So there's good news and there's bad news...

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're doing well and survived the heavy fog this morning! 

A quick thanks to all of you who've swum this last week and suffered my slightly croaky voice! I had full-on laryngitis at the end of last week which started to come good over last weekend but has since then deteriorated over the course of this week again. Mish says it's "Man Flu" (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbmbMSrsZVQ for her description), but my suspicions are that it's been brought on by being run down from a need to get my pesky wisdom teeth removed and also my daughter Isla not sleeping very well this last week…in fact, this is how she's been doing it lately - fully stood up or leaning over a table / bed fearful that "the frogs in my bed are going to bite my cheeks Daddy!" and screaming as such every 20 minutes or so - any sage advice from anyone would be very much appreciated! I think we've averaged 50 minutes per night sleep this week - urgh!

End of Mojo Program Time Trials:

A few of you have been asking when the final round of 400/200 Time Trials will be held from the 8 Week "Get Your Mojo Back" Program, they will be:

• Tuesday* 1st July 5.30-6.30am, 6.30-7.30am, 6.15-7.15pm
• Wednesday 2nd July 5.30-7am (as part of a longer session) and 9.30-10.30am
• Thursday 3rd July 6.15-7.15pm

*ordinarily we run the Time Trials for the early morning squads on a Friday, not a Tuesday, however, as I leave for my next UK coaching trip on Thursday 3rd July and return to squad on Wednesday 23rd July, I didn't want to miss out on taking you through this! If you don't normally swim on a Tuesday / Wednesday but want your CSS assessing by attending that morning as a one-off and can't make any of the other test sessions, please let me know via email return which session you wish to attend so that we can add you provisionally to the squad that morning for this very specific purpose - there will of course only be limited spots for this.

Remember, the main focus of this last 8-week Program was to simply establish some good, consistent training habits going into winter and that certainly seems to have been a success with your tremendous attendance of late - it'll be a double bonus if we see some good CSS improvements too!

There's Good News & Bad News…

Let's start with the bad news first - the fees at the pool will go up again as from July 1st 2014. This is of course fairly standard practice in most industries inline with inflation etc, but if you recall last year we copped a 33% increase in lane hire from 2012/13 to 2013/14, which will increase by a further 10% this 2014/15 FTY. This will amount to approximately a further $5,000/annum increase in our overhead charges which of course is quite significant. As a pool user you'll also be paying an extra $0.20 per swim on a full-fee entrance:

However, all is not lost! As a consequence of:

1. running our recent 8-week "Get Your Swimming Mojo Back" initiative, and
2. changing the Friday 9.30am Technique session to a 90-minute Endurance session (a-la the Wednesday 5.30am "Red Mist" session)

…our squad numbers across the board are the highest they've ever been at this time of year, and as a small gesture of thanks for your support and commitment on these colder winter months, I have decided to make the decision to NOT increase our coaching fees until 1st October 2014 at the earliest. If things are still going especially well at that point, we might even defer the increase until the start of 2015!! So please keep coming down - it truly has been amazing to see everyone's commitment at an all time high! Well done! Every little helps, right?

Session Availability:

For your reference, our weekly sessions look like this with respect to availability at present - please let me know if you'd like to attend a session where we have a spot or two available:

• Monday 7-8am (Technique) = FULL
• Monday 9.30-10.30am (Technique) = FULL
• Tuesday 5.30-6.30am (Technique / Endurance) = 2 places (swimmers capable of 16:00/km or faster)
• Tuesday 6.30-7.30am (Technique / Endurance) = 2 places (swimmers capable of 18:30/km or slower)
• Tuesday 6.15-7.15pm (Technique / Endurance) = 6 places (2 spots in each lane of ability)
• Wednesday 5.30-7am (Endurance) = FULL
• Wednesday 9.30-10.30am (Threshold) = FULL
• Thursday 6.15-7.15pm (Threshold) = 3 places (1 spot in each lane of ability)
• Friday 5.30-6.30am (Threshold) = FULL
• Friday 6.30-7.30am (Threshold) = FULL
• Friday 9.30-11.00am (Endurance) = FULL
• Saturday 1-2pm (Open Water Skills) = 9 places (3 spots in each lane of ability)

Cheers

Paul