TID BITS FROM VIRGINIA RUN
Week one found the dolphins fighting a tsuanmi down in Alexandria, and week two found the Dolphins caught in a Riptide courtesy of Virginia Run, not to mention the cold and steady rain throughout the morning. After great support from our dolphin parents we made adjustments and the meet went off without a hitch, well, almost.
Here are some shots as we muddle through a warm-up in the rain
A first for the Dolphins was sharing the upstairs with the swimmers from Virginia Run in a effort to try and keep both teams warm and dry between events. Needless to say things got a little tight and cozy but you all were great all morning.
Of course our theme was Disney characters and you guys looked awesome and the singing from the deck was off the charts! Here are some images that were caught!
We got the meet started on time and unlike last week the dolphins struck first with our 8 and unders outscoring the Riptide swimmers in free 13 to 8. Again the dolphins would not look back although we seem to be stuck in that riptide and not able to get out (more later on). The dolphins would outscore the riptide in each stroke, free 57-33, back 49-41, breast 46-44, and fly 49-41. As you see the meet was pretty even and competitive between the two teams after free.
A lighter moment took place in the backstroke events. In the 13-14 girls Rebekah Ayre was swimming her backstroke fighting for a place after the turn. In my Wise judgement I decided to see if I could get her moving a bit faster by waving and yelling GO!. Without missing a beat and while swimming she yells back "I'm going". Only Rebekah could have pulled that off. We should have had a camera on her all day because what ever world she was in, she was having a good time.
After the 40 indiviual events the Dolphins captured 24 first place finishes, swam to 22 second place finishes and scored 15 third place finishes. Any of you who think 3rd places don't matter, they do. You capture the first places finishes that you are EXPECTED to WIN and the second and thirds put you over the top. You cannot win a meet without all three, unless you take all first, but you still find yourself 11 points short before the relays. This brings us to my next point, our best time percentage was way down (26%) and I am looking for more of around 55-60% at this time in the season. We were so low that I will take the blame so I told the coaches
we should donate our pay for the week. I had their attention now as I heard "you can't do that" or "I have rent." Now I did say we should, but another meet like that and I will be angry and you won't like it when I'm angry. I turn all green and it's not L.G. green it's more like the Hulk green with red eyes.That being said I know best times will not always happen, but to be 2-5 seconds away tells me you were caught in that riptide couldn't get out. When that happens bad things occur, like giving up points. Like in baseball when that picther serves it up right down the middle and it gets jacked for a homerun. We lost, according to my math, about 15 points due to times being way off. Like I say to my swimmers in the winter you better hold your seed time or be near it or you will get beat. Just because your time is faster dosen't mean the race is yours. YOU CANNOT PUT A NUMBER ON WHAT IS IN THE HEART.
Our 8 and unders only had 3 best times out of 24 swims, and one of our relays DQ twice. Watch those starts and block out all the noise. Our 9-10 year olds had 5 out of 24 but again we had a relay DQ. Those 2 relays are a 20 point swing, not good. Our 11-12 year olds went 9 for 24 which is getting nearer to our goal of 55%. Our 13-14 year olds went 8 for 23 and our 15 and overs were 6 for 24. So out of 119 individual swims we had 31 best times. I would like to see 60 to 70.
Taking care of business and winning events were Matt J. Megan I. Ian, Emma R., Jared, Kate C., Madeline I., Matthew B., Edward I., William C., Justin B., Johnathan B., Genevieve, Mary Margaret, Tate, Sophia C., Calvin M. (ALL HIGHLIGHT SWIMMERS ARE DOUBLE WINNERS)
Milkshakes for the first 2 weeks will be on Monday and no you are not getting the cookies also.
DONALDSON RUN MEET TID BITS
We had a good turnout for the Monday Meet, and a special thanks to all the parents from Lee Graham. We know it was long but thanks for hanging in with us. LEE GRAHAM PARENTS ROCK!
We started with the IM'S AND FOR EARLY IN THE SEASON YOU ALL LOOKED TERRIFIC! In our individual events our 8 and unders posted 19 best times, 9-10 year olds had 15, 11-12 year olds had 16 personal best and our 13 and overs posted 8 best times.
We had 20 DQ's which I will not post but I do have the list so parents and swimmwers please ask. We try to get to the swimmers at the meet if we see something that is obvious, but we do miss some. Also there are a few this past Monday that were not DQ's and the referee overturned them. Some fairly easy ones to fix are false starts-2 walking on bottom before touching-3, swimming backstroke and turning over at finish-3, 1 hand touches-3. these are the ones that really should not happen as we move forward. The other ones are mostly breast stroke for flutter kick, feet turned in, or hands pulling passed hips. Parents I will be happy to show you what the dq means if your not sure of the rule. Please ask!
On another note we have spent the entire week working on breast stroke and while we weren't totally there today, the improvment is starting to show as the muscle memory starts to kick in. We will keep working on this next week!
Sunday the sun came out to dry the area so we could have a night of lazor tag at the pool! Thanks to the parents who stayed until 11:30 so that we could play. Rumor also has it that the little dolphins beat the older kids team several times. True to form the older kids complained it was eaiser for the little ones to hide!
Thanks to the older kids for making the posters to hang for swimmers last Saturday.
Other images from the week:
LET'S HOPE FOR SUN FOR FUN FRIDAY AND THEN LET'S TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS AT PINECREST
OWN YOUR RACE! DOLPHINS RULE! THE COACHES
No comments:
Post a Comment