mattie g

The US Men looked really good in both the Mexico and Canada matches and were deserved Nations League winners. Not going to dissect the matches, but I was really pleased with what I saw! As for Berhalter, the discourse is ridiculous. I have absolutely no issues with his reappointment nor, does it seem, do the players. We have three years until the World Cup, and if things don't go well through Copa America, then we can make a change leading into 2026.

Turned out a little chillier (and breezier) than ideal because our hosts' pool was mostly in the shade during the meet, but our kids were seated in the sun, so they looked comfortable enough! We had lots of good swims, including personal bests and a team record! And I have to brag on my older girl who won her first A Meet heat ever with her own 50 Free personal best! I have to say that I felt bad for the other team reps because they were missing more swimmers than they expected, which led to a pretty lopsided, unfortunate final score. Plenty of closer meets to come, though.

Lots and LOTS of underwater volcanoes!

HRRR doesn't seem super enthused about our latest weather-hype phenomenon. Maybe some smoky haze, but nothing like what it was last week.

I appreciate the heads up! I think we'll be fine though.

For sure. If there's one thing I've become more appreciative of, it's how the referee sets the tone for how the meet will run and how the clerk of course keeps sh*t moving. First B Meet makes sense for a new ref to work, but I think he was a little overwhelmed. Hopefully he comes along and gets more comfortable as the season progresses. We're lucky to have a fantastic CoC who worked last night (at home meets, she's a monster!), but with the chaos on the deck and the other team's coaches/reps not really doing anything about it, there was only so much they could do. I honestly have no idea why they even had marshals since there was barely a thing they could do to keep the deck clear. That's high praise for H2O's pool! I hope other teams feel the same about ours!

Team size is all relative, but last night's other team is bigger than ours, though probably on the smaller size of the NVSL spectrum in general. And even with that, after the 30-minute thunder delay, we didn't get done until about 9:35 . It was a bit of a sh*tshow, to be honest. Their swim club's footprint is tiny, so it's absolute chaos on the deck; they also had a first-time referee who, while a very nice guy, didn't do a great job of setting the tone for moving things along. Also, from what I could tell, there were a number of times when kids from the other team were supposed to be there to start, but they weren't there so the officials waited for the kids to be found. Luckily, they're five minutes away, so it wasn't a long drive home, but still lots and lots of tired faces today! I can't wait to get through this last week of afternoon practices and to the first A Meet and morning practices after!

Our meet finished so f'ing late last night. Kids at the bus stop were miserable this morning We host a B Meet this coming Monday, and while we need the rain I really hope it holds off. Kids love those meets, as does the team because B Meet concessions make a HUGE difference for us!

Some very light rain with a distant rumble of thunder or two that delayed our swim meet last night. And damn...it was chilly by the time it finished (at like 9:40 pm)!

Our team has 95 kids this year*, and that includes the littles, so we're able to cruise through things like time trials and B Meets against teams that are pretty close to our size (we have two teams in our B Meet group that are substantially bigger than we are). And we also only swam ourselves in time trials (never even considered having another team involved!). Same as you, we had two new S&Ts helping out, but our timers time for the whole meet since we don't have enough families to be able to split the shifts. The best thing was that the kids danced on the lower and upper decks after we were done. Now...THAT made it feel like summer swim! Most of our folks are pretty cool, but as with any large group of people we have our pains in the azz. I just try to ignore them. * 95 kids is five more swimmers than last year, which was almost ten more than the year before that. if there's one thing I'm really trying to contribute to this team is to get more kids and more families involved!

I think having a smaller team can help in many ways in getting folks involved. We all know each other well and there’s a little bit of light peer pressure without anyone overtly putting the pressure on. What’s interesting is that I was just looking at the NVSL officials list and our team has more officials than many of the much bigger teams, which really surprised me! Sounds like you had an amazing experience, though I totally get your feeing of it also being a drag on your summer! I can’t agree enough that it builds relationships and a true neighborhood bond that would be hard to recreate in other ways. My wife and I have developed friendships with other families that likely would never had happened had it not been for summer swim, and being the social creatures we are we’re profoundly thankful for it!

You can probably credit that quick wrap-up to two things: 1) A relatively small team with not all kids able to make it and 2) A clerk of course who takes no prisoners! We started at 8, so in all it was pretty quick. It helps that our primary clerk of course is also the pool ops lead and wanted to make sure we were done well in advance of the pool’s 11am opening time! It really was great to have finally had the kids in the water in the morning. Good luck to your team this year!

Turned out to be an amazing morning. A little chilly to start, but by the time we finished (about 9:45) it was really nice. Mornings at the pool make it really feel like summer!

I think this is being lost with all the smoke discussion. The temperatures have been outrageous for quite some time now. To have lows consistently in the 40s and 50s through much of May and the first week of June is amazing. Since the beginning of May, Dulles has had only three nights with lows of 60 or above.

I honestly love it. It's a pain in the ass and kills my ability to do much else in the summer, but I really wouldn't have it any other way. I went so far as to get S&T recertified last weekend and will be doing new Starter training this Sunday. I figure I have to keep myself involved after I retire from the Team Rep gig!

My team does data analytics for a government client. Talk about nerding out and going down serious data rabbit holes on this stuff...

We have a few teenagers who help our younger swimmers, but they're mostly walking on the bottom while helping the little ones with their strokes and the like, i.e., not doing any strenuous activity. That young group is a lot of 5s and 6s who are beyond a learn-to-swim program but who still need to build stamina to get across the pool regularly. Our other 8&U kids are swimming without coaches in the pool. Our Juniors program starts the week after school is out...those are the ones who need a crew of teenage coaches there at all times to keep them safe. Sounds similar to the kids your 10-plus coaches (really good number of coaches, by the way!) are working with. Good on you for wearing a mask! I think there are a lot of folks who won't because they'd rather show that a little haze doesn't bother them. That may seem at odds with how I've been talking about this, but there does come a point where it's just not a good idea to be bullheaded about it and to accept that there are health hazards associated with this awful AQI.

I would imagine it helps in the immediate term, but the prevailing winds could eventually bring in smoke from other areas.

Sure...we realize that. I'm not terribly concerned about the coaches who are walking around the pool barking at the kids to stop doing flips, leaning on the lane lines, and staying in their streamlines after the start. The air quality wasn't *that* bad yesterday afternoon such that simply being outside was a danger. Our concern is with the kids who are going hard in practice and breathing hard in the process, and our intent is to let the parents make the decision they feel is best for their kids. In the end, we cancelled anyway, as the coaches outvoted my co-rep and me on holding/not holding practice. Now...with air quality like this morning there's no way we'd have made a decision to practice - optional or not. I wore an N95 in the city this morning because it was nasty as hell, and I wouldn't ask our coaches to be outside for three hours coaching in those conditions...let alone even suggest to parents that we'd practice in it!

So did mine. Ugh.

Lucky you guys! I have no idea why ours are being kept in until then since we also had no days off, but we persevere...

Picture I took from on top of a building at 10th and F, NW at about 8:00am. The Capitol should be visible on the middle left, but no dice. Edit: It's interesting that the smoke is much more noticeable in the picture around where the sun is shining, but in person it all looks pretty much the same (and definitely not blue like on the right/west).

Our kids are in school until next Friday.

Fairfax County just cancelled all on-premise outdoor activities for the day. This is interesting and all, but it's already gotten old.

Always...