THE END!

We had a great end to our meet last night!  We started off the night with Sarah in the 200 free, she went in 10th and came out 5th!  She swam a best time too!  That was the first 5 'steps' of our night!

Next up we had Peter, who with luck on his side again, made it into the B final after qualifying 16th in the youth section...late scratch, another swim!  He moved up 2 steps and improved his time from the morning by over 2 seconds.

Then came the 50 back, whose prelims were swum on Thursday.  Heidi went in 6th and came out 4th...2 more steps!

Heidi was then up again in the 100 fly and ended up DOUBLING our medal count for the meet! :)

She went in 3rd and came out 3rd...oh well, no steps but another BRONZE medal for her collection.

This time she got to get on the podium to get the medal.  

 I was even able to get a picture of Miss Saskatoon this time, check out the shoes. 

  Sarah was then up again in the 800 free, she went in 5th and came out 5th but had a great 5 second best time!!  Stefan got to swim in the night heat of the 1500, struggled a bit but scored us some valuable points.  Finn was our last individual swimmer of the meet and swam in the youth final of the 1500.  He went out a little slow but battled back and ended up 7th in the race.  Not a best time, but as he said,  a good swim considering how his others had gone over the weekend.  More points!!

Last up were the relays...once again the girls were dealing with an entry time glitch and had to swim in the outside lane in heat 1 of 4!!  They went in DEAD LAST with a time of 4:44!

Amazingly, they won the heat and swam 4:26.10.  Our team was:  Chloe, Lauren, Heidi and Sarah, they ended up 15th overall.  So...22 steps!

The boys:  Peter, Finn, Sam and Kurt were very proud of the fact that they didn't really come dead last as there were 2 DQ's!!

We ended up 18th out of 55 teams.

Not bad with such a small, inexperienced team!

Once the boys were done, we couldn't get out of the pool fast enough.  Cindy was crying(I think she wanted to stay in Saskatoon) from the terrible air quality.  Her eyes didn't stop watering until this  morning!

I hope everyone's coughs will be gone by the time we get back to our lovely moist air!

Waiting politely for our table!

I booked us dinner at Boston Pizza and, with the help of Siri, we navigated through blowing snow to our only meal out.

Unfortunately, Molly left early so I never did get a compete team picture.

I think Finn will be auditioning for the next vampire movie.

They had a lot of fun figuring out how to get everything they wanted to eat while staying within their $20 budget!  They did a very good job by sharing appies. 
Finn learned a lot about sharing this week...he was always wanting to 'share' a cookie with someone.  That is because they were allowed one, unless they could share another half with someone else!



We all had to scatter early this morning as we are on a total of 5 different flights today!  Cindy and I left with Sam and JO while the rest of the kids are making their way to the airport throughout the day.  Right now we are in Calgary for a little 3 hour layover!

I don't know about everyone else, but I enjoyed my first experience with a prairie winter.  The cold was not TOO cold, probably because we picked the best week, since 2 weeks ago it was -42º and all this week  it is going to be highs of -15º!

The only thing I regret (I didn't know I regretted it until I bought this postcard for Christl in the airport) is that we never saw anything of the city...I didn't even know there was a river!  Supposedly this is what it looks like.  We drove from the airport to the hotel, 2 minutes, to the pool, 6 minutes.  Even the grocery store was on the way to the pool so no big adventuring there.  I was lucky since I got to go a little further when I went to Costco!

Well, that's it from me!  I hope people were actually reading this and found it somewhat interesting.
~Karen
(Thank you to: Sam, JO, Kurt, Peter, Sarah, Chloe, Lauren, Molly, Stef, Heidi and Finn for making my job incredibly easy.  Special thanks to Peter who always asked me if I needed help with carrying/packing things! And to Sam, who helped me get my big cooler to be under 70 pounds this morning.  And to Cindy for being a great roomie.)

Sunday...prelims!

We had 13 prelim swims this morning.  Qualifying for finals, we have:
Sarah- 200 free
Peter-1st alternate for 200 free...fingers crossed!
Heidi- 100 fly
We also have Sarah in the 800 and Finn and Stefan in the 1500 swimming tonight!

Lauren had a tough 3 swims in a row with 100 breast, 200IM an 100 fly, she did a great job getting them done!

Everyone is finding the air really hard to take, I'm sure everyone from anywhere bar the island or Vancouver isn't having a problem.  But since we are all used to our lungs being lovingly coated with gentle sea air we aren't dealing with the incredible dryness very well.  Not to mention that the pool air quality is right up there with Richmond! 

I hope to update after tonight but it doesn't end until late and we are going straight out for dinner.

Day 3...FINALS!

I tried to update last night but I am fighting with an internet connection that would have made Fred Flintstone cry!

This is another reason we should be glad we live in Victoria...when the pretty snow melts, all that's left is the yucky dirt and sand that they spread on the roads.

We had a great night in the pool!  Cindy started a program with the kids that they have to move up a set of 'steps', she started out with 10 to see how it would go.  To move up a step they had to improve their placing from the morning.  Sarah was up first in the 'B' final of the 100 free, she went in 8th and came out 3rd...so 5 steps!  We got halfway to the goal in 1 race!  It was also her best time in over a year!

Heidi was up next in the 'A' final of the 200 fly, she went in 6th and came out with the BRONZE and a best time!  So...3 steps!  She got to pose with Miss Teen Saskatoon(who was wearing 6" heels). 

Lauren went into the fly 10th, improved her time and came out 10th.

Heidi was up again 15 minutes later(couldn't even get on the podium for her fly medal) in the 200 back 'A' final.  She went in 10th and came out 9th...1 step.  She also improved her time from the morning.

Peter was up next in the 'B' of the 200 back, he went in 2nd and came out 2nd but improved his time from the morning.

Then we got down to business with the 400 free!

Sarah was up again, this time in the 'A' final, she went in 7th and popped out a 4th place swim!  Woohoo...another 3 steps.

JO was in the 'B' final and although she didn't move up any 'steps' she had a best time!

Finn rounded out our night in the 'B' final of the 400 but struggled a little in the race.

So, altogether they moved up 12 steps(Sarah-8 and Heidi-4)

Today is a pretty tough day for Finn and Lauren, they each have 3 swims!

The 'step' goal for today is 50!

That should be fairly achievable as the girls' relay had another technical glitch during the entries and they are going into the 4x100 medley ranked 40th of 41!  The only team below them is entered with a 'NT'...hahaha

LAST DAY!!!!!!!!!

DAY 3 PRELIMS

 This is why we don't live in Saskatoon...snow tires on your bike!!

Looks like three might be the charm for Island!  We had 16 swims this morning and will have 8 going into finals tonight!

Sarah(Y)- 100 free 13th
              -200 back 15th (scratching)
              -400 free 7th

Heidi- 200 fly 6th
         -200 back 10th

Lauren- 200 fly 10th

JO- 400 free 13th

Peter(Y)- 200 back 12th

Finn(Y)- 400 free 11th

We had a great swim from Chloe today, she had a 5 second best time in the 200 back, good enough for a 24th place finish! 
Our other swims were:
Heidi- 100 free 20th
Peter(Y)- 100 free 27th
Kurt(Y)- 100 free 30th
Molly(Y)- 400 free 34th
Peter(Y)-400 free 16th
Sam(Y)- 400 free 32nd

It is a beautiful day today, sunny and about -1º!
Everyone's having a sleep now and then it's off for some exciting racing!

DAY 2!

Unfortunately, it looks like the kids are having a tough time being here...all sad and crying.

Last night started off with a flurry or swims, slowed down then got going again with the relay.

Heidi was in the first race(100 back) of the night and after they had to stand behind the blocks for almost 15 minutes she had a good race and moved up a place.  She ended up 8th, just missing her best time.

Peter was up 5 minutes later in the 'B' final and also moved himself up a spot to 14th.  His time improved too!

Heidi was then up immediately after Pete for the 50 fly, again she snuck up a spot and took 7th.

Then we had to wait through the 200 breast(yawn), 50 free and 400IM(another yawn)before our girls got to race their 4x100free relay.  They went in 40th(due to a slight technical error in the entries) and raced an exciting race with Prince George and came out 8th overall!  Unfortunately, due to another glitch, the boys didn't get to race a relay...oh well, there's always Sunday night's medley!

Today we have 16 swims in prelims so we hope to get some more second swims...stay tuned.  I am off to cleanup after breakfast then take the 'D' Units to the pool for their warmup.

 

A BIT OF A CHILLY START!

