Hello Senior Reds!

First of all, this will be a long post but the information is important! I want to congratulate you on the strong swims this weekend. Even though half of us are injured in some way or another and everyone is sore from our journey to Hogwarts, you all persevered and swam hard. I know that some parents were confused with the tactics this weekend but since everyone was so exhausted from the Hell Weeks, the swimmers could swim long and strong, or choose a different race pattern to test out, in the prelim if it was a guaranteed final. Obviously, this won’t be the case at Regionals where we will put 100%and use our strongest race pattern during every race! 

I want to congratulate the Hell Week Club Prize winners for their full attendance during the first week at Hogwarts:

Lucas Ashley Quinn Caroline Elizabeth K

Nikol Nick P Brian Tia Nick 

I also want to congratulate the Hell Week “Potter’s Pizza Party” winners for their full attendance (with the exception of one battle) during the second week at Hogwarts: 

Lucas Ashley Will Quinn Daniel Tia

Olivia Nick K Nikol Nick P Brian

Congratulations to Hufflepuff for winning the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup! Quidditch seemed very fun you all so I am glad, even though it was aggressive at times everyone… let’s just be grateful the posts lasted the two weeks. It was a close battle with Gryffindor only 1 House Point behind and Ravenclaw and Slytherin within 58 points! I’m so proud of how hard everyone worked. 

The party will take place at my house (the swimmers have the address – also SW: “Bellatrix”) on Thursday, August 1st from 12:00-3:00. Pizza will be provided for the winners but any other Wizards who would like to join can come for $5 for pizza! It will be a magical time. 

Also, Beach Day is on Tuesday at Centennial Beach from 11:30-3:00 on the beach from the first parking lot/playground. Pack lunch if you don’t want to buy it, wear sunscreen, and bring lots of water! I will be bringing some skimboards, volleyball, frisbees, and soccer ball for anyone’s use. 

Seniors here is the practice plan for the week – come to as many as possible:

• MAm: 5:00 OYO – quick 15:00 progression/stroke
• MPm: 400w/u – 20:00 progression/stoke; choose top 2 then ½ of 3rd 
• TPm: 50’s descending, breakouts – relay takeovers/dives
  • Beach Day & Will’s BDay!!
• WAm: 25’s w/u – turns & middle 50’s – 4×100 best @5
• WPm: 330w/u – 12.5’s for breakouts/finishes – free/fly turn races – dive 25’s – 4x45s FAD
• Th/Pasta Night: 400w/u – 4xspeedplay/stroke – turn races – 2×50 FAD or 1×100 FAD
  • This is MANDATORY as it is a social event – let me know by Wednesday with a legitimate reason why you can not attend
  • also Potter’s Pizza Party!
• FAm (645-8): Depends on attendees

I am so proud of you all and I know that Regionals is going to be amazing based on all of your performance in these last few weeks. Thanks for making this an awesome summer (with more to come!). 

See you on the pool deck,

Coach Alexis

Hey Junior Whites, 

Congratulations to everyone who participated in hell week! Everyone was working super hard and putting over 100% effort in, I was very impressed. 

For the next two weeks we will focus a lot more on technique and doing much shorter sprinting sets. Our dives and turns needs some work, so we will be spending time almost every practice perfecting them as we get closer to regionals!

Great job for the swimmers who competed in WRASA this weekend, even though we were tired lots of us still got best times! 

See you on the pool deck. 

Coach Sophia

Hello Wizards!

Congratulations on completing your first week of wizardry lessons at Hogwarts. Many of you came to all the practices and qualified for the club prize, amazing job! I know it was a very difficult week but I also hope that it was lots of fun while you were working hard.

To those who came to WRASA……outstanding job pushing through the pain of this week! We are exactly where we want to be in the season plan right now based on times and I am even more excited for the next two weeks because of your awesome swims. 

This week is Hogwarts 2.0. We will be tackling many challenges like finding the Philosopher’s Stone, defeating the Basilisk, saving an innocent man from Dementors, and finding the remaining horcruxes we need to defeat Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Attendance at all but one practice is mandatory for an invitation to the Hogwarts Pizza Party. Come ready with runners and water bottles (even at morning practices) and ready to work hard for another week. 

I am also beyond excited for Heroes and Villains on Wednesday! Remember that this is MANDATORY for the prize and can not be your one skipped practice. Wear your costumes and cheer hard for some House Points for your team!

I am incredibly proud of everyone’s work so far and know that we will be ready for Regionals when it comes in two weeks. One more thing, the secret word is “lumos.” Keep up the awesome work Senior Reds.

See you on the pool deck, 

Coach Alexis

Attention: Intermediate Red Agents 

You have been selected to attend the Top Secret Steveston Spy Academy Training Centre. Over the course of one intensive week, you will be trained and tested on a number of physical and intellectual skills. If you are deemed fit, you will be chosen to complete a top secret mission on 07/19/19. If you accept this mission please meet your squad and academy trainer at Steveston pool on 07/15/19 at 18 30 hours. 

