Central Region Championships

This meet started on Thursday afternoon, but I have been too busy to write about it. Here are our highlights so far:

Thursday night: 800FR went well. Britney Dortona just missed the provincial standard by 0.22 seconds. All of the 800s were swum 2 per lane and not from the starting block (which I would argue would have saved her more then 0.22 seconds, but not much we can do about that). Sam Ceci, Colleen Jarv, Clancy Harris, Veronica Fong and Bjoern-Ole Schrader also had good swims in 800FR.

Friday: A few very solid 200IMs (Aysia Leckie under 3:00 for the first time and Emma Fender with a best time and placing 4th overall) and 50FRs (Aysia Leckie, again, with a best time and 6th overall and Britney Dortona and Veronica Fong placing in the top 20). Emma Fender obtained a bronze medal in 200BR with a PB and new club record (3:12.52) with Veronica Fong in 9th, also with a best time of about 2 seconds. Britney Dortona placed 6th in 400FR with a 2 second PB and Colleen Jarv placed 17th.

Saturday: The day started out very well with Clancy Harris almost breaking 1:10 for the first time in 100FR (she placed 25th/45). Sam Ceci and Loren O'Brien-Egesborg both had solid swims. Sam was slightly faster than she had been before and Loren was right on top of her best time. Sam placed 45th and Loren 54th out of 85. AJ Tarcy also had a best time in 100FR and placed 23rd. Loren placed 24th/48 in 100BK and AJ was 9th but did not make it into finals by scratches. The girls 13-14 200FR relay finished 14th after moving up from an 18th place seed. Some very solid swimming on this relay from Olivia Fong, Clancy Harris, Bronte McMaster and Kelly Smith (who was almost under 30 seconds in her leg). HHBF also beat Milton, who was seeded ahead.
In the afternoon session, we had some very exciting races! Emma Fender placed 8th in 100FR, but was slightly above her best time. Aysia Leckie and Britney Dortona was under 1:10 for the first time in 100FR, Quinn Jaggard placed 14th in 100FR with a new PB of 1:06.69. Veronica Fong and Emma Fender came 6th and 7th in 100BR. Livy Olson placed 14th in 100FLY in her very first race in this championship meet (she also had a 3 second best time by 3 seconds). Michael Jans (just returning from a school trip) muscled his way through a 200BK which was very heroic and well swum, but slightly above his best time.
Perhaps the most exciting moment of the day was in the girls 11-12 200FR relay when the HHBF girls (Aysia Leckie, Veronica Fong, Britney Dortona and Emma Fender) out touched the mighty Oakville girls by .01 seconds to win the bronze medal. They finished just behind TSC and NYAC and finished ahead of teams like Eswim, and Markham which is a huge achievement for these 4 girls. A great big congratulations to them.

So far, things going very well and I'm very proud of our performances. 1 day to go: I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Also, Swim Ontario picked up my recording of Andrew Ford's talk to the Blue Fins. See what they had to say about it HERE. This story also appears on the front page of Swim Ontario's website which is great exposure for our team. It really was a great visit. I encourage everyone to take a listen.

The Andrew Ford Interview

National Team Member, Andrew Ford visited HHBF this afternoon to discuss his successes and struggles throughout his swimming career. As I did not have a video camera with a charged battery, I had to audio record the interview rather than video tape it. Complete audio stream of the interview available HERE.

Many thanks to the Guelph Marlins and Andrew's coach, Don Burton, for lending us Andrew for the afternoon. I think the Blue Fins got a lot out of the experience and I certainly enjoyed listening to what Andrew had to say. He has agreed to let me post this on the web so you can enjoy it too. He is a real class act and a fantastic representative for Canadian Swimming.

HHBF @ Relay For Life

This past weekend, many Blue Fins participated in the Relay for Life. The HHBF team (which was organized by Bronte McMaster and Avery Jans) included Blue Fins team mates such as Jason Reid, Viktoria Plackoska, Michael Jans, Tatyana Austrie, Isaac West, Arielle Sabourin, and Olivia Fong.

