How to Palm Springs

For those traveling to Palm Springs this weekend, bring your woollies.

Tip #1 - As you arrive at the pool, you will turn off Baristro Road onto Pavilion Way, which dead ends with a turn-around at the pool's main entrance.  Don't enter there.  Instead, just before the turn-around is a square parking lot on the right.  It has a circle where passengers can be dropped off.  That's where you want to enter.  The sidewalk leads into a courtyard between two buildings, and eventually to the pool.  Enter at the green arrow, not the red arrow.

Tip #2 - The restrooms on the far east end of the pool (red star on map) are open air with stainless steel toilets, and the lows will be in the 40's ... catch my drift?  Luckily, a more modern set of restrooms are located by the courtyard (green star), although they typically don't open them until Saturday morning ... go figure.

Tip #3 - Parking can suck.  It will be worse Saturday and Sunday mornings than Friday evening, and worse yet after noon, when the second session swimmers arrive before the first session swimmers leave.  If a softball tournament, at one of the ball fields in the area, happens to pick the same weekend, it can make things much worse.  In that case, get there early or be prepared to park 1/2 mile away ... you have been warned.

Tip #4 - Eat at the pool.  The host team cooks all day and offers some pretty good food.  If you leave to go get food, don't expect to find a convenient parking spot when you return (see tip #3).  They use a ticket system to pay for food.  You can buy tickets at one of the tables (usually by where they have the raffle items) and redeem them for food in 25 cent increments.

Tip #5 - Your swimmers must check-in each day when they arrive to let the host team know they are present.  They will be scratched from the session (not allowed to swim) if they fail to check in.  A table will be set up, usually in the courtyard (look for the long lines), for checking in.

Tip #6 - Parents are allowed to gather on the turn end of pool and that's the best place to cheer on your swimmer(s).  Also, pictures are not allowed from behind the blocks but are allowed on the turn end.  It gets crowded down there and sometimes people are slow to vacate when their swimmer finishes, blocking you from getting close to see your swimmer.  You sometimes need to be a bit assertive to make your way through the people.

Tip #7 - Consider buying a meet T-Shirt, as they customize it for your team (DART) and your swimmer.  They transfer the names of several team's swimmers onto the back, ensuring DART is one of the teams, then they place a star beside the swimmer of your choice.  Its a cool idea that the kids seem to like a lot.

Tip #8 - Bring chairs.  The facility has a large deck and quite a bit of grassy area, but provides no seating.  You will need a chair for everyone attending.

Tip #9 -  It can get cold in the mornings and in the evenings, especially for the swimmers.  Swim parkas, sweatshirts/pants will be needed ... and don't forget their feet!

Tip #10 - Swimmers who practice inside (like DART swimmers) often struggle with backstroke events in outdoor pools, as there is no overhead reference to help steer them and the sun can be brutal.  One way to help them is to bring dark tinted goggles.  The meet always has a vendor onsite if you don't have some already.

Wanted: A Small Army

DART's chairman, Monica Moreno, recently sent out an email asking parents to sign up to help at the DART IMX meet in a couple weeks.  Sometimes it seems a bit too much, doesn't it? ... monthly fee$, suit$, cap$, goggle$, fin$, fundraiser$, meet fee$, coaching fee$ ... and now I need to volunteer my time, too?  In a word, yes.

DART isn't a corporation of paid employees.  DART is a group of parents purposed to serve their own kids.  Aside from coaches, nobody on DART gets paid anything ... nobody.  Everything that happens out of the pool gets done with volunteered hours.

The person who takes care of billing - a parent volunteer.
The people who organized the Swim-A-Thon - parent volunteers.
The person who takes T-Shirt orders ... the person who maintains the website ... the board of directors ... the people who organize the annual banquet ... the person who pays the bills ... well, you get it ... everything that gets done, gets done because a parent volunteered their time.

So, everything that doesn't get done, doesn't get done because no parent volunteered.  It takes a small army to host DART's annual IMX Challenge Meet properly, and without you, something that should get done, won't get done.  The team needs you, so please enlist sign up to help.  Just sign onto the DART website and click "Job Signup" next to the DART IMX meet ...

Swimsuits - Part One - The Basics

Buying a competitive swimsuit in 1973 ...

1.  Find the right size
2.  Pick the color/design
3.  Buy the suit

Fast forward forty years and things get a bit more complicated.  Advances in the science of swimming have been paralleled by advances in the science of swimwear.  First the basics ...

1)  Competition suits differ from recreational suits, in that they always fit snugly.  Any material that flaps as a swimmer moves through the water creates drag ... and drag is public enemy number one in the science of swimming.  Buy only suits designed specifically for competitive swimming, even for practice ... your swimmer will like you more (teenagers will hate you less).

