Hi Team-

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and are enjoying a relaxing start to the New Year. I think I am getting old because I am having a really hard time wrapping my head around the number 2025! How is that right? Anyway enough about that it just makes me sound even older. Regardless of my wanderings, I think 2025, is going to be a great one! I have a few New Year's updates for you.

We have a new meet on the calendar, the Pentathlon at Norwich University on next Saturday January 12th. The warm-ups are around 10am, the meet starts at 11:05am, and is over around 3pm. All age groups are together, so we get to spend a fair bit of time together as a team in the Norwich University gym. This is a last minute invite for our team. The meet director initially thought it was over enrolled but looks like the final numbers are down from predictions and I awoke to an email saying we could have up to 35 swimmers at this meet if we acted fast. So I said yes, we will take it. The one catch is that you only have 5 days to decide if you are able to make it. Initial entries are due this Monday the 6th. So think fast and sign your swimmer for this meet! They will thank you for it, just maybe not in the middle of their 5 event schedule, but after it, for sure.

Things I love about this meet: it encourages and rewards swimmers who do all 5 events in one session, everyone is rewarded for completing this impressive feat, it gives us a venue to all compete together as a team, and we can get this experience without setting it up ourselves! Also it gives swimmers who have not yet made Bronze cuts another last chance to make some times in all 5 of these individual events. I attached the Pentathlon meet information sheet below, please see it if you want additional information. 

Speaking of Bronze please indicate whether or not your swimmer will be attending and what days by signing up on the sign-up calendar by this coming Monday morning Jan 6th at 9am. This will be a very busy morning for me now with the Pentathlon and Bronze entries but I like busy. Not busy is boring. What I love about the Bronze meet, is that relays are offered, and I would love to field as many relays as we are able. So please if your swimmer has made it and you can come sign-up now. Even if it is only for one day, your swimmer may be the lucky number 4 swimmer that turns a 3 swimmer group to a 4 swimmer relay (4 is the magic number for relays). Here is the Bronze information sheet.  Here are the qualifying times. Please reach out with questions. You all know what I am choosing to do on my New Year's Day, no worries, relaxation is not my strong suit. 

Take care all of you! Sorry for giving you some homework on the first thing in the morning of New Years. I was just bursting with news and excitement and I had to get it all out. I also want to say how grateful I am for all of you. Your swimmers are such a pleasure to coach and guide on their swimming journeys. I am so pleased with their efforts and am proud of their progress, regardless of their time achievements in the pool. I look at where we started a few weeks ago and where we are now. It fills my heart with joy. Also thank you to my incredible coaches for all your hard work! We are the CVSA Sturgeons! Thank you all. I will stop waxing poetic and let you get on with your day! Happy New Year Sturgeons!

Coach Hilary