Hello, Fall Conditioning Swimmers and Families!

I hope this email finds you well! Whew, what a week we’ve had!

Week in Review:

This whole week was dedicated to Race Details focused practices due to the then-upcoming Spooky Time Trials. For some groups that meant turn/finish work, stroke work, or starts/dives work. For others that meant out-of-the water meetings talking goals, expectations, etc. It was a good week, our swimmers really took the time to work on their swimming, and also on what swimming means to them.

On Saturday we had our Spooky Time Trials!! WOW! It was a blast! I will attach the results below, but we had a huge number of Personal Bests, which is just a testament to the hard work and dedication of our swimmers. I want to give a special shoutout to our 8U-- many of them swam (for the first time) every single stroke AND the 100 IM. This is a huge feat! This time trials was an opportunity for our swimmers to try some longer races, and I’m really proud of all our swimmers who challenged themselves in this way.

I want to give a huge thank you to:

Donna Hill- volunteer extraordinaire! If it were not for Donna, there would be no Spooky Time Trials. She organized basically the whole thing, including the decorations for the pool. Donna brought Halloween to Greenmeadow, thank you, Donna!

Coach Caleb and Coach Malia- both worked really hard, working late and super early, to make this happen. Coach Caleb even worked a few 13 or 14 hour days in order to make Spooky Time Trials the best it could be!

All the parent volunteers who helped out day-of: you are part of the lifeblood of Greenmeadow! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Without you, we would have been nowhere! Special shout out to our clerk-of-the-course workers (trust me, it’s a really, really tough job) and our timers-- many of whom jumped into these really stressful positions with no previous experience and were okay with rolling with the punches. I remember the meet ending and feeling like I didn’t know how to thank you guys enough! THANK YOU!

Swimmers of the Week:

Name: Noam Sternheim

Age: 7

Favorite stroke: Breastroke

Favorite thing about swimming: “Getting to do the breaststroke kicks.”

Favorite vacation: Going to Hawaii

Favorite food: Sourpatch!

“Noam has been a consistent, hard-working swimmer since the first day he joined the team. Being new to swim team and Greenmeadow, it can be super intimidating making the transition and Noam has handled it with so much courage and dedication. He’s always a joy to coach and see at practice. I can’t wait to see his improvement (especially in his awesome breaststroke)!! Congrats Noam!” -Coach Malia

Name: Ella Smith

Age: 8

Favorite stroke: freestyle

Favorite thing about swimming: the fun jump! (for our 8U groups, we tend to end practice with individual silly jumps off the diving blocks, where everyone gets their name announced to a lot of cheering!)

Favorite vacation: New York and Pennsylvania

Favorite food: Noodles!

“Ella is one of our more shy swimmers (I was one, too!), but when she enters the pool for practice you can really see her dedication and love of swimming. She always asks thoughtful and relevant questions, is excited to challenge herself and does, and works really hard to be the best swimmer she can be! I love coaching Ella, who is so respectful and sweet, and am really excited to see how she continues to grow as a swimmer and as a person! Great job, Ella, I’m so proud of you!” -Coach Tjasa

Notes About Air Quality:

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 here .

Practice Structure:

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) we’ve noticed that the majority of swimmers have not been bringing water to practice, this is essential! Imagine going to soccer practice, in this air quality, and forgetting water! Please make sure that your swimmers bring a pre-filled water bottle to practice.
• Kickboard (we can provide kickboards that we sanitize between groups, but it is recommended that you bring your own)
• Fins (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:

Parents, please make sure your swimmers are bringing water to practice! We’ve noticed that the majority of swimmers have not been bringing water to practice, it is so important to stay hydrated when you work as hard as our swimmers do in their practices.

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!

Coaches Tjasa Kmetec, Caleb Fenner, Malia Jefferson