Vallejo Swim Meet

Great meet last weekend at the Vallejo Pool. Our 18 Marlins performed well above average with a 64% improvement over 3 days and 84 races. The strokes are getting cleaner and Jeff and I found ourselves talking about new things to improve, although we did spend some time reminding our athletes some of the usual shortcomings as well. The kids were focused and it showed.

In the process, four records were broken. Congratulations to Monica Sears for her new team records in the 1000 free and the 200 back, to Jared Sears for improving his own record in the 1000 free and to Annalise Schlafer for her first team record ever in the 100 free.

Vallejo TV (Comcast Channel #27) was there to film all the 13 and over races. I was told the tape would play this coming Saturday and Sunday, for more info on the times, please go to www.vcat.tv.

Next we have 3 swimmers who have been selected to represent our zone (Zone 3) at the upcoming All Stars Meet on Sunday, March 4th at Indian Valley College. Coach Jeff will be going as well as our Zone 3 coach for the 8 and Under. Congratulations to Coco Berkenfield, Lani Kamler and Monica Sears. Go Fast!

Santa Clara Senior Meet (1/28-29 20012)

What a weekend! Great pool, certainly worth the 1h30 drive to swim in such great facility. Great weather, I think I may even have burned a little. Very efficient meet, the Santa Clara folks know what they are doing, they ran a tight show and everything was well oiled. Great swims!
 
Our swimmers were inspired by the level of competition and together they managed to improve 54% of their times and apart from a few exceptions most non improved races were very close to best times. We saw some really good strokes from the Marlins and it looks like they are retaining the corrections they hear about at swim practice.
 
Four team records were broken over the weekend, thanks to Ava Salmi in the 200 back, her sister Isabella in the 200 back and Jared Sears, both in the 100 and 200 back. Yes this meet was a backstroker's fiesta!
Great job, and thank you for the show!
Marc
Meet results

Your First Swim Meet

I bumped into this cute six minute video about a swimmer's experience at their first swim meet. There are some good tips and it applies to our home meet where no check-ins are required. Enjoy!

Educational Weekend

This last weekend, Gadi, Jeff and I spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the annual coaches clinic held in Napa every year. It happens to be the second biggest clinic in the country, not too surprising when you see how many teams are located in the bay area alone.

We sat through some good classes and listened to inspiring speaker. We picked up a few ideas from coaches about stroke work, set design and team management.

Meanwhile, we had three of our parents, Theresa Kamler, Judy Ferguson and Nina Rannel participating in a swimming official clinic in San Francisco. Lots of good information was available and I am so happy to have them step up and be Stroke and Turn Official for our team.

Santa Rosa

This meet was our last of the session before our 2 week holiday break. Although far from being an ideal meet to make it the highlight of our fall season, the fact that the pool is indoors had a lot to do in the final choice. Unfortunately this was a cold weekend and the indoor space we were promised for our swimmers was not available on Saturday. As a result everyone huddled outside the pool building for the whole day trying to stay warm in between races, which proved to be a real challenge. Sunday was better as indoor space was provided to the swimmers, but it seems that Saturday took its toll on the kids.

16 Marlins swimmers participated over the 3 day weekend and Jeff and I watched 88 races, some really good, other less so, but always great opportunities to learn and improve on the details. With 2 disqualifications and  46% of the times improved, we witnessed and average meet from our athletes. Given the conditions, my assessment should be a little more positive, but as a team I maintain that we could have done a bit better.

That said, some athletes had good races. It is worth mentioning Lizzie Ferguson's great weekend with a best time on all 7 events entered in the meet. Also a new Junior Olympic qualifying time for Coco and Jack Berkenfield, Isabella Salmi, Alicia Vogelaar and Anton Zahradnik and two new Far Western qualifying times for Ava Salmi. And I shouldn't forget the fact that Ava also broke 3 new team records (for the 15-16 age group) in the 500 free, 100 and 200 back, her sister Isabella broke 8 team records (for the 17-18 age group) in the 50, 100, 200 and 500 free, 100 and 200 back, 100 and 200 breast and Jared Sears improved his own record in the 15-16 age group 500 free.

I always tell the swimmers to process the outcome of their race during their warm-down, file the pointers given to improve details for swim practice and move on, get ready for the next race. I obviously follow the same pattern, the lessons from this meet have been filed and will be apply to help me design the future workouts and now I will be focusing on our next goal, Junior Olympics and Far Westerns, mid and late March 2012.

Special thanks to Judy Ferguson and Nina Rannel for officiating during the meet. You both have helped the team meet its requirements and stay in good standing with our zone.

Meet results

Swimmer Results.

Junior Olympics - December 2011

What a beautiful weekend it was in Morgan Hill for our December Junior Olympics. Sure it was a bit cold in the morning, but nothing our kids can't handle. Jeff and I coached 8 swimmers who made the trip with their families over the 3 days of competition. As always, the meet was well attended with closed to 100 teams, but the facility in Morgan Hill can handle it.

