Westerns recap

Wednesday Feb 13th

We arrived in Victoria with high spirits and expectations around 8:30am. We checked into the hotel and headed off for a walk along the ocean for some added inspiration. It was a beautiful day and a great way to start the trip. Later that afternoon we went to the pool for our final preparations. The swimmers look great and energetic. I am very excited to see what comes of the weekend.

Thursday Feb 14th, Day 1

We all had a bit of a sleep in today with warm-ups not starting till noon. With it only being the stroke 50’s and the off distance events not everyone swam but all who did were very successful. We had Sydney kick us off with a great 50 breast taking off more than 1 second. That was followed by Rachelle also taking off a full second and qualifying for the B final of the 50 fly. It is our first of many scoring swims at the meet. Next up, came Julie with a blistering 50 back. Karlyn and Nadine followed up with very strong 1500’s. Karlyn set a great pace out in a best time to the 800 by 10 seconds. Nadine also started strong breaking her club record by 4 seconds to finish 8th overall.

Friday Feb 15th, Day 2

It is the first full day of the meet and we are looking for some big swims to step up into finals. It started with the 50 free where Julie officially breaks the 28 second barrier for the first time. Rachelle followed up with a PB of her own narrowly missing her Olympic Trials cut. This time of 27.10 got her into a swim off later that morning where she was narrowly out touched but snuck under the 27 second barrier to qualify for Olympic Trials and break the club record. Karlyn looked very good in her 200 IM with a good best time and another club record which has her very excited for her 400 IM Sunday. And Nadine qualified for the C final in the 400 free with a club record swim in the morning.

Later that night in Finals Nadine swam a very aggressive race and had a great last 50 in her 400 free to get Silver Tide their second Olympic trials qualifier in a time of 4:23.81 to come second in the C final and Rachelle came back with a great 50 fly in a time of 29.30 good for 14th place. To finish off the night the 400 Free Relay team of Rachelle, Julie, Karlyn and Nadine broke the club record in a time of 4:01.33.

Saturday Feb 16th, Day 3

This should be our hardest day to meet our goal of at least 1 scoring swim each day. That being said we had a couple of surprising results in the morning. This was started off by Erin’s 200 fly in a club record time of 2:26.35 snuck her into the C final which was a big lift and a club record. This was followed by Sarah’s 200 breast in a time of 2:42.00 which also secured her a spot in the C final. Sydney narrowly missed a spot too taking off 2 full seconds in the same race. Other highlights that morning came in the 200 back where Karlyn took off over 7 seconds and Sarah took off almost 4 seconds.

In finals both Sarah and Erin showed very few jitters and swam some great races at night. We also had the girls 800 Free Relay team of Karlyn, Rachelle, Nadine and Sydney break the 15-17 and senior club record by almost 20 seconds in a time of 8:38.56.

Sunday Feb 17th, Day 4

This morning we started off a little sluggish but finished off very strong. Kyle started us off with his first 200 free best time in over 2 years. Next came Sarah and Sydney in the 100 breast, both achieved best times and both missed making the final by less than 1 second. We were a little scared with no one qualified for finals yet but then came the 400 IM one of our signature events where we saw Sarah, Sydney, Erin and Karlyn achieve best times with Karlyn qualifying for the C final in a club record time of 5:08.39. The morning continued with Rachelle narrowly missing the final in her 100 fly with a big best time by almost 3 seconds. Then Nadine stepped up in the 800 free with her second Olympic Trials qualifying time, top 10 finish, and club record with a time of 9:05.16.

In Finals, Karlyn dropped another 1.5 seconds for a 5:06.88 putting her well within range of making her Olympic Trials cut in the event and then we finished off with a fantastic relay record in the 400 Medley Relay where the team of Julie, Sarah, Erin and Rachelle swam a great race in 4:27.48 where each of the 4 swimmers were more than 1 second under their best time. It was a great way to finish off a fantastic meet.

In other Silver Tide news; Mike Clarke, who was representing Simon Fraser University on a scholarship, also had a great meet qualifying for Senior Nationals in the 800 free and breaking club records in the 400, 800 and 1500 free races. He will be back to represent his home club after the school year.

All in all we broke 12 individual club records plus Mikes 3 club records and 3 relay records. Overall it was a wonderful representation of Silver Tide on the National swim scene finishing 30th overall with the girls finishing 24th overall.