March 26, 2024 NEWSLETTER 26
WORKOUT CHANGES
NO PM Workouts Good Friday March 29
Sat Apr 6 & 7 Please see Swim – a – Thon workouts below, these workouts will replace the regular schedule for these days. All swimmers are welcome to swim with their group for the event.
Tues Apr 9 Senior Bronze 1 & 2 5:30 – 7:30 am CGAC
Tue Apr 9 Senior Gold/Silver 3:00 – 4:30 pm CGAC
Tue Apr 9 Age Group Gold/Silver 4:30 – 5:30 pm CGAC
Tue Apr 9 Development Skills 5:30 – 6:30 pm CGAC
Tue Apr 9 NO pm workout Senior Bronze 1 & 2
THE COACHES REPORT
The 7K Club – Ewan Shearer is the first member: Congratulations to Ewan for completing every meter of the Seven Kilometer practice session from this morning at the Canada Games Aquatic Centre, located here in London, Ontario!! Swimmers - Stay tuned for another opportunity to become a Member of The 7K Club!!
This week, from Olivier Poirier Leroy of YourSwimBook: "TO THE WALL" Thinking
Got a perfectly reasonable email from a swimmer recently: “The pain of a challenging set sometimes intimidates me and I will give up before we even get started.”
I doubt there is a swimmer out there who hasn’t experienced the shock and “aww heck no” that happens when the coach writes up some preposterous main set on the board. The agony, the ouchies, the burn… all of it. Three rounds through. Butterfly. There are a few different reasons why that big grease-ball of a set intimidates you, but here’s one question that might help you put that anticipated pain into proper perspective: Can you take the set or practice one lap at a time?
When that smelly pile of a main set intimidates you, it’s typically because you are thinking about the sum total of the effort and pain required to complete the whole set or practice, and how long it’s going to take. Instead of looking at the set as a series of individual laps and reps, you are mentally tallying up the pain and effort of every rep stacked one on top of each other. It’s no surprise that when you think about sets and workouts this way you’re going to experience some heavy-duty reluctance and a deep feeling of being overwhelmed, with the end nowhere in sight.
The trick to this is simple, but not always easy. It’s using something called “to the wall” thinking. The key is taking it one step, one rep, one lap at a time. This concept isn’t new—you’ve likely been told to focus on one thing at a time before, right? Think about just this lap, this stroke cycle, this repetition. “To the wall” thinking requires you to take a much narrower point of view with your swimming and dial things down to the present lap or rep. Not the last one or even the next one. This one and this one only.
SWIM-A-THON APRIL – LESS THEN TWO WEEKS TO GO!
TOP THREE FUNDRAISERS SO FAR
Wes Pociecha $935
Brynnelea VanHeewyk $600
DaPonte Family $450
On behalf of the board and coaching staff we are excited to announce that our annual Swim-A-Thon campaign for the 2023-24 Swim Season has begun!
What is Swim-A-Thon: Swim-A-Thon is a national fundraiser for our sport. The fundraiser is a great team building event for swimmers at all stages of competitive swimming. At the end of the fundraising campaign, swimmers will be given the opportunity to complete as many lengths as they can (up to 200 lengths or 5KM). Development swimmers will have the opportunity to swim for one hour while our Age Group and Senior programs will swim for one and a half or two hours. Those who participate will celebrate the completion of Swim-A-Thon with snacks and the opportunity for LAC prizes. Let’s get fundraising!
When is Swim-A-Thon: It will take place Saturday April 6th and Sunday April 7th
Sat Apr 6 Age Group Gold 5:30 – 7:30 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Age Group Silver 5:30 – 7:30 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Age Group Blue 5:30 – 7:30 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Age Group Bronze 5:30 – 7:30 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Age Group White 7:30 – 9:00 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Age Group Orange 7:30 – 9:00 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Fundamentals 1 7:30 – 8:30 am CGAC
Sat Apr 6 Skills 7:00 – 8:00 am CHOCC
Sat Apr 6 Fundamental 2 8:00 – 9:00 am CHOCC
Sat Apr 6 Senior Gold 9:30 - 11:30 am WSRC
Sat Apr 6 Senior Silver 9:30 – 11:30 am WSRC
Sun Apr 7 Senior Bronze 1 & 2 9:30 – 11:30 am WSRC
How to Participate: Our club once again will be fundraising using Swim Canada’s online fundraising program. Please click this link to set up your own Swim a thon page donate.swimming.ca.
