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Welcome to the October issue of the E.P.S.C. NEWS. September has been a busy month for us while also getting used to the new pool within the Xcel Leisure Centre.
We competed in the final round of the Rother League Division 1 against tough opposition from the likes of Woking, Haslemere, and Bracknell & Wokingham, all of whom have extremely talented squads with many National swimmers.
The 1st Little / Big Leagues have taken place and also a successful Club Championships. We were very pleased that the Worshipful, the Mayor of Elmbridge and the Mayoress arrived in time to watch all of the finals of the evening’s events and present all our winners with their trophies and medals. We were also delighted to receive a cheque for £690.00 from the Mayor in respect of our part in this year's sponsored swim. Well done to all of our members who took part.
October has already seen us receive a visit from the GB National Performance Director Bill Sweetenham. This month will also see the start of this year’s Speedo League campaign. There is also the Rushmoor Royals Autumn Long Distance Open Meet in which the club is well represented. Good luck to all our swimmers in these competitions.
Saturday 11th November National Speedo Swimming League Round 2. Venue: Crook Log, BEXLEY. Squad and travel details to be announced.
Sunday 26th November Little / Big League @ Xcel Leisure Centre start time 5.30pm for all swimmers Times recorded will be checked against qualification times for entry to the Surrey ASA County Championships to be held in February 2007.
Saturday 2nd / Sunday 3rd December Guildford City “Last Chance County Qualifying Meet” @ the Spectrum Leisure Centre Entry forms are now available from Bob Hope and must be returned by Sunday 29th October. Absolutely no late entries will be accepted.
Saturday 9th December National Speedo Swimming League Round 3 venue TBA
Sunday 10th December 4th Club Championships @ Xcel Leisure Centre registration closes at 5.15, competition events will begin by 6.00pm at the latest
Sunday 17th December Shoals Christmas Fun Gala @ Xcel Leisure Centre.
Saturday 13th / Sunday 14th January Brighton S.C. “Tom Handley Memorial” Open meet licensed level 2. Entry details to follow.
Surrey ASA County Championships dates will be
Sunday 4th February to Sunday 11th March excluding the weekend of 24th /25th February
Please make a note of these dates as these championships are one of the most important dates in our swimming calendar.
Time trials for qualification into the Surrey Championships are now available on the final pages of this newsletter. Please ensure you are aware of when these trials take place. Please note qualification can also be achieved through entry into licensed open meets.
As of the beginning of October Jackie Reeves has very kindly agreed to co-ordinate and run our raffles held during galas and at Club Championships.
Any donations can be handed to Jackie who is usually sat in the viewing area at Xcel Mon, Wed, & Fri or please seek out any committee member who will ensure your gift gets through to Jackie.
After the Shoals gala on Sunday 17th December we hold our Christmas Raffle and this year will be no different. Prizes of Food Hampers, Electrical goods, Spirits, Shopping Vouchers etc, will all be there for the lucky winners to take home after the gala.
We already have a Sony Portable Music Player as one of the prizes. This was presented to EPSC by the Mayor, because EPSC team raised the most money during the sponsored swim back in July. We are now appealing for donations of Christmas fare e.g., tins of sweets, Christmas Crackers, puddings, cakes, biscuits and produce which can be put together into hampers for the raffle. You can also donate wines, spirits, theatre tickets, vouchers to make this year raffle really special.
From the next Little / Big League and Club Championships we have use of the electronic timing system. However, to ensure sufficient time to prepare the pool and recording equipment the start times of both events have been slightly changed as follows:
Little League / Big league: Start time 5.30 for all swimmers;
Club Championships: Registration by 5.15 and start time 6.00 pm at the latest.
Please note the Home gala scheduled for Saturday 18th November has been cancelled. The next Home gala will be the “Lollipop” gala scheduled for January 2007 the exact date and start time will be confirmed in the next newsletter. The primary reason for cancellation is to allow our poolside team time to get familiar with using the electronics timing equipment in order to run a gala with visiting clubs in an efficient manner.