2)  Boys have the choice of "brief" or "jammer" style.  Until one considers high priced technical suits, the choice here is purely preference.  Some boys like the sense of swagger that comes with briefs.  Mom's typically like the modesty of jammers.  That battle is yours ... but some brands have started producing mid-length jammers as a compromise.

3)  Girls also have two basic style choices, standard "one piece" and "kneeskin", where kneeskins extend down the legs to the knees.  Girl competition suits can look similar to recreational one piece suits with one distinction.  Competition suits are cut higher in the front to prevent the suit from filling with water on the dive.  Again, except for technical suits, neither style can claim much advantage over the other, though kneeskins rarely get offered at the lowest price ranges.  Girl suits also get offered with various strap widths and back patterns, and each girl tends to develop preferences over time.

USA Swimming Structure - Part Three - Swim Meets

Geography and governance create a framework, but at some point swimmers need to compete before swimming can be called sport.  Swim Meets are what DART does ... what USA Swimming does.  The picture below depicts the ladder of swim meets a swimmer can climb, given enough talent, the right genes and the will ... and quality coaching, great teammates, supportive parents, lots of money a boatload of pool time, and a healthy portion of luck.

Intrasquad Meets - Most DART swimmers have participated in one of the team's DART vs DART intrasquad meets.  They provide a training ground and represent the lowest level of competition we see.

Invitational Meets - The never ending supply of club-hosted swim meets provide a staple for most swimmers in the US. The overwhelming majority of swim competitions in this country come in the form of invitationals, dual meets and mini meets.  All DART-hosted meets fall into this category, as do 95% of all Utah and Las Vegas meets.

Qualifier Club Meets - A small percentage of club-hosted meets attempt to raise the bar by requiring qualifying times (Time Standards).  While time standards squeeze out swimmers without the necessary speed/experience, the format provides a raised level of competition for those who do.  It also provides motivation to achieve faster times.  DART has attended several such meets in recent years.  The Lost Dutchman in Chandler Arizona and the Grand Junction Invite have become regulars on the DART meet schedule.  The CHAT Invitational and DRAT's BB Qualifier provide such choice in Utah.

LSC Championship Meets - Each LSC holds two championship-style meets, one at the end of each swimming season.  Invitation to these meets comes via attaining qualifying times only.  Meets follow a Preliminary/Finals format and boast the top swimmers in the LSC.  Utah's State meets represent the highest level of USA Swimming competition within Utah's borders.  From here, the levels get increasingly more challenging and the qualifying times get increasingly faster.

Regional Meets - Before USA Swimming became USA Swimming, regional meets provided some of the highest levels of competition offered.  Out west, the grand-daddy of such regional meets, called "Far Western Championships", still thrives despite swimming's structural changes.  Meets take place in Morgan Hill California, twice annually.  The meet has an 88 year history worth reading about and has hosted some big named swimmers/celebrities.

Zone Meets - The four zones exist to organize high level meets.  Each season, the Western Zone holds age-group (age 14 and under) and senior (age 15-18) championship meets, that pit LSCs against one another.  For the age-group meets, Utah assembles a unified "all-star" team of its best swimmers and travels to "Zones" as a unit. Senior Zones meets first came about this year, so its unknown if Utah plans to do the same for the seniors.

Sectional Meets - The four zones also host the highest level USA Swimming meets, short of the national level.  Sectionals do away with age groups ... women versus women, men versus men.  Western Sectionals draw the best high school-aged swimmers in the west, along with a few crazy-fast 13 and 14 years olds, some college kids, and a handful of older swimmers.  Most top college swimmers compete in the NCAA championships ... the college equivalent of sectionals.  While the Senior Zones meets also draw high school-aged swimmers, they serve as consolation meets for those unable to qualify for Sectionals.  Since Speedo sponsors the sectional meets, they are often called the Speedo Series.

National Level - At the top of the USA Swimming food chain are two sets of meets, each held semiannually.  Junior Nationals hosts the fastest youth (18 and under) swimmers in the country, and Nationals hosts the fastest swimmers in the country, period.  Nationals supersedes the obsolete US Open meet, though the US Open still exists.  During Olympic years, Summer Nationals transforms into the Olympic Trials, considered by many as the most competitive swim meet in the world, believing the depth of swimming talent in our country exceeds the depth at the Olympics.

International Level - FINA controls world swimming competition, including the Olympics and the World Championships.

DART 5th Annual IMX Challenge Meet

What:  DART's 5th Annual IMX Challenge Meet.  Meet Flyer

Where:  The SHAC.  This is DART's biggest home meet of the year.

