Long Course Season is Fast Approaching

The long course season is fast approaching and many of our long course meet deadlines will start to become active this weekend.  Our short course season hasn’t even finished and we are already planning for the long course season.  For those of you that are new to the team or to swimming our swim season is broken into two parts.   The first part is the short course season (Sept-Mar) which we are currently in and we swim in pools that are 25 yards or meters in length.  The second part is long course season (Apr-July) where we swim in 50 meter pools like you see in the Olympics.  

Western Washington only has three long course pools that can offer long course meet opportunities.  The pools are located in Port Orchard (South Kitsap H.S.), W. Seattle (Colman) and Federal Way (KCAC).  The short course season we are guaranteed opportunities to compete in several meets.  The long course season we are not guaranteed as many opportunities like we are during the short course season.  We want to be sure we give our athletes the opportunities to swim during the long course season.  This requires us to set our dates almost two months in advance so we can be prepared with our entries to get into a meet when entries begin being accepted by the meet host. 

With the limitation of available pools it’s a necessity that we plan far in advance of a meet that’s on our schedule.  Even then we’re not guaranteed entry into the meet.  This season we will have less flexibility of getting athletes entered into a meet if they do not register on time for a meet.  Once we send our entries in we will not be able to pull an athlete from a meet like we have in the past.  Many of the meets have qualifying standards that athletes must have achieved to be entered into a meet.  In some cases an athlete is registered for a meet but does not meet the qualifying standards and they will not be entered into the meet.  If an athlete meets the qualifying standards but does not register in time they will not be entered into the meet as well.  It’s important that you look at our long course meet calendar and plan your summer accordingly and make sure you register for all of the meets that fit into your schedule.  We want to be sure we can get your athlete entered into meets they qualify for.

 Good luck Sockeyes with the end of your short course season and let’s get ready for long course!!