BOARD of DIRECTORS POSITIONS
If you are interested in joining the LAC Board for the 2024-25 swim season please contact the nomination committee by emailing Donna at [email protected] before March 31st.
IT’S OFFICIAL!
2024 LAC-Hosted Long Course Meets:
April 14, 2024 - LAC - Long Course Pentathlon
May 10 - 12, 2024 - LAC - Hollandia Spring Invitational
July 13 - 14, 2024 - LAC - Dr. Paul Hauch Invitational
LAC - Long Course Pentathlon – Senior Officials – Job Assignments – will be sent out this weekend. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered.
Pentathlon Minor Official jobs: will be posted on Tuesday April 2. Thank you in advance for filling the sessions!
Last Round of Clinics for this Season:
Meet Manager – Tuesday, March 26, 7:30 to 10:00 PM via Zoom
Judge Of Strokes – Thursday, March 28, 7:30 to 10:00 PM via Zoom
Starter (the person who starts the races) – Thursday, April 4, 7:30 to 9:30 PM via Zoom
Chief Finish Judge / Chief Judge Electronics – Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 to 9:30 PM via Zoom
Clinics via eModule: Note that you can take some of the clinics as eModules. I will not be doing live/zoom clinics again for those ones until the fall. eModules allow you to take the clinics whenever it suits you. If you go to Swim Ontario - Clinics there are instructions on how to take the online clinics. The Zoom clinic presentations can be found online as well. These are great for review but reading those does not count as taking the clinic.
Progressing as an Official: 1) Take clinics, 2) Get Experience, 3) Get signoffs/evaluations. Very Easy.
How do I get an evaluation. Ask the Referee, or the Competition Coordinator BEFORE the session and get your name added to a signoff sheet. The Referee or other evaluator will keep tabs on you and the other officials and at the end of the session they will either sign-off for a successful evaluation, provide feedback, or both. Totally painless!
Many of you have taken lots of clinics. Some of you have tried some or all of the jobs. Some of you have some signoffs. If you are wondering where you are with certification, sign on to your official account and scroll down. You can see all the clinics you have taken and all of signoffs that you have received. Try to get all the blanks filled. It is not ANY more work . . . unless you want to advance very quickly. Why not help the club and challenge yourself? You might even have fun doing it!
If you have any officiating questions please contact me, Mark Lukings, L.A.C. Co-Club Officials Chair at [email protected] Note: This is volunteer work for me, so I may not get back to you immediately but, if urgent, I can handle a reminder.
SWIM MEET VOLUNTEER SESSION CREDITS
Please note that high school students can get their volunteer credits for school as well as session credits for your swim family by helping out at our meets.
To check your session credit balance - log on to your LAC account on the website, go to "my account" and click the "service hours" tab to view your account summary. Any questions contact Donna at [email protected]
Our club has a long-standing policy regarding volunteer participation in our hosted swim meets, which includes the earning of mandatory session credits through working at our hosted swim meets. The session credit policy can be found on the LAC website under the "parent info" tab under "LAC policy #2 - Club Hosted Meets and Session Credits".
Families of swimmers in Age Group and Senior are required to earn 22 session credits.
Families of returning Development swimmers are required to earn 11 session credits.
New families are not required to earn session credits but can transfer up to 5 session credits if they should decide to volunteer (which of course is encouraged and applauded).
Families with swimmers that have transferred from another team are considered returning swimmers and are subject to the session credit policy.
Any unworked session credits will be billed to your swimmer account at $40 per session at the end of the season.
The Session Credit Policy is under the constant scrutiny of the Board of Directors.
