Hi Team-

Happy day 1 of Holiday School Break! For those of you that are staying in the area for this break, we are having some practices if you are interested. Please let Coach Kari and I know if you are coming on the RSVP form.

This week our schedule will be: 4-6pm for Over 11, 4-5pm for 8-11, and -4:30pm for Under 8. We will have practice tonight 12/23, Thursday 12/26, and Friday 12/27. No practice Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Next week our schedule will be 5:30-7:30pm for Over 11, 5:30-6:30pm for 8-11, and 5:30-6pm for Under 8. We will have practice 12/30, 1/2, and 1/3. No practice New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

Also please be thinking of the up-coming meet schedule. I have attached our finalized meet entry list for the January 5th UVAC meet. I can make changes without penalty up until next Sunday 12/29. Let me know if you missed out on sign up and want in on the action or if you can't make it after all. This meet is our last chance to make Bronze qualifying times. So if your swimmer is close, this is the meet to go to. 

For Bronze Champs, please indicate whether you are planning on attending or not and what days. I will pick out events with suggestions from swimmers. At Bronze you can qualify for Silvers, so often swimmers go to both. Here are the qualifying times for Bronze Champs. If you qualify in 1 event you can get 3 bonus events, qualify in 2 you get 2, qualify in 3 get 1. Then if you qualify for more events, you can swim up to 6 events per day or 9 for the weekend if you make qualifying times in those events. Please let me know if you have questions, all of this is overly complicated but I have all the information at my disposal and have been looking at it for a while. So please reach out, I would be happy to talk about it with you. 

Last topic, I am thinking of an end of season get together or banquet to recognize all our swimmers' hard work and dedication. Do any of you parents have good ideas or connections for a venue in the end of March/early April? Also I would love to have a group of volunteers to help plan the event.

Thank you everyone and here is one last tid-bit for you all. If you are interested, the Olympian Caleb Dressel has been putting out some You Tube content on things like starts, ab work, and underwater dolphin kicks. It is pretty phenomenal and worth a watch. What I love is how he describes swimming in finding the feel for the water through experimenting. He uses ques, like the sound of the water in his ears and the pressure change on his back to know when its the right time to start his dolphin kicks or break the surface of the water. We try to get our swimmers to tap into these ques and get the feel for the water. Here is his episode on underwaters. He is other worldly how he moves through the water, so cool! 

Alright that is all, from one swim nerd to another, have a great day and see some of you at the pool tonight! 

Coach Hilary