More poolside chat

[Glittertwins]

Just realised we’re a bit close to the end!

Very pleased you have progress on the injury and can get back to training. onwards and upwards. DS still swimming atm without much enthusiasm but as it is good for his health he accepts he’ll keep training, but he’s less sure about competing. He did our club champs, neither enjoyed nor hated it which is better than the meet he did just before. He’s just drifting as he is not sure if he cares or not. His coach is encouraging us to apply for some grant funding, to cover some of the costs, but not sure if we should or not. The money isn’t nothing but it’s not a lot either. I’m not sure whether to if DS might give up or to do so to encourage him not to.

Have you got any para specific meets near you? It can be quite hard for para swimmers because even though open meets are very inclusive now if you’re a lower classification you’re often slower than than slowest iyswim? And quite often the para swimmer there at some.
And if you aren’t getting enough points yet you can’t do the bigger meets with loads of other para swimmers.
Ds is slower than swimmers his age but at a meet he will fit into a heat of swimmers his speed - although at winter regionals this year the other male paras are either not there or gone off to uni and so swimming in other regions. As our times are tough he’ll be much slower entry time. But I think for him that’s a once off whereas if that’s your experience all the time and you’re the only para swimmer at an open meet meet mentally it’s tough.

It’s great he wants to keep training though as that’ll be natural physio for him. Maybe reach out to the swim England para team for some support because I know they are keen to keep them in the sport.

Thanks @Satisfiedwithanapple and all of you for being the voice of reason and the words of encouragement. Good to hear that there is no need to rush to more training. Some of my DD’s school friends are in another highly competitive club and at their age some of them are already swimming 6-9 times a week so it’s hard to sense what is normal sometimes. Will keep encouraging DD and stay positive!

Honestly, my opinion is that 6-9 sessions a week is nuts. Just stick at the club you’re at, have fun, smile and nod.

Thing is if you’re doing 6-9 sessions a week at 12/13 where do you go to increase intensity etc. Also how do you keep interest and not burn out?
Yes, there are swimmers at ds club who at 12yo are doing 6 sessions a week but many actually only do 4/5 and another sport and coaches work to make it work. Some have no interest in other sports so 6 sessions is ok.
our swimmers who do 9 sessions over 5 days have to be British level and above, 15 for girls and 16 for boys (competing season age so for 25-26 they are 16 by end 31st dec 26 iyswim?). These are swimmers who do want to do swimming above everything else and need to be training that intensity now to maintain.

I’m back! DD(18) has joined the Uni swim squad.

For somebody who probably swam 10 hours in the past 10 weeks and was averaging 2-4 hours/week max during A levels, it will be interesting to see what “proper training” achieves.

Chat GPT came up with a fairly reasonable budget-friendly meal plan and shopping list for her (I’ve not thought to try it before).

Glad to see you back, and relieved to hear of others who decide not to put everything into swimming.

DS does go to some para meets, we are quite close to a different region so have flipped between areas for meets sometimes, but despite knowing lots of kids like DS they tend to give up swimming when they are between 12-14 as the experience is so hard on them competing and knowing they are only competing against themselves e.g. DS has some regional records for his class but only because there is no one else in his class!

Yay and good for DD. Uni swimming is a lot different to home club and probably just needed a complete change of environment to reignite the interest. Will she be braving BUCS?

I honestly have no idea. She will always wonder “what if” if she doesn’t give it a go. At the moment she’ll be chuffed to make it to the end of the week (she hasn’t trained at this level since before lockdown)!

She’ll make a switch to triathlon next year if it doesn’t work out and just join one of the more social squads.

That’s great madcats. It’s good she has the opportunity to explore performance swimming again and has been confident enough to out herself out there to try. I know some swimmers who’ve done BUCS and they’ve loved every minute of it and surprised themselves with some great PBs having taken their foot off the pedal swimming wise through GCSEs and A levels. I also know a few swimmers who’ve transitioned to triathlon and loved it too.

