Hi Fall Training Group!

For practice tonight and tomorrow night there will be disruptions in the girls locker room due to a visiting college team using the space during our practice time. So please have your girls come in their swimsuit under their clothes and have them store their stuff on the deck. If they must use the lockerroom space it must be the space closest to the bathrooms near the hallway where we will have them enter (not near the pool entrance) they will not be allowed to enter through the shower space if the visiting team is in there due to safe sport considerations. After practice they can change in the bathrooms or the locker room space closest to the bathrooms if they do not want to go home in a wet suit. Thanks everyone for your flexibility and cooperation on this.

Now onto fun stuff, what a great weekend we had, thank you to those of you who were able to make the trip to UVAC. Thanks to all the parents that helped officiate and time! We had many fast times and personal bests, check out our team record book and some new names there. For those of you who are new to the New England Swimming circuit, there are a series of championship races in January and February that have various levels of qualifying standards, bronze, silver, and age groups. Many of our swimmers have made both bronze and silvers and even a few age group cuts, way to go team! I also am so proud of our many swimmers who braved their first US Swim Meet! Sometimes focussing on times too much is not helpful but I am going to share these motivational time standards, just so swimmers can celebrate their progress as they break down time barriers over the course of a season, as they go from B, to BB, to A, to AA, etc! Maybe for the older kids it is helpful in staying motivated in practice and setting smaller and larger goals over the season. However, I don’t want swimmers to live and die by the clock like I used to and for most groups of swimmers I barely will mention them. If these are not helpful for your swimmer, then don’t share them. As a coach I like to look at them and see where the bulk of our swimmers are at the beginning and then at the end. I like to use them to sort of track our progress over time. So here you go take them or leave them. Thanks for listening to my thought process.

Reminder: this is the last week of fall training, then we move into our winter season on Monday! The winter season requires a separate registration available on our website under the register now button on the main page. If you have any questions, reach out to me. Another difference is staggering start times of the groups and the addition of a Friday practice option. Starting Monday Under 8 will only be available 3 days a week M, W, and Th 5-5:45pm. 8-12 will be 3 or 5 days a week depending on your registration. 8-12 practices will be M, W, and Th 5:45-7pm and T and F 6:30-7:45pm. Over 11 will be M, W, and Th 5-7pm and T and F 6:30-8:30pm*. The newly 11 and 12 year olds in the Over 11 group will get out at 1.5 hours of practice so as to ease the transition to a higher volume of training and keep it fun for this group.

There is a college Meet at St. Mike’s at 1pm on this Saturday the 18th, come cheer on our swimmer coaches (Liam, Livy, Sydney, and Kate) as they take on Keene State. I am working on something fun to hand to swimmers to honor their completion of fall training. So bare with me as I sort that out and level set your expectations. It will most likely be a sheet of paper or a swimming sticker.

The last order of business is the team store, it is open until Monday October 27th at 10pm. So get your orders in soon! It is available on the team store tab of our website, see details there.

Thank you to those dedicated parents and swimmers who have almost completed their fall training with us. We are so happy to have you. I hope you keep swimming with us and that works out in your family schedule if not maybe see you in the spring?

See you at the pool!

Coach Hilary