When:  December 6th and 7th

Who:  Mandatory for all DART swimmers.

Why:  Swim meets are fundraisers for the teams that host them, and the IMX Challenge represents DART's biggest fundraiser meet of the year.

Sign up deadline is Sunday, December 1st

Last year, 275 or so swimmers walked through SHAC's front doors for our biggest IMX Challenge meet ever.  Several larger teams from northern Utah and Las Vegas have committed to attending our meet again this year.  This should be one fun meet.

IMR? IMX? I M Confused.

In a little over three weeks, DART will host its 5th Annual IMX Challenge Meet, but what exactly does IMX mean?  

Youth swimmers evolve as they mature and learn.  The freestyle might be a swimmer’s best stroke at age ten, but they could develop into a top backstroker later on.  Similarly, a swimmer might not realize their penchant for endurance until their coach introduces them to longer distance events.  Consequently, young swimmers should avoid specialization until much later in their development, or run the risk of never discovering their true talent.

For that reason, USA Swimming encourages all teams and all coaches to promote all strokes at all distances to all swimmers.  They covet complete swimmers.  It's good for the sport.  To support that desire, USA Swimming created two scores called IMR (IM Ready) and IMX (IM eXtreme) to assess the "completeness" of swimmers.   To acquire a score, a swimmer must have attained times in each of five or six events, that include all four basic strokes and IM events.  The specific events required are different for IMR and IMX and depend on the swimmer’s age.

IMR Events

Ages 10 & Under:          100 Free, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Fly, 100 IM (SC) or 200 IM (LC)

Ages 11 & 12:               200 Free, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Fly, 100 IM (SC) or 200 IM (LC)

Ages 13 & Over:            200 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

IMX Events

Ages 10 & Under:          200 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

Ages 11 & 12:               400 Free (LC) or 500 Free (SC), 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

Ages 13 & Over:            400 Free (LC) or 500 Free (SC), 200 Back, 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 200 IM, 400 IM

An IMR or IMX score is simply the sum of Power Points for the required events.  If a swimmer had power point scores of 150, 200, 250, 50 and 300 in the required five IMR events, then their IMR score would be 950 (150+200+250+50+300).  If a swimmer lacked a time in one or more of the required events, they would have no score.

USA Swimming uses IMX and IMR scores to rank swimmers at the club, LSC and national levels.  These rankings can be seen on Deck Pass.  Also, they reward member clubs through the Club Recognition Program for having a high percentage of its membership with IMR/IMX scores.  They even conduct a series of swim meets, called the IM Xtreme Games, where swimmers must have an IMX score of 1500 to qualify.

As for the DART IMX Challenge, special awards will be presented to athletes with the highest IMX scores accrued during the meet (per age group).  Remember, one must swim (without DQ) all the required IMX events, to even have an IMX score, and the IMX Challenge is no different.

Attention All DART Swimmers

Intra-squad meets provide a forum where coaches can teach proper swim meet etiquette, a topic difficult to explain in a non-meet setting.  Swimmers learn things like ...

waiting for the long whistle, before climbing up on the blocks
staying in the water until all swimmers finish the heat
staying still on the blocks once they take their mark

All the above are rules as well as etiquette and can be subject to disqualification at a strict meet.  Intra-squad meets also provide a training ground where DQs can be caught and discussed before they become DQs in a sanctioned meet.  Practices are great for stroke technique and building endurance, but meet experience can only be acquired at swim meets, and Intra-squad meets provide a low stress meet format for inexperienced swimmers.

DART holds intra-squad meets several times throughout the season and they have one coming up this week.

What:  DART Intra-squad meet
Where:  Our beloved SHAC
When: Friday, November 15th at 6:00 PM
Who:  All DART swimmers
Why:  Meet experience

Sign up today, but you will need to log on to the DART website to see the meet listed.

Quote 'O the Month

"For myself, losing is not coming second. It's getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I've been in." 
--Ian Thorpe

Some swimmers get out of the water after a race, in tears, struggling with the fact they lost to someone they thought they should beat.

Some swimmers get upset when their coach delivers a harsh critique after a race.

Some swimmers feel disappointment when they fail to achieve a goal time.

Ian Thorpe suggests that putting in your best effort equals success, and that success should feel like victory ... not disappointment or other ill feelings.

If one enters the water determined to do their very best, to swim their hardest, to incorporate what they've learned in practice, to focus on pre-race strategies - then they can get out of the water completely satisfied with their effort.  They can be satisfied regardless of who won, regardless of the time on the scoreboard, and regardless of what anyone else says. Being satisfied with their own effort means ...

