The Week Ahead: 8.22 to 8.27

Excellence is not out of reach. It is accomplished through deliberate actions, 

ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, made into habits,

 compounded together, and added up over time.

~from “The Mundanity of Excellence”

Thanks to everyone who helped to make our retreat this year a success! Big thanks to the Franz family for opening up their cottage for us. Also, thanks to those who came up to help out and to everyone who provided food...the collective effort makes for a smooth-running weekend. Although the weather didn't cooperate at the end with our plans for tubing and boating, it was still a great weekend. Setting goals, discussing the way we want to carry ourselves, sharing personal stories, and just spending a big chunk of time together makes for a great 24 hours. It's simply an awesome way to build our community as we wade into our season.

And now...the school year begins! This week brings a lot of change for all of us: classes start, overall daily schedules get shaken up from our summer routines, and we have our first meet. As we head into the 2016/17 school year, we need to make sure that we get on-top of things right away to set a good foundation for the weeks and months to come. We spent some time discussing self-care this weekend: getting enough sleep, prioritizing with school in the mix, staying hydrated and fueled-up, etc. Also, as we head into the first meet, Diane, Lisa, and I are certainly excited to see our Team compete for the first time. However, with this comes a caution: this meet merely provides a starting point. Results are not to be compared to previous season; they simply provide the first true marker in THIS SEASON'S journey toward excellence.

Monday 8.22

• Check-In Day at the High School!
• This goes from 11:30am to 5:00pm.  
• Make sure you get there as early as possible!  Lines for pictures, laptops, etc. tend to get backed-up.  Be sure to give yourself plenty of time so you can get to practice on-time.

Tuesday 8.23

• Meet AWAY @ Otsego
• Bus leaves at 3:50pm from the Pool.
• We dress up for away meets! This means no jeans.
• Warm Up @ 5:00pm. Meet Starts @ 6:00pm.
• Note: This is 30 minutes earlier than our normal meets.

Friday 8.26

• Football Cleanup
• This is the first of three nights that we will be helping to clean up the stadium area after a home football game. For each game, we receive a significant amount of money from the school to put in our team fund, so this provides an easy fundraiser for us.
• The more volunteers we get, the faster it goes! I think our record from last year was just under 20 minutes. Gloves will be provided.
• If your family has a leaf blower, please bring it! These help to speed up cleaning off the bleachers.

Saturday 8.27

• Our First Saturday Practice! This is for both swimmers AND divers!
• TIME CHANGE! In the water from 9:00 to 11:00am.
• Breakfast to follow, so give yourself more time afterwards for the meal.
• SEASON SCHEDULE CHANGE
• In order to get a full 6 lanes on Saturdays, we will be alternating time slots with Holland. The two slots are 7 to 9 and 9 to 11. These changes have been updated in the google calendar.