Red Team: February 2008 Archives

Hello!
Hope everyone is having a great week. For those of you who were at Lost Dutchman all weekend, hopefully you are recovering! It was long, but very good in so many ways.
Following are several misc. items and reminders that are important now and in the coming two weeks:
Schedule & Changes.Tonight before practice I told the Red Swimmers of the following schedule for the next three (3) days:
*Thursday, Feb. 21st=6-7:45p.m. Team Mtg & Swimming. (Blue will be with us)
*Friday, Feb. 22nd=5:30-7:30p.m. Swim (Blue will be with us)
*Saturday, Feb. 23rd=9-9:45a..m.=Dryland & Swim=10-11:30a.m. (Blue will swim with us @ 10:00a.m.)
*Sunday, Feb. 24th=Optional workout=12Noon-2:00p.m.

Regional Meet Entries.Tomorrow, I will be handing out both the meet information and the swimmers entries for the Regional Swim Meet. The meet dates are Thursday, Feb. 28th(500/1000/1650)-Sunday, Mar. 2nd. I will discuss the entries with the swimmers on Thursday and enter my final version on Friday.

Parent/Coach Conferences.A HUGE Thank You goes out to the 19 Of 30 Red Swimmers who Parents had conferences with me last week!!! I have three more scheduled for next week to conduct yet. Great insight was gained by me the coach about the athletes! I feel that so much is gained for everyone by doing these. Next week I will be typing up summaries of those conferences and mailing those out to each family. Again, thank you for your support! (FYI-For those families who have other age group swimmers...White will be having these conferences in March and Blue in April.)

Parents Meeting Rescheduled...Plan on Attending!!Tonight we had a BEST Parents Meeting. We had a guest speaker from ASU. She did a talk on Sudden Death in Young Athletes. This was her Master Degree Project. I heard that it was very good and quite informative. Due to the time line/length of her talk, I made the decision to reschedule the Nutrition Talk for NEXT WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27th. We will begin PROMPTLY at 5:30p.m.!! I feel this is a VERY important talk for parents to hear. I have several great handouts and I have a visual display with samples of the section on Post-Workout Recovery needs. I hope to see you there! We will conclude BY 6:30p.m. (It is my son's 16th birthday, so I need to leave at the conclusion of the meeting!)
*A big thanks to those parents who were in attendance tonight!

Summer 2008 Summer Practice ScheduleThe BEST Summer Practice Schedule is now available!! Please make sure to get your copy. After checking the Red schedule carefully, it is correct as posted. Please note that the time for dryland has not been figured in to the swim times. The dryland times will be 9-9:30a.m. on Tue/Thu/Sat.

Summer 2008 Long Course Meet Schedule.The tentative meet schedule is also available for everyone! PLEASE remember that this is tentative!! At this point, we do not have a travel meet on the schedule. The coaching staff have not yet decided if we are going to do one.

*FYI-Now that both schedules are out...as a coach, I would much rather have families take an extended break during the month of August. If you plan on swimming in the championship meets in July, you need to be consistent during the months of May, June and July. the season is short and any long breaks within the season stand a good chance of effecting your season goals.

Have a great week and weekend! Thank you for all of your continued support! -Coach Jennifer

Hello Everyone! Hope your week is going good. Just have a few reminders this week for everyone.

Schedule Update.Everyone should have received the February monthly schedule. I e-mailed it to everyone and a paper copy was put in mailboxes. We do have several changes next week due to the Lost Dutchman Swim Meet. Please make sure to follow the monthly schedule!

Swim Meets.Now that we are reaching the "championship phase" of the season, we don't have many meets left, but the ones that we do have are big ones!
*Friday, Feb. 15-Monday, Feb. 18th=Lost Dutchman Swim Meet. The entries have been posted on the bulletin board and everyone in the meet should have received a copy of both the meet information and their entries. This meet has long days, that is with prelims and finals. We need to plan our time wisely. I will keep those entered up-to-date as the meet approaches next week.
*Thursday, Feb. 28-Sunday, Mar. 2nd=Arizona Age Group Regional Meet. The entries for this meet are due on Feb. 22nd. I will be working on these in a week or so. I will go over the entries with every swimmer before finalizing what they swim. This will be a big meet for several members of the Red group. This will be the last opportunity to make State Q Times. You have to have Regional times to swim in this meet!
*Thursday, March 13-Sunday, Mar. 16th=Arizona State Meet. this meet will once again be held here at our pool! Must have Q times to participate in this meet.
*Friday, march 28-Sunday, mar. 30th=Season Finale. EVERYONE is eligible to swim in the meet. This will be the last meet of the season, UNLESS you have Far Western Times and decide to participate in this as a travel meet. (We only have four swimmers who are eligible for Far Westerns, so most every one's last meet will be Season Finale) I hope everyone will plan on attending!

Parent/Coach Conferences.The informational flyers for this went out yesterday-Tuesday. I am also e-mailing it to everyone tonight-Wednesday, Feb. 6th. The sign-up sheets are located on my desk. I have had four parents sign-up so far. These are 15-20' conferences to learn more about your child's swimming and the coaches perspective on it. Please remember, ANY of the scheduled conferences times may be conducted OVER THE PHONE as a phone conference if this works better for you. I hope this will help more parents to take part in this opportunity! These conferences are slated to begin next Monday morning. I will either call you at the designated time, or we will meet here at the pool.

Goal-Setting Session.Last night after doing dryland, we had a goal-setting session of about 75'. The Red group did AWESOME!! Awesome listening; focus and we really got a lot done. EVERYONE had written (and thought out) at least six goals for six events. Many did more. I will use some of this info in the conferences.

New Time Standard Sheets.Arizona Swimming did something that I don't agree with, but it is done and we all need to make sure we are on the boat with this change...they updated/changes many of the qualifying standards for both Regionals and State in December. (Personally, I would never do this in the middle of a season!!) Last night we used a copy of new time standards that they all took home with them. Well, today, we discovered that there are several different time standard sheets circulating and with several discrepancies. Please note the following mistakes on the sheet that I handed out last night:
*10 & Unders are all correct.
*11-12's=Girls-2 Regional cut times are listed incorrectly. 100 Fly Regional time should=1:24.79 and the 200 Regional time should=3:05.39.
*11-12's=Boys-4 Regional cut times are listed incorrectly-50 Back should=44.49; 50 Breast should=50.49; 50 fly should=38.29 and the 400 IM should=7:45.49.
*13-14's=Girls-50 Breast State Time should=37.59.
*13-14's=Boys-4 Regional cuts and 1 State time are wrong. 50 Back Regional time should=40.09; 50 Breast should=46.09; 100 Breast should =1:32.39 and 50 Fly should=37.09. The State time for the 50 Breast should=38.39.
Sorry for the confusion. We will get the sheets corrected.

End-of-Season Red Group Celebration.As usual, I feel it is very important to celebrate the end of a successful season with the group! This group has grown so much!! As part of the exercises last night, I asked the swimmers for input into ideas of what they would like to do for a end-of-the-season party. The most popular answer was food and playing laser tag. I am looking at Friday, March 7th as my first choice. Saturday, march 8th as my back-up date. If there is a Mom or two who would like to help plan a fun meal and laser tag, I would love help in planning this. We WILL have fun...guaranteed!

Have a great weekend! -Coach Jennifer