Swim Dog Weblog

We finished everything up with the last practice bbq and the Season Finale' meet at Lowry. Click here to see the Meet Recap.

Thanks to everyone for their support this summer. We now all have the month of August off and then we'll be ready to start back up after Labor Day weekend in September.

The summer season has been flying by with Summer Swim Dogs and English Channel training. Surprisingly, our team continues to grow as we get one or two new swimmers every week. I am glad to see some of the GWHS swimmers join our team (Richard Medina, Amelia Brunner, and Alexandra Guy). Their time in the pool will really pay off next fall.

The 50M Lowry pool has been a blessing for our team and they are learning to swim much better with the longer distances. We participated in our first meet (Aces Long Course Open), and you could easily see the difference the LC training has made.

The only downside of the season so far has been the tricky afternoon weather. The thunderstorms have been very bothersome, but for the most part, our practices have gone off without a hitch.

On July 1st, we had a team bbq at Lowry with about 50 people showing up! We have not lost our claim of being the "Funnest Team on the Planet."

We finally started this morning in Cherry Creek High School, and the turnout was excellent! Thanks for supporting Summer Swim Dogs.

In addition to our core group, Coach Sam and Isaac showed up along with "a blast from the past" Rachel Uyemura! We also had the Guys from GW (Alexandra and her sister). The CCHS pool is very nice, and I'm looking forward to using it for the summer.

Despite the cold, rainy weather, we've had several brave souls out at Lowry this week! Nice job everyone.

The 50M pool is fun and interesting. I don't think that there is one Swim Dogs who's practiced in a Olympic-sized pool before. They say that "short course" is for starts and turns, while long-course is for swimming.

Turnouts at the morning practices have been very light, so we're changing them up a bit going forward. It's just too expensive to rent the pool if no one comes.

So far, I am happy with how things are turning out for Summer Swim Dogs! I'm looking forward to building this part of our program too.

The week of Summer Swim Dogs has been great. We've been swimming at George Washington High School, and the tools there are awesome: VIDEO and BUCKETS!

We've been running an early group at GW consisting of current Patriot swimmers. The turnout has been light, but I've enjoyed having some off-season contact with the team.

From 5:00 to 6:00, we've had several 8th-Graders slated for GW next year. I wish we were getting more boys, but so goes boys' swimming in DPS.

The Summer Swim Dogs come in from 6:00 to 7:00, and we've had fun with the GW tools. They have an underwater video camera that can play through a TIVO system enabling everyone to see how they just swam. It's nice to have visual confirmation of your strokes.

We've also used the Power Buckets which is essentially weight-resisted swimming. There is a unique set up at GW with a system of buckets and pulleys where you hook a belt to your middle and swim with the weighted bucket, pulling it to the ceiling. It's pretty hard swimming with the weight of the bucket, but it's very cool when you return to the other end. There were lots of smiles!

The first "family night" at Colorado Athletic Club Monaco (CACM) was a hit. We virtually had the pool to ourselves on Sunday night, and the Shigayas, Sarches, and Hendersons joined Coaches Mark & Dana for this impromptu gathering.

Alec and Danny enjoyed the pool, and everyone enjoyed the 80-degree temperatures.

Mark and Dana traveled to Fresno, California to swim the the USMS National Championships. Click on the meet logo for more info:

It's SKILLS & DRILLS month! Last week we focused on Freestyle and Flip Turns. This week is Backstroke Wall work. Below are some shots of Coach Mark in the pool teaching flip turns.

We had a BLAST at the Colorado State Masters Meet this past weekend. 19 new Swim Dog records were set and Coach Mark was the high point winner in his age group (45 - 49) scoring 97 points scored for Swim Dogs. We were honored and pleasantly surprised to receive the COMSA Coaches of the Year Award. Thanks Swim Dog families! Below are some pictures from the state meet. Top left: Mark holds up "Brut Squad" shirt for participating in the 1650, the 1000, the 400 IM, 200 IM, 200 Fly and 500 Free. Top right: Coach Dana and Regina Kania. Bottom left: Friends and world class swimmers, Michael Mann and Sheri Hart. Bottom right: Nicole Vanderpoel is always smiling! For more pictures and results, visit the RECAP page.

Lots of news to catch up on: 1) We have grown a lot and have added some new assistant coaches, 2) FUN Friday on March 6th was a blast with a visit from Michael Lee of Swim Labs 3) We have the BRIGHTEST swimmers in the state with spelling bee champions and Mile High Scholars on our Swim Dog team 4) Coach Dana recently met Debbie Phelps in Baltimore 5) Fun was had by all at the Evergreen Meet on 3/15. See details and pictures below:

Coach Lindsay Holtz (in the red suit) joined us this month. Coach Lindsay is a masters student at D.U majoring in Sports Psychology. Welcome Coach Lindsay! The image above right shows Coach Mark and our special guest from Swim Labs, David Lee.

Chloe Briney (above right in purple) was the co-champion of the 2009 City Orals. Other Swim Dog Spelling Stars include Even Shigaya (16th place) Danny Sarche (21st place) and Alec Sarche (8th place). Above left is Julia Turnbow who was selected as a Mile High Scholar in Denver Public Schools. Other Swim Dog scholars include Kiera Classen and Lily Jensen. Way to go ladies!!

Coach Dana flew to Baltimore to join other members from Denver Academy to present Debbie Phelps (mother of Olympic champion Michael Phelps) a prestigious award. Denver Academy's Reach for the Stars award recognizes an individual or organization that through example, philanthropic endeavor, advocacy or a professional body of work, raises the community’s awareness of the educational needs of children with learning differences. Ms. Phelps is "dedicated educator, proud parent and Principal of Windsor School" with more than 30 years' experience in the field of education and improving the lives of children.

Fun was had by all at the Evergreen meet on Sunday, March 15, 2009. Results will be posted soon!

Above left: Isabelle and Jordan Oss with their mom, Deirdre enjoy the family-friendly practices. Colette Hernandez (above right) just joined Swim Dogs as an assistant coach.

Big fun and LOTS of BEST times this weekend at Silver State and Senior State Meets. More info will be posted shortly on the recap page. For now, some of the highlights include Michael Mahoney's 200 Fly swim where he dropped 20 seconds from the previous weekend. His time of 2:29.57 qualified him for State! Stay tuned for more info on swims from Annika M., Seth P., Addie G, JJ S., Hailey E., Delaney E. and Jackson E.

Please come to practice this week, especially this FUN FRIDAY, March 6th. Join us for some fun in the water and a presentation from SWIM LABS!

Our infamous "TEST SET" was completed this week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Every Swim Dog completed a 15 minute swim while a lane mate kept track of their distance. This was followed by a timed 50 Free. Our practice was too short to complete a time 50 in another stroke, but we will add these in the near future. Coach Mark has all the info on how you did as well as results from past test sets. Nice work everyone (especially those swimmers who did FLIP TURNS on every length says Coach Dana).

Hailey Egelhoff, Delaney Elfeldt, Jackson Epstein, Addie Gunderson, Michael Mahoney, Annika Moen, JJ Strain, Seth Perry and Tate Shieman

We expect a few more swimmers to qualify this weekend at the North Jeffco Meet, so put your head down and kick! Go fast! (For specific race strategy...please talk to your coaches :)

Here’s a fun meet for both our AGE GROUP SWIMMERS and our MASTERS SWIMMERS. We attended this last year and had a BLAST! If you are interested in joining us Swim Dogs, please take a look at the EVERGREEN SEASON FINALE meet information and let us know by Feb. 26^th if you would like to enter.

Did you know that Coach Mark and some fellow Colorado Masters swimmers will be crossing the English Channel in Fall 2009? This is 22 mile swim in water around 60 degrees that will take about 12 hours to complete! