Trent Swim Club is hitting the beach
Without indoor pools available, club goes outside
The Trent Swim Club will hit the water for the first time in nearly four months Monday, but not at the usual venues.
With pools at the Trent Athletics Centre and Peterborough YMCA closed, TSC swimmers will dive into open water near the Lakefield public beach, said head coach Dan Stratton.
The club recently started small group dry land training at Milroy Park and will move to the water in groups of 10, with seven swimmers, two coaches and a lifeguard. The lifeguard is there for water safety and to insure swimmers remain socially distanced.
The province included pools as part of its Phase 2 reopening plan, but the university and YMCA chose not to open.
“Technically speaking, we could jump in tomorrow from a public health perspective,” said Stratton. “In both venues they have other program areas that contribute to the operation of the facility and contribute to the bottom line from an operational or business perspective.
“That meant in both instances, even though they were getting the green light from the province, they were saying they had to hold back until other program spaces become available or we have greater capacity in those areas.”
With no clear timeline for when the pools might reopen, TSC sought approval from Selwyn Township and Swim Ontario to train outdoors.
“The beauty of this area is we can actually get in the water,” said Stratton. “We have a number of stipulations in place to protect the athletes. We have also chosen a site we feel is most suitable for a broad range of athletes from those who are very skilled with a lot of experience — they may not have swam open water but are very strong swimmers — all the way down to swimmers who have only been swimming the past three or four years.”
The swimmers, ranging in age from 13 to 18, will utilize an area south of the public beach to enter the water and will swim at nonpeak times of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“We’re avoiding the peak periods which is noon hour and early afternoon,’ said Stratton. “It’s not like an indoor pool where you can say we’ve rented the pool time for this hour if anybody else wandered in. We’re trying to create a model where we’re autonomous from recreational swimmers and are offering something structured and supervised and is keeping the athletes engaged in the sport.”
About 35 of the club’s 70 competitive swimmers signed up for the dry land training and 25 for the open water. Stratton says not all members were comfortable with open-water swimming.
“For some of our kids, as much as they’re skilled swimmers, they’re not used to swimming out in the weeds and among the aquatic life without the ability to look at the bottom,” he said. “Even when you have skilled swimmers there’s a cohort who, in the best possible set of conditions, are still a little hesitant. I’d say that’s primarily with the younger kids, but even with some of the older kids.”
There’s no timeline for a return to competition and Stratton expects races will return slowly starting with small scale events. So the focus of training right now is not about getting prepared for meets.
“We just want to get our kids engaged,” he said. “There are two components to that. Engaged for the sake of training and being fit. It’s an activity I can try with minimal risk from a health perspective.” There’s also a social aspect.
“The training component is a big part of their lives. To discontinue it the way we did presented, for a lot of the kids, a huge void. Combining that with the fact they had an institutional void without school really compounded it. The kids really have been great at managing through that but as a club we wanted to provide some kind of structure to their lives.
“Some of the kids missed their peers.”
Normally, swimmers train up to eight times a week over four or five days and compete in 10 to 14 meets a year. Stratton hopes with the outdoor training they can still be in the water as often as three to five times a week.
A goal throughout is to avoid a congregation of people.
“In this environment they really are going to arrive, train and depart. There is not going to be a great opportunity for socializing which is tough for some kids because that’s a big part of why they participate,” he said.
If all goes well, Stratton might consider open-water training in the future.
“We have chosen a site we feel is most suitable for a broad range of athletes from those who are very skilled with a lot of experience ... all the way down to swimmers who have only been swimming the past three or four years.”
DAN STRATTON TRENT SWIM CLUB HEAD COACH