Saturday 14th October saw the first round of this year National Speedo Swimming League Division 2. The team finished in overall 4th place which hopefully will be improved upon in the next round. There was a great team spirit all evening, and each individual swimmer or relay team had tremendous vocal support from the remaining team during each race. Thanks also to the parents who came along and added their support, and we would like encourage parents to come along and support the swimmers.
Congratulations go to Sebastian Leather, Will Ingham, Glen Melson, Margaux Monfared, and Charlotte Hope who all won individual races and well done to the boys under 13 relay team of Ben Durston, Joe Lidbetter, Aidan McCarthy, and Glen Melson who won both of their 4 x 1 length Individual Medley and Freestyle relays.
Our annual dinner dance was held at Imber Court and was great success, with all those present having a very enjoyable evening indeed. The dinner dance will be held next year at Imber Court on Saturday 6th October 2007. Full details of tickets and menu will made available in April / May 2007.
The next trials night for children wishing to join Elmbridge Phoenix S.C. will be held on Sunday 12th November 2006 at 5.00 pm. If any swimmers have a friend, or if any parents know of other parents who are interested in joining a competitive swimming club please contact Craig Singer as soon as possible.
All swimmers should wear close fitting costumes, hat, and goggles. For the Developer squad upward all swimmers are required to have the following equipment: Kickboard, Pull Buoy, and Flippers.
All the above equipment is available through the club shop, order forms will be provided when a swimmer moves into the development squads from cadets. Louise Hargrave and Sue Hoad will also have spare copies of order forms for anyone who may lose or wish to replace training equipment.
In response to several enquiries and requests from parents, Di Hargrave has put together an advice sheet in respect of nutrition for swimmers who are training and in competitions, and also a background into the training regimes within the swimming club. This is for your guidance and intended to give an insight into a competitive training environment.
A balanced diet for life provides the essential foundation to an optimal ‘sports diet’.
Carbohydrates can provide energy more rapidly than fat! They are the main fuel for intense periods of physical exercise.
No amount of quality training will ensure a winning performance on competition day if the swimmer fails to re-fuel after each training session!
Never try anything new on competition day!
Practice what you will eat and drink for race days during normal training. i.e. light meal beforehand: pasta (not too much rich sauce on top), bowl of cereal, tin of rice pudding are some ideas.
The following are all good snacks to eat to or from training, or to take to competition with you; any light carbohydrate snack, e.g. jam sandwich, Jaffa cakes, fruit (especially bananas), dried fruit, biscuits (especially Garibaldi, fig rolls or digestive), one small mini Mars bar, jelly babies.
Plus constant small drinks between swims. Soft drinks, sports drinks, diluted fruit juices etc. (not fizzy drinks) dehydration is one of the main causes of bad performances on race days and during training sessions (swimmers should bring two large drinks bottles to the pool for training!
Always eat slightly less than you think you need and eat as soon as possible after training/competition to start the refuelling of glycogen.
At Elmbridge, swimmers come into the club at Cadet level. Everything here is geared to skill development and improvement. This means strokes, turns, and start work.
This is done week in week out until the basics are in place.
Some children have natural talent and within a month you can see a real improvement, others can take a lot longer! Others have extreme difficulty learning motor skills, and improvement is hard to see. Age does not come into this.
Sarah Helsdown, who is in charge of cadets 1 & 2, is one of the best stroke improvement teachers I know and apart from Louise and me, is the highest qualified helper in the club. I mostly do the senior cadets, which is my way of keeping an eye on swimmers coming into the club and having an input at the lower end of the club. My teaching/coaching qualification is ASA full coach, NVQ level 4.
From cadets, the children move into the junior section of the club, which is in Louise’s capable hands. Louise’s qualification is ASA club coach NVQ level 3. It is almost unheard of for a club our size to a) have an NVQ 4 chief coach b) to have a club coach working down with the youngsters! Louise is fully qualified to run her own club! So these are the three people in charge of the teaching and beginnings of coaching in the club.
Louise’s job is to build up stamina and begin to change the emphasis from teaching to coaching! Two different things! We are a competitive club not a stroke improvement club. There are plenty of stroke improvement classes around!
