TNT Newsletter
The New Team on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay
January 2008
TNT SCHOLAR ATHLETE HONOR ROLL
Congratulations to TNT swimmers who finished the second quarter marking period with a B average or better. Thank you to those parents who submitted the name of their swimmer for this listing.
NEW KID ON THE BLOCKS
A warm welcome to Jackson Laurence, age 10 who recently joined the team and swims with level 3. You are going to have a lot of fun and learn to swim really, really fast.
THEY GROW UP SO FAST
Congratulations to TNT swimmers born during the month of January: Carly Arnone, 8 on 1/4; John Pereira, 13 on 1/19; Nathan Vincent, 6 on 1/24. Another year older and another year faster!
SOUTHEASTERN CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIERS
Nineteen TNT swimmers have qualifying times for the upcoming 2009 Southeastern Short Course Championships, scheduled to be held
February 26 - March 1 in Nashville, TN. Congratulations to the following swimmers who have made their "cuts."
TOP OF THE CLASS
Three TNT swimmers are currently listed in the Southeastern Swimming Short Course Top 10, which is tabulated the first of each month from USA sanctioned meet results. Congratulations to the following swimmers who made the January listing: Sarah Meehan, 8 & under 50 fly 3rd, 50 back 3rd, 25 fly 5th; Kyle Simpson, 100 back 3rd, 100 fly 3rd, 200 free 5th, 200 IM 7th, 200 back 7th, 500 free 7th, 1000 free 8th, 200 fly 8th; Jack Sledge, 50 back 5th, 25 back 7th, 100 free 8th, 50 free 10th.
CALLING ALL WINNERS
TNT’s 5th Annual Short Course Awards Dinner is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, February 24, from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at the Eastern Shore Presbyterian Church. All currently active team members and their families are welcome to attend. Dinner includes pasta with Alfredo sauce and spaghetti marinara with meatballs, salad, garlic bread and dessert. The cost is $4.00 for Adults and Youth ages 13 and up, $2.00 for kids ages 4-12 and ages 3 & under are free.
Following dinner, active team members will receive participation trophies and Southeastern Short Course Championship team members and meet qualifiers will be recognized and awarded. You can view last year's SC awards dinner HERE
THE LIGHT IS ALWAYS ON
In response to questions about whether the short course awards dinner season marks the end of TNT’s training schedule; the answer is no. The short course awards dinner marks the conclusion of meets held in 25 yard, short course pools. From that point on, meets will be held in 50 meter, long course pools. The TNT long course meet schedule will be posted in the February newsletter.
Once the kids are out of school for the summer, TNT’s practice schedule changes in order to accommodate the summer league swim meet schedule. TNT practices continue through the summer until July 21, when the program breaks until training resumes for the 2009 – 2010 Short Course Season on August 10.
THE REAL OLYMPIC SIZE POOL
The term long course sounds big and bad, but it's really just less turns. Long Course (LC) simply refers to the dimensions of the pool, or the course that swimmers compete in. LC pools are 50 meters in length, unlike 25 yard short course (SC) pools that we have been competing in since September. The main difference is that LC races have half the turns. For example, a 50 meter event is one length of the pool and does not have any turns. A one hundred meter LC event is two lengths of the pool and has only one turn, compared to a one hundred yard SC event with three turns; a two hundred meter LC event has only three turns compared to seven turns for SC, etc. Everything else remains the same, including monthly competitions, time standards, team records, TNT's LC awards dinner and championship meet scheduled to be held July 24 – 26 in Nashville, TN.
THE BIG PICTURE
It is easy to see where a swimmer is ranked by utilizing the national times data base. The SWIMS data base is a valuable tool for swimmers, coaches, and parents and contains times for every USA registered swimmer. This tool allows you to find individual rankings at every level, including the Southeastern Swimming, Southern Zone, and National levels. Any swimmer’s times can be found by visiting the USA Swimming web site HERE
AGE GROUP TIME STANDARDS
In response to a recent question regarding time standards, here is an explanation of what they are and how they work: Motivational age group time standards are established every four years by USA Swimming in order to measure age group swimming performance on a national scale. The scale is percentage based according to the NAG Top 10 Times for every swimming event, in the following age groups according to gender: 10 & under, 11 – 12, 13 - 14, 15 – 16, and 17 - 18. Times that fall within 5% of the 10th place time in the nation are AAAA times; times within 10% are AAA, 15% AA, 20% A, 25% BB, and 30% B.
Time standards are mainly used as a motivational tool for swimmers to gauge their improvement based on a national scale. TNT recognizes the improved time standards of our swimmers by listing them in all post meet competition reviews and by awarding specialty, black and gold “Improved Time Standard” ribbons. TNT swimmer time standards can be viewed HERE
Time standards are also utilized by host teams to limit the size of certain meets. For example, because our Local Swimming Committee (LSC) encompasses such a vast geographical area (Alabama, Tennessee, and the Florida Panhandle), the annual Southeastern Championship Meets are generally restricted to A – AA times as qualifying standards in order to regulate the length of meet sessions. Conversely, time standards are also employed at other meets like the South District meet in order to limit entries exclusively to non – Southeastern Championship qualifiers. You can view USA Swimming’s current age group time standards HERE
THE BEST KIND OF RELAY
TNT is participating in Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. Last year we raised over $1,000. The Relay for Life will be Friday, May 1, 2009 at Daphne Middle School. The event is from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and includes entertainment and many fun activities. The theme this year is the Olympics. TNT will bag groceries at the Winn-Dixie in Daphne to raise money for the American Cancer Society on Saturday, March 14 and Saturday, April 4. Please check your e-mail in the coming weeks for information on joining our TNT Relay Team. If you would like to help with this event and have creative ideas for decorating the tent, please call Terri Kinsey at 929-1916
BEADS AND MORE BEADS
TNT's 5th Annual Mardi Gras Practice is scheduled for Saturday, February 14th. This special event features beads, moon pies and king cake for all practice groups. Level 4 and 5 swimmers can earn beads by guestimating their times during practice. Beads are thrown to level 3 swimmers while they swim and level 1 and 2 swimmers go diving for them on the bottom of the pool. This practice is always a lot of fun so please make plans to attend. You can view last year’s Mardi Gras practice HERE
NEW FUNDRAISER
The new Candle Fundraiser has started and brochures have been placed in family folders. The fundraiser will run until Saturday, February 21st. All orders and payments will be due on Saturday, February 21st. Candles will be delivered in about 3-4 weeks from the end of the fundaiser.
The prices of the candles are on the brochures. Families will be credited 50% of the selling price toward your 2nd half fundraising requirement that is due by March 1st.
Prizes for the top sellers will be: 1st Place $50 credit to swim fee account; 2nd Place, $25 credit; 3rd place, $10 credit.
FIGHT THE FLU
By Dr. Jim Miller, USA Swimming National Team Physician
You have completed the dreaded intensive training of the holiday season and have two to four more months until your championship meet. Everything has been taken into account – your event schedule, your training and the best part – taper. Is there anything that could mess all this up? YOU BET! One to two weeks off with five pounds of muscle loss could surely derail this train. That is exactly what could happen with a bout of influenza, more commonly known as the Flu. MORE
FUEL THE FIRE
Taken from USA Swimming's Parent Page...
Believe it or not, your swimmer doesn't get fast during practice. In practice she might see her times improving, but his or her adaptation to training (i.e. getting faster) actually occurs while her body is at rest. Workout is the stimulus that causes this to happen.
Workouts are hard! They’re supposed to be. They’re designed to tell the body, “This is hard work for me and you better do something to enable me to do it again later.” And the body actually responds by becoming more efficient – aerobically and anaerobically. During its time off, the body WILL adapt, but only if given the proper fuels.
Parents can find a variety of articles to help fuel their swimmers for training and competition HERE.
THE GOOD GUYS
TNT thanks those supporters who advertise their business on our web site. Proceeds from advertising sales help us with operational expenses and allows TNT to provide low cost, competitive swimming instruction to children of all ability levels. Please visit http://www.swimtnt.com/advertisers_page_07-08.html to learn more about the services our advertisers offer.
FEEDBACK
Questions, comments and suggestions regarding information contained in this newsletter should be directed to TNT Head Coach Jan Mittemeyer by phone 251 - 599 - 1019 or by email swimtnt123@aol.com.
