Rudgear Rats Newsletter: Week of June 11th
Upcoming Dates
June 12 – 6U & 7/8 Social | 1pm-3pm
June 14 – REST vs. Woodlands | Warm-Ups at 4:30pm
June 16 – RATS Beach Day! // No Practice
June 19-23 - Coach Appreciation Week
June 19 – 11/12 Social
June 21 – REST @ Larkey (GREEN OUT!) Declare by 6/14
June 23 – City Meet Car Painting
June 24 & 25 – City Meet!
Link to full season calendar
Coach’s Message
Fellow Rats,
Great swim meets this week!
Lots of popped times across the board! Keep up the hard work. Looking forward to beach day in Pacifica on Friday… followed by a much-needed long weekend, with no swim meet on Saturday.
Please, make sure swimmers are prepared for City Meet. Our goal is to represent team spirit, fast racing, and good vibes. We are one big happy family! City Meet will be a test for us all. How much spirit do we have? How much are we willing to support one another? How hard are we willing to work? City Meet: our first opportunity of the summer to come together as a team and step up in a big meet environment.
Make sure to sign up for lessons - especially if your swimmers are getting disqualified. We will, of course, also work with swimmer during practice to help them fix anything that is causing them to DQ. We are always happy to navigate a path towards success. Mahalo. Bless Up Bleed Green Go Rats!
-Coach Nick
TL;DR:
-declare for Larkey
-wear neon and glow in the dark for Woodlands
-no practice Friday; come to the beach instead
REST vs. Woodlands – GLOW FAST
Wednesday night’s meet theme is GLOW FAST – so bust out all your neon and glow in the dark stuff to layer on top of your RATS gear. (Some neon and glow in the dark items that will arrive by Wednesday are featured in the Rats’ Instagram story right now!) LET’S GLOOOOOOOOW!
Spirit Wear
Forgot to order a team shirt? Need something to wear to meets? We have some extra 2023 team shirts and BLEED GREEN shirs available for purchase. Order ‘em up from our Spirit Store.
Buddies
This week’s buddy idea is to bring your buddy a card. Click here to see inspiration for the entire season.
DQs
DQing is a bummer, but nothing to worry about. If your swimmer has DQed (disqualified) from a race, please do not worry. Many new swimmers DQ as they are learning the strokes and even veteran swimmers who are just learning turns tend to DQ a lot. We don’t file the DQ slips into your family folders; however, our coaches use the DQ slips as data to inform their coaching.
Anytime you want to know specifics about what your swimmer was DQed for, please ask Coach Nick at the end of the meet or your swimmer can ask him at practice. You can also email him at [email protected] (Note: as Coach Nick regularly coaches and gives lessons from 7:30am-5pm, please understand that he can’t always reply to your email within 24 hours. Thank you for your understanding.)
Beach Day – This Friday!
No practice this Friday and instead the RATS are invading the beach. Please join us for a casual team event at Linda Mar for a relaxing, fun day off. Coaches are coming, but they are off-duty and just there for fun. Each family is responsible for supervising their own swimmers. Show up around 11am and take off whenever works for your family.
Coach Appreciation Week is Coming!
Coach Appreciation Week is June 19th-26th. Stay tuned for a stand-alone email about all that we are planning to make sure our coaches know how much we love them.
Team Natalie Adventure Challenge
It’s time for the Fifth Annual Team Natalie Adventure Challenge! Raising funds for Cystic Fibrosis Research so that CF stands for “CURE FOUND”
This is a family event to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis Research and to support one of our very own RATS, Natalie Puzia.
Event Details: Sunday, June 18, 9:00am start
Where: Rudgear Estates Pool in Walnut Creek. Post-party at the Abbotts
What: Teams of two will partner together to compete in a trio of events (sprint course, 500m swim, one-mile run)
Who: We take participants of all ages and abilities (over 1/2 of the participants in 2022 were kiddos!)
No Partner, No Problem: We are happy to help match you up with an appropriate partner!
Volunteers: We always need lots of volunteers to cheer, direct runners, help at the start & finish, count laps, etc. Please email Karen Abbott to sign up - [email protected]
Click here to sign-up, donate, or for more info
City Meet Advertising and Shout Outs
If you want to advertise in the City Meet program, click here.
If you want to purchase a shout out in the City Meet program, click here.
Lessons
Lessons are available! We post all the coach’s sign-up links on our website (click here); however, it is the coaches’ responsibility to update their sign-ups (usually on Sundays or Mondays), set prices, receive payment, etc.
We have a lot of swimmers on our team, so please be considerate when booking lessons. We don't want one swimmer having three lessons per week and another left with none.
Please note: Swimmers may only sign up for one lesson per week with Coach Nick. If you sign up for multiple lessons for one swimmer, the earlier lesson will stay on his schedule and the remainder for the week will be deleted.
Coach Lunch
We have a great tradition of keeping our coaches at Rudgear fed! Please sign up here to bring our coaches lunch one day this summer. (We have EIGHT coaches this season, so we encourage you to team up with another family.)
Let’s Connect
Instagram: @rudgear_rats
Facebook: Click here to join our Facebook group
Let's make it a great week and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RATS!!
