Saturday and Day 4

Saturday would give some of us a little more time to sleep as we sent Coach Peter. And the two 400 IM swimmers over early for warm ups, while the rest of us would arrive at 7:45 to start ours. Elena started the last day off by dropping over 11 seconds in her 400 IM, Fletcher had a great race only to come up a little short. Justin was our next swimmer dropping over 9 seconds in his 100 fly. The 50 fly saw some amazing swims with best times posted by Lexi, Anthony, Ian, Lauren, and Marcelo
The 100 breast stroke saw great races by Faith, Anthony, and Kyle who all posted best times. Allison turned in a great 75 breast and fell a little short in that last 25 but we will keep working on that. Maggie was 2 seconds off her time but did enough to gain a spot in finals later in the day. Our little makos Justin and Katherine both posted best times in their 50 free. The last event of the day was the 200 free where Ellie, Lexi, Julia, Elena, all posted best times and Marcelo went under 1:50:00 for the first time. Faith after realizing that I really didn't care what she wanted and that she WAS going to swim the 200 free had a best time by over 7 seconds. Lauren and Gabby swam a great 200 free but came up a little short.

We would only have 2 relays (both 13-14) with Lauren Gabby Elena and Julia all swimming some good 100 free legs. After we found the boys (Ian Fletcher Marcelo Kyle ) we saw some great splits in their relay.


It would be a short turn around for finals (starting an hour early) on this last day, but it did not seem to affect us much as all 5 of our swimmers would post lifetime bests. It started with Lexi swimming to a second place in the 50 fly only getting out touched by .06. Immediately after that Anthony would step up and also swim to a second in the fly being out touched by .03, a pretty good start to the evening.


Not to be out done Maggie seeded 6th in the 100 breast also swam to a second place finish. Kyle would swim the 100 breast next and had a great race except for the little look. When asked about it he had a classic line "I wanted to see how far Michael Andrew was ahead of me." Our last swimmer for the meet was Katherine Helms in her 50 free and going under a 30 for the first time. A very good way to end the meet after some exciting races over 4 days.
Now it was time for Anthony to pull out his peeps to share with anyone who would have one. We now headed to the beach for a nigh to good pizza, ice cream, and most of all teammates, friendships and memories.


I will follow up when I return..

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FRIDAY DAY 3

FRIDAY and DAY 3


Today we all were up having breakfast early and than piled into the van and arrived for warm ups at 7:30. Today we found three lanes and had a pretty good warm up period. The younger kids would start their meet with the 100 IM and all three Mako swimmers Faith, Ellie , and Peter had best times. They would follow that with some incredible 100 backstroke swims with Lexi , Anthony , Peter , all posting best times. Lexi would be our only 100 fly in this group swimming a little off her time but setting her self up nicely for finals later in the evening. This group ended the day with the 100 free with Peter, Anthony, having two great swims.
The 13-14 year olds began their day with the 100 back with Lauren, Maggie , Ian, all posting best times for the year. In the most exciting race between Mako swimmers Fletcher (2:22:46) would just out touch Kyle (2:22:49) in the 200 breast and making finals leaving Kyle 11th and on the outside looking in. The swimming gods must have been smiling as Kyle was scratched into finals later in the day. Maggie would also swim again in finals after her morning swim. The next event was the 100 fly with Marcelo, and Elena posting about their same times. The 100 free would also be the last event for this group with Julia, Lauren, Ian, Marcelo, all having some great swims.
Again our 3 relays. Made it to finals and would be swim mining the evening.
Friday finals saw Lexi swimming best times in the 100 fly and the 100 back stroke. Not to be out done Peter also had 2 events in finals swimming best times in the 100 IM and proving me wrong by swimming a52.56 in the 100 free. Another swimmer with 2 events in finals was Anthony swimming lifetime best in the 100 free and back. Single events swimmers in finals were Ian in the 100 free (same best time from morning), Maggie in the 200 breast, and the rematch of Kyle and Fletcher in the 200 breast stroke with Kyle posting another best time and winning. The relays again had some great swims with the lead offs swimming lifetime bests.

 

Now it was back to the hotel to prepare for our last day of swimming.

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Wednesday finals and Day 2

WEDNESDAY FINALS and Day 2Thursday


Wednesday night we had 3 relays along with 5 swimmers competing in the pool. Anthony was swimming the 200 back again and would swim another best time going 3 seconds faster from the morning.

 

 

Faith and Maggie would also swim the 50 breast stroke and both had great swims posting best times again.