 Cindy did a little 'selfy' this morning(she was the only one who braved going out to warm up her vehicle).  It started out at -18º when we left for the pool.  By the time I took the next pic. it had started to really heat up!  The trees looked really cool this morning too, there was freezing fog overnight so when we got up all the trees were beautiful!
 Okay, enough about the weather! 
 For those of you 'watching' at home I will explain how they are running finals.  They are taking the top 10 youth and top 10 open swimmers for the 'A' finals.  For the first time this year, they are taking the next 5 fastest of each age group to make up the 'B' final.  So if one of our swimmers ends up 15th they will be in the 'B' final.
 So now that you know how everything works...

Youth- (Y)
in finals
 Events today were:
100 back-
Heidi- 9th
Chloe-24th
Sarah(Y)- 17th
Peter(Y)-15th...thanks to a DQ!!

200 breast-
Lauren-19th
Finn(Y)-23rd

50 free-
Heidi- tied for 16th
Sarah(Y)-34th
Peter(Y)-28th
Kurt(Y)-31st

400IM-
Lauren-33rd
JO-38th
Finn(Y)-25th
Stefan-21st...10 second best time!


So that puts us in 3 finals tonight since the 50 fly is going right after the 100 back tonight.  Heidi has 13 minutes between her back and fly!
We also the girls in the 4x100 free.
Things aren't scheduled to end until almost 9 tonight!  So maybe no updates until tomorrow.

It has finally begun!

 

 Here we go...first excitement of the day was the girls' 1500 free!  Sarah ripped it up and got her senior time!!!!!!! 17:21.52, what a great race!  JO did a fantastic job after being so sick and went 17:41.68.  Molly swam her first race of her Westerns career and had  BEST TIME by almost a minute!  

  The boys had their 800 free and Finn had a 9 second best time.  Sam and Stefan both added a bit of time.

  Next up were the 50's, Heidi was in the fly(best time) and the back and will be going in 9th and 6th respectively.  The fly is tomorrow and the back is on Sunday.

  Pinches was in the back and being more of a 200 guy struggled getting himself going.  Watch out for the 100 tomorrow though!

 The boys(Peter, Finn, Stef and Sam) finished the day off with the 4x200 free relay going just a touch faster than their seed time.

 Tomorrow, Kurt, Lauren and Chloe start their meet!

Just finished up our 'Greek night' dinner and about to have our team meeting then off to bed to prepare for the first full day of the meet.

Good Morning!  As you can see, everyone is here and even JO is smiling.  They all received their little Valentine goody bags and are ready to get to it!

Feb 13 - Cold in Saskatoon

 Unfortunately you can't really see in this pic that it is snowing/blowing and that Sam, Lauren and Finn are standing in a big snow bank.  JO and Stefan are missing...JO has been sick since she arrived last night and Stefan hadn't arrived yet.  We quarantined JO and as of right now she is feeling MUCH better.  She ate dinner and is getting ready to burn it up in her 1500 tomorrow! 
In Saskatoon terms, it was downright balmy out today!  It actually went up to about 2º!  Tomorrow it is supposed to go down to -21º with a high of -6º, good thing your kids don't play soccer!

Here is a shot of the pool, the kids say they like it so we might see some fast swimming from them!
Today they swam twice, did homework, rested and shopped for their snacks.  After this morning's practice they came home for a 'cook up' of French toast, fried eggs, sausages and fruit.
Tonight was Caesar salad with spaghetti and meatballs.

This was the road on our way home from the pool this afternoon...no, I didn't take it while driving, my co-pilot did!
Everyone one seems to be revving themselves up for the start of the meet as they are all tucked up in their rooms already.  Phew, I get to lie down for awhile!  That's before I get back up to marinate the chicken for tomorrow's Greek night.
Good night!

Off to Saskatoon for Western Canadian Champs

 ON OUR WAY TO WESTERNS 2013

SASKATOON!

Here is Chloe and Lauren boarding the plane in Victoria.  I had 7 of the kids with me:  Sarah Mabee Hall, Heidi Bradley, Finn Page, Peter Inches, Kurt Schaaf, Chloe Chapman and Lauren McMillan.  Lucky for us, our flights went very smoothly and we arrived in Saskatoon a little early.

