Hi Barracudas,

Get Messy Party

In case you missed it, the Get Messy party scheduled for tonight is canceled since there is a forecast of rain and thunderstorms tonight.   We will tie die shirts during the Mock Meet Tuesday night. For those swimming in the mock meet, your coaches will help you tie die shirts.  More details were provided by Tracey in an email yesterday.

Mock Meet

Sign up for the mock meet next Tuesday night (June 5th) is now open along with all the meets this season.  Sign ups for the mock meet will close on Saturday after practice is over (10am).  Coaches will be seeding the meet after practice and a heat sheet will be available on-line on Sunday.  I will be sending emails to those swimmers that will not be eligible for the mock meet after Wednesday night's practice.  They will still have chances to qualify for the meet during both morning practices and Saturday's practice.  

Please try to have your swimmers ready to go and on deck at 4:45 pm. Warm ups start at 5 pm with 7 & under and the meet will start at 6.  There will be pizza for the swimmers.  There will be no relays and we will be trying to get through every event before it gets dark since we don't have lights. We will be using the times from the Mock meet to seed the first swim meet and assign lanes at practice. 

Lane assignments at practice

I spent the weekend assigning swimmers lanes for this week.   It is based on the information we have to date and so we can put swimmers together with similar ability.   Please encourage your child to stay in the lane we assign them.  

Morning Practice starts this week

Weekday morning practices start on Thursday.   Typically morning practices are the exact same as the closest practice.   This means Monday morning practice and Monday night practice are the same, Wednesday night and Thursday morning are the same, and Thursday night and Friday morning are the same.  Please choose one of those two practices that are the same instead of attending both.  

Practice this week

Practice Wednesday night/Thursday morning will focus on both Breaststroke and Butterfly.   Friday morning will be a freestyle practice.  Saturday morning we will focus on Freestyle and Backstroke.  On Monday we will be doing meet prep which will mean a little of each stroke, dives and turns for the older kids.  

Thursday Night Practice Canceled 

Thursday night two of our coaches, Katie Rubacky and Katia Thomas are being inducted into the Apex Friendship High School National Honor Society.  Coach Mark is also attending the ceremony.   Additionally, others will be attending the social event at the Durham Bulls game.  So because of these events, there will be no practice Thursday night. 

Volunteer sign up open

Volunteer sign up is now open.  I cannot stress how important these jobs are to running a successful meet.   The kids can work as hard as possible but without the volunteers we can never tell how much they are improving.   From the timers who are getting that critical time for each swim, to the clerk of course getting up to the block for the swim, to the bull pen making sure they don't wander off, and many more critical jobs.   Please sign up for your three slots to make this a very successful season. Kori Losack sent an email this morning with all the details for signing up for these positions.   We can't do it without you!

Weather

Since we've had a rash of inclement weather the past couple weeks, so I figured I would note out how practice is canceled.   (Since Wednesday is not looking good right now).  I monitor Weather.com, Accuweather and the NWS when trying to decide if to hold practice.   Most times I will cancel only one age group at a time if it looks to be just a passing thunderstorm.  If it looks to storm all night I will cancel the whole practice.   We will practice in the rain as long as we can still see the bottom of the pool.   Any thunder or lighting will cause use to be off the pool deck for 30 minutes, which will usually cancel at least one age group.   I will send an email blast when practice is canceled, post it on our web site (bcbarracudas.com) and it is posted to our Facebook page as well.  

See you at the pool,

Coach Mark