing. and he definitely finds it fun. we've got a meet this weekend so we'll see how he does. good luck to anyone else racing at the weekend too.

Hello swim mums, I lost you for a good while there. DD swims in Ireland, so competition structure etc is different, but sitting by a pool is the same.
I'm in the count down to ending my swim mum life as DD will be heading to university next year. And she's learning to drive, so will be doing the early morning driving herself soon!

If they are aiming for nationals then yes agree, I’m coming at it from the recreational swimmer angle. At 12 it’s like the top 12 or something in England thats pretty far above most people’s targets who are going to counties for the first time. We did have one in our club last year but he’d been to regionals at 11.

@StrawberryThief1930 I think there are advantages and disadvantages of coaches choosing events. Not all swimmers cope with it - my older one certainly wouldn’t, and dd2 would just swim slowly if she didn’t want to do it. But sometimes it’s useful as a push I imagine in some circumstances, but really if they shy away from events then they probably aren’t going to be elite swimmers anyway. The big thing imo is do a good selection but don’t overdo it at meets and don’t swim the same events too frequently. At our club people make two mistakes - just entering for one event they think they are good at for every meet or the other extreme entering 10 at every open meet. They then get disillusioned when they don’t swim big pbs each time…..

My two have county times but are very unlikely to get regionals. So I tend to enter them for some more other stuff at level 3 once the counties are out of the way. I’m already arguing about it with dd2 who says she never wants to do backstroke EVER AGAIN. Well she is 😂😂.

Even if not aspiring to nationals, 200IM is a good one to have a go at (as long as they are ok at 50 fly), as it’s used for selections for regional and county development programmes as well. I generally think it’s good to swim a range of events as you never know until you have tried what you might be good at. My experience matches Teatea though that there are a lot who either only enter the same one event they think is their good one, or enter everything at every meet!

Turkeyboots exciting times once she can drive herself and you can get some time back!

Ah yes county pathway uses 200IM so deffo worth doing that one if you can get the county time and it’s something your dc would want to do.

Definitely keep up with a 200 IM (although it was dropped as soon as possible here!!)
Good luck with the driving lessons @turkeyboots , still got a whiie to go

Dd2 has never done 200IM to be 100% honest. I dread to think what she’d be like on county pathway though as she has her own very individual approaches to training 😂😂.

But to be fair right now it’s working!

Tea totally agree. And I've had the same argument re fly with ds.

So he agreed to try it and smashed 6 seconds off his pb!!!

It's a really hard balance to find dictating events as a coach and swimmer. You're right that some swimmers it works for and others it doesn't.

Da has tried it and doing it at winter regionals.

However if you've ever seen his breast stroke you'd question why 😂😂

It's absolutely will not benefit him getting onto any programmes 😂😂

He's only doing the events he wants at winter regionals, dames as at nationals. He does have all the fly times as well but they'll get in the way of his favoured events.

We aren't doing winter nats at Ponds forge.

We are entering the para winter nats at Sandwell (a weekend!) at end of November.

Just a question someone may know the answer too!

There's a post about counties times changing. Is this a SE thing that will run across all counties or a recommended change?

No one's ever given consideration to the fact open age and MC by points is the norm for paras. They have always had to suck it up as well as overcoming the other barriers they have to! (Except their para specific winter nats and junior nats are age bands).

It's not that I'm not empathetic. And I do understand the challenges to keeping swimmers engaged. Especially late teens.

But for us it's the norm. It doesn't matter your puberty stage or age or even your level of disability - you race each other!

I would be interested to know this as well @itsgettingweird. Our county times haven't been released yet so we will have to wait and see if they follow these recommendations or not.

Ours are released but still have separate age groups for 16 and 17+.

However as ds is para there's just 1 time for each distance and stroke (that can be swam under that classification) for each classification.

Our times have not changed from last year.