    I took this picture just before we landed in Saskatoon.  It was about -1ºC when we arrived and it was beautiful.  I picked up the van(with 18km on it!) and made 2 trips to the hotel to get the kids all settled.
   I found out that Cindy's flight was cancelled so she won't even be getting here until midnight, instead of 6:00!  She is bringing: Sam Wohlegemuth, Jessie Ogden and Molly Heaney Corns.  They will be exhausted from their marathon journey.  Good thing we came a day early!
   Tomorrow will be a day to have a couple of swims to get used to the pool and the time change.
  The kids are all fed and are just hanging out in their rooms watching TV.
 ~Karen

Final Day at Jr Pan Pacs

Photo credit: Nancy Brothers (Click image to enlarge) more photos on our facebook page.

The last day of Junior Pan Pac Championships was the most successful for the Canadian Team yet.

We had lots of great swims from the morning and some real medal contenders going into finals. Stefanie swam to a personal best in the 1500 and Peter in the 800.

Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson started off the finals with GOLD in the 200 IM, Kierra Smith and Mariya Chekanovych repeated their results from the 100 breast in the 200 Breast, winning GOLD and SILVER and Kierra set a new meet record. Then Will Brothers finished the 800 free with a SILVER medal and personal best time. The last medal of the evening was a very exciting race with the girls 4x100 medley relay in which Canada finished with a BRONZE.

Canada won a total of 11 medals at this meet with many fourth place finishes which was great to see.

All in all it was a fantastic meet with great swimming, hope you enjoyed the photos,

Nancy

Day 3 of Jr Pan Pacs

Photo credit: Nancy Brothers (Click image to enlarge) more photos on our facebook page.

Aloha from Oahu on day three of Junior Pan Pac Championships.

It was another great day for Canada. We started off finals with a team cheer competition between all the teams and with Peter and Stef leading the cheer- Canada won! It was a great start to another golden evening.

Taylor finished 8th in the 400 free B final, Peter finished 2nd with a personal best time in the 400 free B final and Will finished 6th with a personal best in the 400 A final.

Then Noemie Thomas won gold in the 100 fly after crushing the meet record in the morning prelims.

In the 200 Back, Stefanie swam a huge personal best in her B final and Peter took another second off in his B final.

Then the girls 4x100 relay swam to a very tight and exciting Bronze medal.

Sunday is the last day of regular competition.

Nancy

Live Results Here

Canada is golden on Day 2 of Jr. Pan Pacs

Photo credit: Nancy Brothers (click photo to enlarge)

Aloha from Oahu on day two of the junior pan pac Championships. The Canadian Team did well again today, prelims saw best times from most of the swimmers and we had many in medal contention going into the finals. Peter, Taylor and Stefanie swam the 100 free and Will swam the 400 IM this morning. Will made the A final in the 400 IM with a best time.

At finals, I was feeling the pain for the booth officials as we had major timing board electronic issues and out came the stop watches!

Finals were very successful for the Canadian squad as Canada's Kierra Smith and Mariya Chkanovych won GOLD and SILVER respectively in the girls 100 breast and the Boys Relay team won BRONZE in the boys 4x200 free relay.

Will finished 5th in the 400 IM with another best time. Its great to see the team spirit at these meets, all the teammates cheer every swimmer on which makes it really exciting.

Day three update tomorrow, Nancy

Live Results Here

Jr. Pan Pacs Day 1

Photo Credit: Nancy Brothers

Aloha from Oahu! We are here in beautiful Oahu at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Centre.

Prelims went well with mostly best times from all the swimmers. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I had to laugh at the fact we were at a championship meet and they were looking for timers to start the prelims! I guess it is universal.

The meet is set up with A and B finals and the rules of the meet state that there can be no more than three swimmers in total for the A and B finals and no more than two per one final so Canada was able to have most A finals with two swimmers which was great.

Unfortunately for the finals it poured rain the whole evening but didn't dampen the spirit of the ever cheering Canadian squad.

We had some close fourth and fifth place finishes and best times overall which was excellent. Will was able to swim to a Bronze medal finish in the 1500 free which was a great finish to day one.

More updates coming,
Nancy

London August 1st

Great day for Canadian swimming with Brent Hayden getting Canada's first swimming medal, a bronze in the 100m freestyle. Martha McCabe is in finals tonight for 200m breast stroke, go Martha! Canada's women's 4x200m freestyle relay had a great swim to fourth place.