 

Faith, Anthony ,Peter and Ian also had the 50 free at final. All three would post best times in the event. The 11 and 12 relay with Ellie, Lexi, Allison and Faith had a great swim. Both 13-14 relays did well with Ian, Fletcher, Marcelo , Kyle, Lauren Maggie, Elena and Julia . This would end the first day of racing for the Makos.
Thursday Day 2 arrived early and we would drop off the 13-14 yearl olds early and go back for the 12 and unders. We had a real good warm up as we arrived a little later and allowed that first wave to clear the pool. The first event of the day was the 200 IM. and first up was Julia who set the tone by dropping over 7 seconds in the event. Not to be out done Lauren, Katherine, Justin, Peter, Ian, Lexi, Kyle and Anthony all had great swims while posting best times for the season. Next up were the fly events for the day and Justin posted his second best time of the day in the 50 , and Fletcher (coming off chicken pops) came up a little short in the 200 fly. The next event of the day was the 50 back with Audrey, Marcelo, Faith , Allison, Peter and Anthony all swimming best times. Ellie, Ian, Lauren, Julia all swam well posting about their same times. The last event for us was the 500 free with Marcelo, Gabby and Elena swimming and all three having very good swims with Elena dropping over 3  seconds in her race.   All three relays were out of finals but swam very well in the morning with many good splits recorded.
We decided that this would be the day to let the kids go and have what we hope would be a fun day for them, as we had only three swimmers in finals. We would arrive back at the pool at 4:45 for finals and after going through our warm ups Katherine 100 IM, and Anthony and Lexi in the 50 back would all post best times for the year. Anyone who notices Anthony made the 200 I'm final but was scratched in very late in the afternoon and I was not aware of it so that is why you may see a NS for that event.

This was the end of our second day.

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Show Case Classic

As most of you are enjoying your spring break, Mako swimming has 18 swimmers from our groups in Tampa Florida swimming in the NASA Showcase classic being held at the Long Center in Clearwater. We started our week off on Tuesday arriving at the pool at 9:00 am for a short practice. The ears were from the guard, just needed to set the record straight. Thanks girls!!!

As we were getting ready for practice, I came to the conclusion that Allison Hickey's mom need some lessons on the proper way to apply lotion on a body. This is Allison on the far right below, notice the shoulder burn and this is all over her body. She tells me my mom sprayed number 50 all over. All I could say was yeah, all over every where except you.

These are some shots as we ran through our meet warm ups.

After practice we all piled in the van and headed back to the hotel, with some sad singing as I drove. We would meet down at Jimmy's Fish House on the beach later for a great team dinner, and than it was off to bed to prepare for the first day of swimming

Wednesday First Day: The first group arrived at 6:30 for warm ups with the second wave rolling in at about 7. Before going any further just want to point out that every athlete what ever the sport wants to be at their best in every event. In our sport we have a lot of factors that as a coach we have to look at as we watch our swimmers perform. The big two that I look at for a meet like this is one, when and how much time was dropped to get into the meet, two after our last meet (JO) we pulled back a little in our training and we are just getting back to it in the last couple of weeks.

That being said we started the meet with some backstroke events, and while our two youngest swimmers Katherine and Justin were a little off, they picked up some valuable experience. Our 200 backstrokers. Elena, Julia, Lexi, Marcelo all had some great swims and Fletcher was right at his best 

time.  Anthony also made it to finals in the 200 back with a great swim this morning.

Next up were our breaststroke, and we would start with a not so funny situation with Lauren. In the 50. In her defence it was like a zoo at her end.  Last one off the block, recover, stop look in middle, recover nicely only to stop at wall for a chat with stroke and turn ( we won't say who that was), recover again   All we can do is learn from it chuckle a little and move forward . Maggie, Faith had great swims making it back to finals in the evening.  Peter  finished up the event by dropping over 3 seconds in his 50 breast.

The 50 free was the next event on the agenda for the kids, and we started off with Ellie and Allison  posting about their same time.  Faith swam a best time.  Peter, Anthony and Lexi posted good times and along with Faith would swim at finals that evening along with the 11-12 girls relay.  In the other pool Julia Audrey, Maggie and Lauren swam best times with Gabby and Elena being off a couple of tenths.The boys Ian, Marcelo, and Kyle all had best times in the event and all in the low 23's.  Both 13-14 relays made it to finals later in the evening.

This would wrap up the first session as we headed back for lunch and a good nap as we got ready for finals in the evening.

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