Reports from the event were that these Blue Fins represented out team very well (and there are many reports that they were the only team that did not stop the entire time). Quinn West, Sarah Reid and Aleks Plackoski stayed and joined the team for the entire event and Coach Chris and his wife, Mallory, stopped by to do a couple of laps with the athletes.

I am very proud of the reports coming to me from my athletes and the rest of our team should be too. This was great exposure for our team and a great team building event for those who participated. Well done.

AGI - Sunday Wrap Up

Now that I have some time to type; yesterday was a pretty good day. Highlights include the HHBF boys 15&Over 200BR LC record broken 3 times by 2 different people (first by Kyle and Aaron and finally by Kyle Haas @ 2:33.11), Loren broke the girls 15&Over 50fly record (32.64), Nolan broke the boys 13-14 50fly record, Matt Fox placed 6th in 100BK (highest placing 13 year old and a small PB), Britney Dortona had a huge PB in 400FR Trevor Burwell had a small PB in 400FR and Emma Fender qualified for provincials in 100FR.

All in all an interesting weekend. Almost every HHBF athlete had a different purpose there. With provincials and regionals not far away, its very tough placement of a meet. It was tough for 17 and overs because of some world class athletes filling up finals spots. It was tough for 13-14 year olds because they had an afternoon session that went right into finals (In Matt Fox's case, he had a little more than 90min between his race and finals). Ideally its a great meet for 11-12s (who don't have finals) and 15-16 as a good chance to swim finals. I may reassess the need for a meet at that time of the year next season, but as of right now, it was a pretty good weekend.

AGI Sunday morning check-in

Sorry I haven't posted anything yet, but it has been a very busy weekend and I just haven't had the energy to type. This has been a very tough, fast meet; faster than I remember it last season. So far I have counted 5 2008 Olympians taking part (Tobias Oriwol, Joe Bartoch and Richard Hortness from Canada and 2 from Mexico) as well as a few more that are going to World Championships this summer (Brittany MacLean, etc) and many more that are going to Junior World Championships. This is a very fast meet.

HHBF is faring pretty well so far, especially considering many of our athletes are not rested and are swimming off events.

Thursday's highlights included Trevor Burwell reclaiming his 1500fr club record from Kyle Haas with a best of 18:07 and Britney Dortona just missing the provincial cut in 800fr, but significantly lowering her best time (she'll get another chance next weekend).

Friday saw Kyle Haas make 2 finals and win bronze medals in both while setting 2 new club records: 200im 2:12.83 and 100br (1:10.39), Trevor Burwell breaking the club record in 200fr (2:06.36), Mitchell Krafczek with a best 200fr swim and Matt Fox squeeking into the finals in 200fr.

Saturday was great and saw a best time and new club record from Sam Ceci in 100fly (1:12.28). Matt, Aaron Brautigam and Kyle all made finals which yielded some good swims, but the biggest improvement seen yesterday was in 400im where Matt and Kyle each dropped over 11 seconds and placed very high in the rankings. Great news as this is what we have been working on for the last few weeks.
(NB: I owe Newmarket swimmer Jake Silverthorn a donut as a result of one of our great races on Saturday).

So its warmup Sunday morning and I'm excited for some good races today. This will be my 3rd 13hour day in a row and I'm a little punchy so sorry for any type-o's above. I think today is going to be a great day!

Age Group International - Etobicoke

AGI starts today in Etobicoke. This is a good opportunity for our athletes to get a sneak peak at their competition going into provincials, and also to swim against some very stiff competition. Athletes like Warren Barnes, Tobias Oriwol, Matt Kwatyra, Cam Cummings, Cynthia Pammett, Amanda Reason, Brittany MacLean and others will square off in a LC competition at the Olympium. It should be an interesting weekend for HHBF, but you'd be crazy if you expected me to talk about my strategy going into this meet on the internet. I'll update as the weekend goes, but trust me it will be a good weekend.

Psych sheets and heat sheets are available at ESWIM's Website.

Stay tuned for updates.

Athletic Foodie post

American Gold Medalist, Garret Weber-Gale runs a website called "Athletic Foodie" which I have started getting very interested in. He is a very good writer and gives some great advice (although I take it in the context that he is an athlete, not a doctor) on nutrition and other things. I found his post today a pretty good read. Check it out.