A coach's harsh words become a valuable learning opportunity

Getting beat becomes an opportunity to be gracious in defeat

Falling short of a goal becomes incentive to work harder

Ian Thorpe, aka The Thorpedo, lead a vocal and talented Australian team in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games winning three gold and two silver medals.  He continues to swim competitively but failed to make his country's 2012 Olympic team. 

Power Up, with Power Points

Swimming, often called a "black and white sport", has an impartial scoring mechanism based on precise timings to the hundredth of a second.  Swim meets don't determine winners based on judgement ... and there are no points for style.  The swimmer who touches the wall first, wins ... period ... the end ... black and white.

But what if a twelve year old barley out touches an eleven year old in a race?  The twelve year old wins the race, but the eleven year old likely had the better performance given his/her younger age.  Enter the Hy-Tek company, with their concept of Power Points (tm).

Hy-Tek developed an algorithm that attempts to quantify the "quality" of a swim.  The algorithm calculates a normalized point value between 1 and 1100, given a swimmer's gender, age and swim time for a specific event.  The higher the power points ... the better the swim.

In theory, power points can be compared across gender, age and event boundaries.  200 power points equals 200 power points, regardless of who swam what event.  That means a ten year old girl swimming the 50 backstroke could race a thirteen year old boy swimming the 400 IM, and use power points to determine the winner ... in theory.  In reality, it seems the more dissimilar the swims, the less accurate the comparison would be ... but maybe that's just my skepticism.

Try out USA Swimming's  Power Point calculator for yourself.  Warning:  A swimmer's power points will be one (1) until the swimmer starts approaching the 'B' time standard for their age.

Web Page O' the Month

Last month's Web Page O' the Month introduced you to Deck Pass, which among other things, contains all your swimmer's meet times.  Yesterday's post showed you how to look up your swimmer's meet times on the DART website.  Last Thursday's post mentioned an easy way to see your swimmer's personal best times with this line ...

The Top Times Report on DART's website under the Swimmers tab (must log on to see it), displays the personal best times for every active DART member, and their highest achieved time standard.

 This month's Web Page O' the Month presents you with yet another path to your swimmer's meet times.  USA Swimming Individual Time Search page lets you find the times for any USA Registered swimmer since 2001 ... including your swimmer(s).  Here's what the search looks like ...

With a bit of luck, and a unique name, the page will display the times for the entered name and criteria ... like Missy Franklin's top 200 Back times from last year ...

If you search for a name that is not unique, the results will list all the USA registered swimmers with that name, one of which you must select to continue.  Did you know there are multiple swimmers named Michael Phelps?

The Michael Phelps we all know hails from Baltimore, so he would be the last entry in the list.  Clicking "Continue" next to his entry would display his times.  Hmmm, his middle name is Fred?

Track Your Times

If you're one of those Microsoft Excel gurus, you probably have all your swimmer's times neatly row'd and column'd, sorted and formatted, with the top times highlighted. The rest of us will just have to look them up, old school.  Here's one way ...

After logging on to the DART website, click My Account, then My Meet Results, and all your swimmer's times will appear, most recent on top.  If you have multiple swimmers, use the Member drop down box to select which one to display.

After just a few meets, the list can start getting long and cumbersome ... time to use the Search feature to slice and dice results.  For example: Specify a date range and get times from only that period ... or see only times for a single event by specifying a stroke and distance ... or see your swimmer's top times by setting the Top Times option to "Top 1".

To see how far your swimmers is from qualifying for JOs, use the Time Standards feature and select "[UT] 2013: 2013 AG State".  Doing so, will compare your swimmer's times to the State qualifying times, then display the deltas.  The delta will be highlighted green if your swimmer qualified or orange if they haven't.  Like this ...

Another useful Time Standard is the Motivational time standards option "2013: 2013-16 AG MOT SCY".  It's the first item in the list.  It calculates two deltas, one in green for the highest standard attained, and a second in orange for the next standard not yet attained.  See below ... Tina has an "A" time in her 50 yard freestyle and she needs to drop 0.78 seconds to get an "AA" time.

 Let's see your Excel spreadsheet do that!

November Birthdays

The crystal ball goggles foresees cake and ice cream in the near future for several DART swimmers ...

Jonathan Parker turns 8 on Monday the 4th, just in time for the first Tuesday of the month.

Daxton Green hits double-digits on the 13th.  Happy 10th, Daxton.

Savannah Longmore celebrates her 14th on the 14th.  How cool is that?

Helene Morford ages up to the 11-12 age group on the 21st.  Congrats on turning 11.