Tomorrow is our first meet of the season, and despite little training beforehand, it's as good a time as any to get our first times of the season.  After all, they set the stage for all of the improvement that is to come!

Add your phone number to your account in SwimTopia to receive text alerts when things like practice cancellations or delays occur (lot of thunder in the forecast...).  If you don't have a number in there, those messages will go to the email on file.

Warm-ups for home meets begin at 5pm.  The away team warms-up at 5:30pm and the meet commences at 6pm.

Events... Medley Relays, Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Freestyle, Freestyle Relays.  Each relay or stroke is broken down into age group and sex.  There are 6 strokes/relays, and 5 age groups for both females and males, totaling 60 events.

Entry limit for dual meets is 5 (3 individual events + 2 relays or 4 individual events + 1 relay).  At this time, with this being our first meet and with both teams being very large, we will not have any swimmers competing in exhibition events (don't count for score).  It is also important to note that coaches select relay participants.

Relays are a huge part of meet scoring (more below) and therefore are selected by the coaching staff to create the fastest relays possible for each age-group.  We will typically enter as many relays as we have swimmers (4 per relay).  The strokes assigned (medley relay) and order of swimmers (free relay) are again geared toward producing the fastest result.

Individual events are all about the...individual.  True, individuals can earn points for the team, but our #1 goal is individual improvement (i.e. personal bests or personal records "PRs").  We recognize these by handing out personal best ribbons, usually the practice after a meet.  If you win your heat, you'll also receive a heat winner ribbon right then and there, and the same goes for relays.

Scoring of meets happens as follows...

• Individual events
  
  • 3 fastest times are put in order 1 through 3.  1st = 5pts; 2nd = 3pts; 3rd = 1pt.  
  • No team can take all 3 places, so in the event a team finishes in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, they receive points for 1st and 2nd and the fastest swimmer for the other team is awarded 3rd place points.  In the event the other team does not have a swimmer entered in the event or who did not completed it legally, no team receives 3rd place points.
  • Tie - say swimmers tie for 2nd place.  Because 2nd is worth 3pts and 3rd 1pt, swimmers spit the total, each earning 2pts.  There is therefore no 3rd place.
• Relay events
  • Only the team who wins the event receives points. 1st = 7pts; 2nd = 0pts.
  • Relays are fun and they can help the team a lot, see we try to get as many swimmers in as we can; however, sometimes factors such as length of the meet or ability of the team to complete successfully can change that.
  • Tie - 2 relay teams finish with the same, fastest time split the 7pts each earning 3.5pts.

The pool deck is closed for practices, including for those with younger swimmers.  You're welcome to watch from outside the fence or drop-off and pick-up.

Traveling to or near Vergennes this week??? In picking up equipment from Vergennes for this year's league championship meet to be hosted by us, we accidentally got someone's charging cord to their personal laptop.  Hoping someone may be working or otherwise traveling to or near Vergennes and can help get this cord home!  Reply to this email or reach out to Coach Tommy in person.

Got questions?  Ask us, for sure, but also reach out to fellow parents.  Often times their perspective on the same topic can be more helpful than ours.  For example, while Coach Tommy has 3 kids on the team, he's not done anything as a parent, always as a coach.

Volunteer for parent jobs by going to the sign-up calendar and clicking on the green job sign-up button.  While we do not want our new parents volunteering at meet #1, we do still need those veteran parents to fill in the spots.  Thank you!!