Our job, as the children progress, is to make sure they can hold their stroke over a distance. Often when they first move into the higher squads their stroke goes backwards for a bit and it is not until they build up their stamina in the stroke that good technique returns. Another reason for poor strokes mechanics at this level is that kids grow, their limb length changes, their stroke rhythm is affected, their core body strength is weak. It may be months before any improvement is seen.
If you look at any swimming competition, you will see that some people have natural talent: their strokes always look smooth and efficient, but unfortunately these are in a minority. Mostly swimmers have faults caused by their physiology (could be strength, shoulder flexibility, ankle flexibility, poor neck mobility etc. etc.) You may only have to mention this fault once to some swimmers and they correct it! Others correct it while you watch, then don’t bother when you look away! Others you can correct until the cows come home and it makes no difference they never get it!!
We are limited with water time and it takes time to correct over and over again. Obviously parents with less skilled kids would like us to be working on this all the time. This is just not possible or practicable. The people that suffer are the more talented swimmers who are not getting on with training!
I overheard someone saying how much their son enjoyed the relays. Well they are good fun and we practice them before competitions are coming up, but water time is very expensive and I have to utilise it as best possible. Relays is time consuming and a lot of time is spent hanging about!
A swimming club is for serious training, we are not in existence to entertain children; they can go to the cinema for that! We do a very valuable job in terms of their being able to swim well all their life (they never forget) it is good for their general health, heart, lungs, joints and muscles.
Not every one wants to be a competitive swimmer of course but they need some success to carry on.
After our recent visit by National Performance Director Bill Sweetenham, we will be introducing a couple of different things, like much more kicking (fly kick is now considered to be the fifth stroke). This will be starting at cadet level!
Also some strength training (just in a small way) details of which will be coming soon!
DCH 10/06
During November and December we hold the County Championship time trials. This year, these will all be held at the Xcel pool.
| Sunday 26th Nov | 5.30 pm | all 50m times |
| Wed 29th Nov | 7-9pm | 200m bk/fly-100m fr/brst |
| Sun 3rd Dec | 6-8pm | 200m fr/brst-100m bk/fly |
| Wed 6th Dec | 7-9pm | 400m IM/fr-200m IM |
| Sun 10th Dec | (no time trials but club champs) | |
| Wed 13th Dec | 7-9pm | 1500m fr/800m fr/100m IM |
These time trials are extremely important for all of our swimmers. Entry to the ‘Surrey’s’ is based on times submitted (you can only use times done in the preceding 3 months.) It is crucial that you send in your best time otherwise you can just miss the entry time by .1 of a second. This is so very disappointing for all concerned! I have known swimmers, who subsequently could have got into the finals, to not get in because of poor entry times!! So the trials need to be taken seriously and your very best effort made.
If your two best events are on one night then swap them over but make sure you inform organisers. Generally speaking, you must swap your 200m to another 200m event and your 100m to another 100m event etc. It is not possible or practicable to do a distance swim 400m or more on a 200/100 evening.
Except where a swimmer is unable to do a legal stroke, (usually fly or breast) I have put everyone down for most strokes/distances. The reason for this is that often swimmers don’t get an opportunity to race in a distance swim (200 and up). They may be good at 50s but not good enough to get in the County’s as 50s are extremely competitive, (I have checked through the last Big/Little league and there are only six swimmers whose times are fast enough to get into the 50m gala!) There is so much more chance of getting in to the 200s and the longer distances. So please don’t let me hear people saying “little Johnny can only do 50 or 100 breast”. How do you know until they have had a try? We may have the next Grant Hackett (world record holder in 1500 freestyle) in our club.
Incidentally the lowest number of entries is usually for the 200 fly, so there is a good chance of qualifying for that !
Last year many parents did not fill in the forms and so their son/daughter didn’t enter the county championships !!!
Even worse, some swimmers qualified for events and didn’t bother to turn up, without a word to me!!!
Unbelievable though it may be, we are a competitive club and would you join a football club and train with them but not play for them when selected??
Doing the County Championships gives the club points and a position in Surrey. Previously we have been in the top 4, but last year we struggled in 10th position. Please give your club 100% support.
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