How are you finding her being away at uni?

I think we’re coping, Weird. She and DH have taken turns to be away for a lot of the past 6 months (elderly parents in crisis for him and holidays for her), so I am getting used to an empty nest/dishwasher/washing machine.

I seem to be busy decluttering, and booking social stuff for DH and I, which is no bad thing.

How’s everyone doing?

We have winter regionals next weekend and I think all regions hold there’s around the same time? Although I think entry conditions vary massively around the country?

Outs has 1 entry standard (that’s harsh!) and swimmers compete as juniors/ seniors or paras (who have differing entry standards).

Ours are next weekend. All open age group, sonone entry time and no such thing as juniors and seniors

DS doing regionals in his uni town next week. Last year he came home and did them, but he's decided it's easier to stay at uni and compete there. Particularly as he lives opposite the pool, so can go home and rest between sessions/eat something decent! Just means we don't get to see him until XMAS!. They have age groups and only accept the top 20/24 entries in each event.

He's doing BUCS a couple of weeks later and BUSL this week.

Ours are next weekend too. Qualifying times are senior 16+ and junior 15 and under, but they have said they are doing 3 finals and splitting 16-17 from 18+

Such a variety.

we rarely get any boys under 15/16 in ours as the times are tough but get a few girls aged 13, some 14 and most 15+.

always a fun event though. Not a target meet for DS as short course he just sent get some SC times on the board for the year 😂

Madcat junior is apparently doing BUCS (some sort of shortish Free, I imagine, given the lack of training these past few years). As far as I can tell Uni swimming involves a lot of fancy dress costumes (plenty of socials) and a lot of overnight oats prepped for early swims.

It sounds as if even the “just swimming for fun” club wasn’t easy to get into.

Good luck to Winter Regionals and County Times chasers, as well as the newbies wondering what they have signed up to!

Uni swimming sounds fun!!!!

are the oats to soak up the alcohol from the socials 🤣

DS para swimming friend from the region is swimming at uni and loving the swimming but said the trials and expectations for squads is high. Are you happy to say what Uni your DD is at?

Gold luck to her at BUcS. I’ve heard it’s great fun and another “social” swimming event 😉

I found it quite hard to go back to club swimming after uni swimming… mind you, it’s a bit more professional these days 😆

DD is at Leeds. I think they currently have a shortage of fast girls and coach has experience of kids who did minimal training “giving it a go” by doing some proper training. She has a former club-buddy in Swansea who would have had to sign up to 16 hrs/week for their squad.

That said, I think she said a lot of swimmers were turned away from social squad. By the time the school kids, triathletes, waterpolo, canoeists (and probably a lot of other wet clubs) get their booked time at the Uni pool there isn’t much space left.

The difficulty/ease of getting into squads wasn’t something we’d even considered (as she felt sure she was going to give “tri” a go).

(Usually a porridge-eater, so overnight oats is less of a faff at 6 am).

Shame so many aren’t able to social swim. I’ve heard a lot of just gone to uni swimmers and looking at uni’s that have swim club swimmers say getting in uni squads can be hard.

Always seems daft to me that as an island nation we don’t have a bigger swim programme in general!

Good luck to everyone competing this weekend.

Hope everyone has fun 🤩

I think one of the issues is swimmers selecting unis that are well renowned for swimming while not being actual elite swimmers. People who are barely county level looking at Loughborough for example.

I also think some people have some strange ideas of how good they are ( happens everywhere, not just swimming). Mine is unlikely to even get into Loughborough’s bronze squad and has won multiple regional age group events, qualified for nationals every year since being eligible in multiple events. That plus the course saw Loughborough removed from the ucas application.

We’re off to the arena league both of them have a tendency to swim badly in team galas and they are both looking a bit knackered atm 🤦🏻‍♀️.

DD2 is moaning like mad cos she has to do an individual event. Mainly because her best mate can’t go (which also isn’t helping enthusiasm)