Our Marlins swimmers did a good job while swimming a total of 26 races during the meet. With a 66% best time and one team record from Monica sears in the 400 IM, we feel the kids did well. Worth mentioning are the performances of James Beard and Ian Chow-Ise who managed to improve all their events but one. Good job to Coco Berkenfield and Lani Kamler for matching their best times, to Annalise Schlafer for her first JO experience, to Anton Zahradnik for continuing to improve at every meet this fall, and to Alicia Vogelaar for a solid performance in the 100 fly, her first best time in a while. Go Marlins!

For more info about the results, please click here for the result by swimmers and here for the meet results.

Napa Meet (11/11-12-13 2011)

Other then our RESL Championships, the 22 swimmers attending the 3 day meet made it one of the biggest Marlins presence at an away meet. This is encouraging and I hope we continue going in this direction. The meet was pretty important for our swimmers because it is a good measuring tool before the more important meets in December. The conditions were good, although Friday had a bit of heavy drizzle, it had no bearing on the performance of our six swimmer racing the 500 free. Saturday and Sunday were nice days and made for a pleasant experience by pool side.
Overall this meet was average and only slightly better then last November's performance. Two disqualifications only and 77% of our swimmers with at least one best time is solid. If anything, this meet highlighted the obvious: for the most part the athlete that are training hard and focused on the quality of their performance did well, just as anyone would expect. The coaches agreed that although the turns are technically correct, most swimmers did not turn fast enough, so this will be a focus at practice for the next month.
Ava Salmi and James Beard posted 3 new Junior Olympic times, and the same Ava broke 2 team records in the 100 free and the 200 back. Justas Reskevicius broke his own team record in the 200 breast.
Big thank you to all the parents who helped with timing and the judging of the meet. Special thanks to Nina Rannel for stepping up and joining Theresa, Judy and David as a meet Official.
Next is Junior Olympics in Morgan Hills at the beginning of December and the Santa Rosa meet the following weekend for swimmers who cannot attend.
Meet Results
Results by Swimmers

Spooky Plunge 2011

Well, another Spooky meet ... the 16th since we started the event. I am so greatfull that Northbay Aquatics was willing to host the meet at their pool, Mike did a great job and the fact that we had over 200 swimmers participating made this event one of the best I can recall. I loved the energy on the pool deck, kids seemed to have fun and parents seemed pretty relaxed. To top it off, the weather was as good as we could have wished for.

The Spooky plunge is certainly a different meet, we could call it one of a kind, and many years went into designing it so that we can better cater to our younger swimmers' need while making it interesting for the more experienced athlete as well. From the feedback I have gotten so far, it seems that everyone had a good time, and that's the bottom line.

Special thanks to Judy Ferguson and Theresa Kamler who took the time to introduce the art of judging to Nina Rannel. I am excited to see more parents stepping up and helping the team by becoming official. Another thanks to Andrea Salmi for taking the initiative and giving our team members an opportunity to purchased some Marlins gear at the meet. Last but not least I would like to thank those of you who helped with timing during the meet.

Soon to be an Olympic event.

I have posted the results on the website already. 84 Marlins swimmers participated in the meet. 211 races, plus relays and fun events was a lot to managed but with the help of Coach Gadi and Coach Jeff, all went well. 58% improvement ranked this meet as slightly above average, but what was less so was the 36 brand new swimmers who participated in a meet for the first time. Now that's a record in itself, we have never have this many new swimmers in a meet, this is truly exciting for the team. Congratulation to all of you, I know it took some courage to dive in (in some case jump in) for that first race. Another point worth noting is that 2 more team records were broken, the first was in the 15-16 50 free by Jared Sears and the other one is in the 13 and Over mixed 200 Free relay where Ava and Isabella Salmi, Jared Sears and Ian Chow-Ise pulverized the old record by 4 seconds. This brings the total team record for the season to 9, one more then last year at this point of the season!

I have posted a few pictures of the event on the Marlins website. You are welcome to add to it if you want. The ribbons for this meet will be ready to be picked up at Ross Valley by Monday, November 14th.

Go Marlins!

Zone III Championships

It has been a long time since we have participated in this meet which is inconveniently scheduled in January, right after our holiday break. With the meet moved this early in our training season, the 28 participating teams approached the event as part of their fall training and most older swimmers were pretty tired from their gruesome fall training. Our Marlins were no exception, our 11 swimmers who competed over the weekend did a good job even though all were tired from training and still in the process of adapting to their new school schedule and home work.

Jeff and I were happy to witness some decent swims even though this meet produced a meager 36 % improvement over the 56 races of the weekend. Still, no disqualifications, some really clean races made this a great practice meet.

Worth mentioning are the 4 team records that Collette Berkenfield, Alicia Vogelaar and Ava Salmi broke over the weekend. Coco,updated an 11 year old record in the 100 breast and in the process obtained a new PRT, Alicia broke her own record in the 1000 free and Ava broke 2 records in the 100 and 200 back.

Congratulation to Annalise Schlafer for getting  her first JO time in the 50 free.

Good job to all the swimmers, thank you parents for helping out with timing and Judging during the meet.

Meet result

Swimmer result

Our new pool is coming along ....

The remodel at the Racquet club is coming along and I now can see the outline of the pool and get a better feel of what it's going to look like. The project is close to timeline and if the rain stays away for the next month, it will help a lot.

In any case, it is very exciting and I look forward to walking up and down that deck!