Vaughn Meet - Friday Night distance

Hi everyone. I love the Vaughn pool. The Town of Halton Hills could learn a thing or 2 about the benefits of a good complex.

400FR and 400IM tonight.

Aside from a few people being sick and having to scratch out, we had a pretty successful evening. In the girls 400FR; Veronica Fong, Sam Ceci, Clancy Harris, Erin Troughton all started the night out with very solid races. Unfortunately for Sam Ceci, her entry time put her in an unsuitable heat so she wasn't quite sure how fast she was going... I think that she could have been faster had she been in a faster heat. Very good time overall, 5:07 which marks over 25 seconds off. Erin Troughton was a best time by about half a second. Clancy and Veronica had HUGE PBs but I think saved a little bit too much until the end. We have been working on splitting in the Platinum and Elite groups. The indication is that we are making some solid headway, but have more work to do prior to February.

I had Kyle, Trevor, Mitchell, Karl and Matt Fox all in the first heat of boys so getting accurate splits and final times was a challenge. Kyle equaled his best time almost exactly, while Trevor and Karl were feeling off tonight. Mitchell had a great race, just missing the provincial standard in 400FR with a time of 4:29.8, while 13 year old, Matt Fox was slightly off of his best time, sighting shoulder fatigue early int he race. Quinn Jaggard scored a best time in 400FR of 5:35 which is a good indication that Quinn's endurance is getting better; a good sign for a possible boys relay @ Provincials in February. Nolan Haas was off of his best time BUT is working towards his 800FR prereq and has been faster than prereq pace for 2 weeks in a row for the 400FR. Prereq should not be an issue. AJ Tarczy finished up with a HUGE PB, dropping 1:06.5. Not bad for only being in the water once this week.

400IMs were swum well! Ali Taran was slightly off of her best time (mostly the last 100) but on the positive side, really benefited from the start work we did last night at GHIP and had a MUCH improved BR leg. Keri-Lyn Copeland finished 2nd overall with a 16 second PB of 5:43.83 which breaks Loren O'Brien-Egesborg's old record of 5:43.86 by 0.03 seconds (final time has not been confirmed, this is off of the clock so this is not an official record yet... will confirm tomorrow). Also a provincial split for 12 year olds... although I don't think she's in favor of swimming in at provincials in February.

On the boys side, Bjoern-Ole Schrader tried a new strategy and removed 2 seconds from his club record. His new record of 5:43.66 was much improved splitting and much better than we expected. I am very proud of him. Aaron Brautigam also removed 2 seconds from his best time with a final time of 5:15.75. The interesting thing about this race was that Aaron's faster fly split seemed to make all the difference.

If I learned 1 thing tonight (aside from the info I have been collecting in workout) it was that the majority of my IMers swim basically the same BK split no matter how fast or hard they swim the first FLY split. This changes my IM philosophy a bit and I would think that we'll see some interesting results going forward based on this new consideration.

I am pretty happy with the way things are going so far. I am very excited for tomorrow and Sunday. The focus for the most of us is to swim fast in the morning (as that is a bit of a weakness for many of our older swimmers). We want to finish up 2010 with a BANG... stay tuned for details.

Mike Thompson
Head Coach
HHBF