Your training will begin immediately, will be intense and will commence everyday. Only the toughest, smartest, most swift agents will be successful. 

Destroy all evidence of this letter immediately.

Hey Intermediate Whites,

I am so impressed with everyone’s swimming so far this season, we are all working really hard in practice and getting lots of best times at the meets! 

Hell Week is coming up next week and this year our theme is Olympics!! Over the next two weeks, we will be in teams and competing in 14 different Olympic events to find the 2019 Olympic Champions of Intermediate White. I hope all of you try your best to come to as many practices as possible because there will be a club-wide prize at the end of the week. If you want to win this prize you must attend every practice in the first week (July 15 to 19), including the Grouse Grind and the triathlon. Attendance in the second week (July 22-26) and the Heroes vs Villains event is not mandatory to receive the club prize but is still part of Hell Week and will count for points that will help your team win!

Extra points will be awarded during Hell Week if you bring a water bottle and runners to practice so don’t forget them!

If you have any questions come and see me at the pool and I will be happy to answer them.

Coach Hailey

Hey Senior Whites,

Great work this weekend at Hootenanny! Our breakouts looked so much better and lots of us got best times. This week we have been reviewing proper technique for all four strokes. Our attendance these past few weeks has been amazing, keep it up!

Hell week starts Monday July 15^th, and our theme is monopoly. Over the next 2 weeks we will be playing a swimming version of monopoly. Your goal is to have the most meters at the end of both weeks. Here are the basic rules you need to know in order to complete hell week, and win the club prize:

1. Must attend all practices from July 15^th to July 19^th (8 practices)
2. Must attend minimum 6 practices from July 22^nd to July 26^th, can miss one practice this week
3. Must attend grouse grind (July 16^th), triathlon (July 18^th), and heroes vs, villains (July 24^th)
4. Must be on time, and stay for entire practice in order for it to count
5. Must bring a water bottle and runners to every practice
6. Come to all afternoon practices 15 minutes early. Not attending the extra 15 minutes will count as being late to practice.

If you have any questions regarding hell week feel free to email me at erika@kigoos.com.

See you at the pool,

Coach Erika

Hey JD Reds!

Great job on Wednesday at the Kigoos JD meet, we had awesome attendance so many best times!

Next week is the JD Fun Week and our theme for this years fun week is Toy Story 4. Attendance will be taken on one big attendance sheet for all the JDs and at the end of the week we will have a scoops party as the reward for attending practices. We will be giving one ice cream scoop per practice and after you receive two scoops, each additional practice you come to you will earn one extra topping for your ice cream!

On Friday, July 26th (Friday) we will be having the JD triathlon so be sure to bring your bike and a helmet as well as running shoes and of course a swimsuit.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Coach Lucy

Hi Kigoos!

Great job at the Hootenanny! It was exciting to see so many Kigoos in the finals and on the podium at the second biggest meet of the year.

Here is a reminder around relays:  Relays are intended to be a fun, team building experience for swimmers of all groups. The coaches work very hard, often spending hours in advance of the meet building the relays in an attempt to give everyone an opportunity to participate. The relays cards are submitted before the meet begins, and once they are handed in they cannot be edited. If you wish to have your child not participate in a relay, this needs to be indicated in the comment section of the meet sign up and communicated to the coaches in advance of the meet. Thanks everyone for your cooperation in keeping the relays fun for everyone!

This week, the Intermediate Red swimmers will be training hard while polishing our technique and race tactics in preparation for Hell Week which begins on Monday. Our main technique focus of the week will be on underwaters and we will work on utilizing the dolphin kick we have been practicing everyday. The fastest swimmers almost always have the longest underwaters, as fast dolphin kick is generally faster than swimming, so we will work on the rate and duration of our dolphin kick off the wall as the focal point of our training this week. Here you can watch how Michael Phelps blows everyone out of the water with his underwaters, winning the race by over a full body length and smashing the world record. With only four weeks left until Regionals, I hope to see the pool full during the Intermediate Red practices. The season is flying by and every practice counts. The best way for the swimmers to swim fast and reach their goals at the end of the season, is attending practice every day.

Finally, congratulations to the most recent swimmers of the week, Yasmine and Maddy. Yasmine has one of the best attendance in the group and trains smart and very hard everyday. Yasmine constantly challenges herself in practice by choosing difficult intervals, pushing herself through injury and always striving to meet the goals of the set. She asks smart questions and works on applying feedback immediately, and these habits have paid off as she recently took 2 full seconds off her 50 freestyle time in addition to improvements in other strokes.  Maddy has recently shown improvements in her training. She attends practices often and takes ownership for her own improvement by demonstrating an understanding between hard work and results. She thinks critically about the movements she makes in the water, often asking questions to better understand technique and aid in her development.  She has been working hard on her breaststroke and took almost 5 seconds off this weekend. Way to go girls!

Looking forward to a fun weekend in Surrey.

See you at the pool!

Emmy