We walked to Buckingham Palace to see the queen, but I think she was napping at the time. Pretty gutsy to jump from a chopper with 007 and make a good landing to enter for the Olympics.  The guards actually get to move every once in a while.
We met up with Alec and took him to Canada House off of  Trafalgar Square.

2012 HTO Thetis Lake Open Water Swim

photo credit: Ondine Easson

Congratulations to everyone from Island Swimming who made it out to the 2012 HTO Thetis Lake Open Water Swim this past weekend, in support of MS. This is a great event that Island Swimming likes to support each year.

The event offers 4 different race distances to choose from; 800m, 1500m, 3k and 5k. In the 800m event, Alexa Bryant of Island Swimming was first overall and Caileigh Hunt-St.Louis was third. Hamish Babin finished third overall in the 1500m distance and Coach Avila Rhodes finished third in the women's 5k race. Island Swimming also had 3 para swimmers take part this year which is very impressive! Ann Marie Gatland placed 10th in the 800m, Peter Havers swam the 1500m and placed 25th and Drew Sabourin finished third in the men's 5k event.

Congratulations everyone!

Complete results here

London, July 29th

Riding the rail system here is fairly easy, we have our route figured out to the Olympic park and to Trafalgar Square where Canada House is. We were there last night watching finals. Brittany MacLean had an awesome swim in prelims, new Canadian record, she was up against the veterans and swam her heart out in the finals.
Can you believe a swim-off in the Olympics! Well, Tera Van Beilen swam well against the Jamaican in the 100m breast swim-off, but was edged out to 9th spot,  also Julia Wilkinson came 9th in her 100 back. Good job as well to Blake Worsley, Sinead Russel, Charles Francis, Jillian Tyler, Brent Hayden, Collin Russell, Richard Hortness and Thomas Gossland.


We have been out and about to see a few sights here.If you are wondering what that shape is in one of the pictures we posted, it is called the Orbit. It is a sculpture in Olympic Park, you can walk up the stairs for a view, we will try that when we get back into the park to see prelims tomorrow. Finn and I went onto the London Eye on Friday, great view from up there, no line ups either.

Canadian Age Group Championship Top 8 Results for Island Swimming

Summary of Island Swimming finalist's results at the Canadian Age Group Championships. Congratulations swimmers.

Sunday - Final Results

400 Free
Erin Lawrance -5th



Saturday - Final Results

200 breast
Cassandra Purdon -4th

200 Free
Erin Lawrance - 4th
Taylor Padington - 7th



Friday - Final Results

100 breast
Rebecca Langlois - 7th
Cassandra Purdon - 8th

200 Fly
Heidi Bradley - 6th

50 Free
Erin Lawrance - 8th

800 Free
Taylor Padington - Bronze
Erin Lawrance - 5th




Thursday - Final Results

100 Free
Taylor Padington - 4th

50 Back
August Horeth - 6th
Heidi Bradley - 8th



Wednesday - Final Results

100 Fly
Erin Lawrance - 6th

200 Back
Peter Inches - 5th

July 28th, London 2012 prelims

The first day of swimming races, and I must say the atmosphere was incredible. Everyone cheering for everyone, no matter if you were from Great Britain or Tonga, we would cheer. There were some huge upsets and amazing happenings in the prelims. Park Tae Hwan got disqualified in the 400 free, he has appealed but at this point I don't know if he won it or not. But on better note for our Canadian athletes, right now in finals we have Ryan in the 400 free, Scott Dickens in the 100 breast semi final and now it seems that Katerine Savard is in the 100 fly semi final. Stephanie Horner, Victoria Poon, Julia Wilkinson, Samantha Cheverton, Heather Maclean and Alec Page all did well in their races too. There were amazing accomplishments from the all the athletes. There was a Olympic Record set this morning from Dana Vollmer from the USA with a time of 56.25 in the 100 fly. We scored some tickets for tonight's finals should be good.

Results on the final day of Summer Nationals

800 Free
Taylor Padington - 10th

50 Free
Taylor Padington - 20th

200 Breast
Cassandra Purdon- 19th

1500 Free
Eric Hedlin - Silver
Will Brothers - Bronze
Peter Brothers - 4th

Congruatulations to all the Island Swimming athletes and coaches. It was a great meet. Island Swimming finished 4th overall.