Practice Cancellation during JOs

Practices will be cancelled Friday July 24th and Saturday July 25th due to the coaching staff being away at Junior Olympics. Practices will resume their normal schedule on Monday July 27th.

Time Away

Just wanted to leave a quick side note, I will be away from the Keys from Friday July 17th until Tuesday July 21st for a wedding reception back home. Mark and John will still be around to run practices, with Nico, Elyse, and Andrea helping out. I will be back on Wednesday for some work before JOs, and if last night's practice was any indication we are definitely prepared for the meet! Keep swimming fast, keep getting lots of sleep, and please keep the coaching staff informed of how your body feels. The culmination of our season is rapidly approaching, and its time to make the Keyfish a regular name at Junior Olympics!

-Coach Dan

Div IIs

Just wanted to note a GREAT success at DivIIs. With numerous top 3 finishes and 100% personal bests throughout the ENTIRE meet the swimmers who attended definitely have reason to be proud of their performances. Junior Olympics are just ahead and it has become clear that FKSC is a leading force in the Gold Coast.

Meet entries are going in Wednesday morning for Junior Olympics, so it is more important now than ever to get your entries to me. I have finished most swimmers but need to make a few corrections before I submit them, if an athlete's availability changes I must know before Wednesday at noon. We are bringing more swimmers to JOs than ever before, so lets keep swimming hard in practice, and focus on eating healthy/sleeping extra out of the pool.

Id like to make a personal note of recognition as well for Mark Hill. The success of this club is based largely on his performance over the past years and I would like to wish him the best and applaud him for all the success I know he will have at Michigan. Even though I have only been with the club for two months I will always hold what I have learned from him of the utmost value and consider him a personal mentor. Mark's dedication to the club was unwavering from the start of his time down here, and I feel indebted to him for the opportunity he has provided for John and myself to take the club to the next level. I feel that I can speak for the entire club when I congratulate you for your acceptance of such a high position in the swimming world, you will be missed.

-Coach Dan

Wave Makers: Session 3

Andrea Cole will be joining the coaching staff starting with the July 6th Learn to Swim program. Andrea just graduated Washinton College in Maryland. We are excited to add her swimming and coaching experiences to our coach staff. Elyse and Andrea will be running the Learn to Swim program. Now we will have two coaches working with the younger age groups. Andrea and Elyse are both really excited and we can't wait to see everyone Monday July 6th.

Ft. Lauderdale International Age Group Competition

This past weekend we took a small group of swimmers to a meet in Ft. Lauderdale. To make the time standard for this meet the swimmer had to at least have an A time standard or better. Normally an A time standard is also considered a Junior Olympic time standard. So in essence this meet was a lot like JO's with the exception that it is bigger, faster, and not limited to only swimmers in the Florida Gold Coast. To put it all in perspective there are about 1,000 kids at this meet from all over the country and the world and in some cases a AA time standard did not make the finals!

I point those facts out because when noting the success we had at the meet it is important to realize the scale of competition. And success is something we tasted much of. That is no small feat! In fact, since my time here I have gone to this meet three times and we have never had as much success as we did this year. In the past 2 years I have only had 2 finals qualifications. This year our swimmers combined for a total of 20 finals qualifications. A final qualification means that you not only scored points for the team but also placed in the top 10. Of those finals we left with a gold, a silver, and three bronzes.

The success at this meet only reinforced the fact that although we do things differently down here we are still doing things right. There were times when I would look around at other coaches yelling at their swimmers during a warm up, or watched swimmers sit around and complain during rain delays. During the rain delays we didn't complain. We controlled the things we could and our team did active stretching and visualisation. During warm up we as coaches trusted the swimmers to act professionally and warm themselves up. They did just that! The thing that makes the success of these swimmers so sweet is that the success is truly theirs. They know what they needed to do to get the job done and they did it...all by themselves. Nothing is more dangerous than a smart, fast, self actualized, self sustained and self motivated swimmer. Well, we brought 7 of those so I cant say I'm surprised with the results.

There is still much to improve, however, and perhaps that is the best part. We are achieving so much and we still have so much to learn. This meet has gotten us really excited for the upcoming DII Championships and Junior Olympics. Keep checking for updates! Until then...Back to work!

View meet results at: http://www.flaswim.com/realtime/2009iagi/