Hello, Fall Conditioning Swimmers and Families!

Here is the second of our weekly Coach Updates! This past week has been a bit bizarre (to say the least), but I want to thank all of you for your continued support and patience.

Week in Review:

Swim practices for all afternoon groups were canceled Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday due to the unhealthy air quality as a result of the Bay Area fires. So our afternoon groups got their start on Wednesday and Thursday! And what a great start we had-- with nearly 100% attendance, wow! Thank you! I had so much fun coaching and working with the kids this week, as I know Coach Malia and Coach Caleb did as well. We began each practice with a short talk-- introducing ourselves, discussing team values and expectations, goals, and expressing our excitement for the upcoming conditioning season. In this isolating time, it is important to us that we try to maintain that sense of community that is so integral to Greenmeadow! This was also the start of our freestyle focused practices. 8U and 9-12 worked on freestyle rotations, as well as making sure they make the most out of the reach, glide, and pull of each arm stroke. These two age groups worked in different ways on their Distance Per Stroke (DPS), a drill that works on exactly that-- getting the most distance out of each stroke. The older kids worked on flipturns, as well as kick endurance. By the end of our first practices, I already saw a huge improvement in flipturn consistency, technique, and speed. All in all, I was so proud of everyone for their hard work!

Notes About Air Quality:

Going forward, we will continue to assess the air quality day-by-day, considering each day whether it is safe to hold swim practice and, if not, canceling. The coaches will make our final call by 2 pm; If we deem it unsafe, parents will receive an email notification via Swimtopia canceling swim practices for the day. If it is safe, there will be no email sent out. In other words, the assumption will always be that practice is happening unless we cancel via email! We use many different air quality online measuring tools-- AirNow.gov and Purple Air most of all. If we see that the air quality has surpassed 150 (marked “unhealthy for all groups”) we will cancel practice. We will also cancel if the forecast shows the AQI surpassing 150 during the afternoon swim practice times. The pool will remain open unless the AQI reaches 190-200. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me at [email protected], or Coach Caleb at [email protected] .

Practice Schedule:

Please find our fall conditioning practice schedule here (effective Monday, August 24th)

Lane Assignments:

Please find our fall conditioning lane assignments here (effective Monday, August 24th)

Practice Structure:

This upcoming week, we will continue our work on freestyle, as well as hopefully getting a start on our backstroke oriented practices. Here’s what you’ll need to bring to practice:

• Mask (make sure to always wear a mask on deck and to remember to walk one-way around the pool!)
• towel/flip-flops/clothes
• Goggles
• Cap (optional, but encouraged)
• Water Bottle (pre-filled, this is especially important due to the poor air quality)
• Kickboard (we can provide kickboards that we sanitize between groups, but it is recommended that you bring your own)
• Fins (optional, but encouraged)

Gear:

If you want to buy gear for the upcoming season, check out the Greenmeadow team store on Swimoutlet.com for everything from t-shirts to goggles to kickboards and fins.

Parent Reminders:

Please try to arrive 5 minutes early for your practice time, as we will need to line people up outside before they enter the pool in order to maintain social distancing (and we want everyone to get the most out of their pool time!). Please wait for the coaches or staff to let you in the facility before practice.

Contacts:

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to any of the coaches:

Coach Tjasa Kmetec [email protected]

Coach Caleb Fenner [email protected]

Coach Malia Jefferson [email protected]

Thank you, everyone! Really looking forward to the coming week and to clear skies! :)

Coaches Tjasa Kmetec, Caleb Fenner, Malia Jefferson