RST Hosts 1-day Meet

7-14-07 On a warm, sunny, Saturday AM, RST hosts itt's first meet of the summer. We (Medinas) weren't at this meet, so thanks to the Doolittles for these pictures. Looks like it was a great meet, and a lot of new faces, too! Way to go, RST!!! Enjoy the pictures.



Coach Sarah is a picture of calm, while Coach Jamie is going to burst a vein there!


Under the watchful eyes of the coaches, they don't miss a thing.






"Come on sweetie...lalalala bamba...you can do it! Yeah!!!"




Go fly, go!






Way to go, flyboy!


Mom (and former swimmer--RST?) and Grandpa watch closely....







What team spirit! That's great the older kids can cheer on the younger swimmers. Way to go, RST!

Our first "coach-less" meet

RST's Summer, Noah, Marina, and YST's John

7-6-07 This was an "open" weekend so we could swim at any meet, even outside of our section. Some (like the Ryans), went as far as Santa Barbara. We chose the Fullerton meet so we could get a feel for where the summer JO's would be held, plus get one more long course meet in before we go on vacation.

Since none of our RST coaches were there, we were basically on our own. But wait, was that Coach Audy across the pool?Alas, it was not, but he sure could've passed for his brother!

We talked to the host team and they told us to warm up in this one lane so the few RST kids that were there--siblings Noah and Marina, and Summer, along with YST's John, warmed up together. It was strange not to have our coaches to check in with and not have the big team presence of other teammates there, but they all seemed to handle it well.

Summer swam the 200m IM, shaving off about 5 secs. and getting both her summer and winter AA times, Marina was next with the 400 free, followed by Noah doing his 400 free. I'm not sure of both of their times, but judging from the fact that they got to eat at Marina's Chinese restaurant of choice afterwards, I think they both did well. (We hit Summer's usual--Souplantation, there in Fullerton, so now we know where to go during JO's!)

Here's Marina in the 400m free, being cheered on by her dad and Keri, while Summer was taking pictures.

Here's the shot that Summer can be seen above shooting...

Here's Noah in the 400m free being cheered on by his fellow RST teammates and parents (his mom was at the starting block).

It was strange to see so many teams that we didn't recognize, though we did see one lone TCC person there, who was also coach-less. That was pretty much it from our section, as far as I could tell.

I know they're swimming tomorrow (Sat.) and we'll see them on Sunday, so good luck to our adventurous RST & YST swimmers!

Not all wet

7-5-07 Not all their training happens in the water--here are some shots of their "dry land" workout, an optional but recommended addition to their pool workouts. Developing a strong core and increasing flexibility will help them swim better and reduce injury, so if your child isn't making these extra sessions, try to make it and see the difference it'll make in your child's times!

Coach Audy leads them in some tough core exercises on the stability ball.

Choking your teammate (as Noah and James demo) is not part of the dry land workout!

Swimming on the ball...it's not as easy as Jenny and Summer make it look!

You'd think jumping was an easy thing...but for some it's quite challenging!

Flexibility in the rotator cuff is very important for swimmers...it's no laughing matter!

They're kids...they should be as pliable as gumby. So why all the groaning and moaning?

This isn't hula dancing class...the older kids get in on the dry land fun, too.

Bring your stability ball and join in on the fun!

One HOT swim meet!

(This is the first posting of a new website for our RST pictures. Hope you enjoy this new blog site! You can click on the pictures to see an enlargment of it. If you have pictures you'd like for me to include in blog postings, feel free to e-mail them to me at emedinajr@mac.com. Thanks!)

7-1-07: This was one HOT swim meet! A swim meet where NO TOWELS were needed on either day! Co-hosted by RST and the Hemet team, at Hemet's long course pool. Kudos to all the hard workers who worked both days, LONG days. We had to rent a U-haul to bring our 3 huge grills and all of shade, EZ-ups, tables, computers, etc. I wish I had taken more pictures of the set-up and tear-down, but we were busy!

Since we were co-hosts, many of us were working so I didn't get to shoot my usual swimming pictures but here are some candids I tried to shoot with my small camera. I tried to focus on some of these hard workers who make it all happen. Be sure to thank them the next time you see them!

Can you imagine most of these girls didn't use their towels at all? And as far as I know, none of them took their swim caps off the whole time. I don't know how they kept their brains from roasting! My head was hot underneath a soaking wet tan baseball cap!

We had the luxury of having 4 or 5 EZ-ups for our team, but man, I think it was stifling hot under there so I think most of the kids kept cool in other shade or in the warm-up lane.

Selling tickets can be hot business, so they found a way to create their own misting fan. McGyver would've been proud!

Command central, under all of our nice shade. RST hauled most of what you see here--all the computers, printers, etc. Way to go!

Parents did a variety of jobs, such as "running" and updating the Results Book. Here, one of our stylish parents isn't bothered by the heat in the least!

Camille concentrates intently on the laptop screen as she inputs the swimmer data for the postings. Awesome job!

Nina confers with one of the refs on something of great importance, I'm sure!

Summer cools off her teammates with her frozen water bottle.

You may have recognized his voice at the Yucaipa meets in the past...now, Justin not only does announcing for RST, but also sings karaoke with Eddie or whoever else will join him on the microphone. Now if we can just get him to pronounce "sa BANG an" correctly!!! Ha!!!

Coaches Audy, Vicky, Matt, and Head Coach Chuck kept a close eye on the kids, making sure they didn't get too hot.

Board President Neal gives his 2-thumbs-up of approval to a well-deserved nap Eddie is taking. He worked some long hours for this meet!

And like I said earlier, I wish I had taken more pictures of all the volunteers who helped to set-up, run the meet, and then the least favorite part of all, clean-up and tear down. There was a good group of people--including a good number of our new Yucaipa transfers--who were there helping to pack it all up.

Hats off to all the swimmers who survived one hot meet, and to all the parents who helped to put on this meet with Team Hemet! And most of all, great job to Meet Director Dwayne for keeping a cool head running this whole show! (Must be that big straw hat he wears. ;-)

Ernie
Father of Summer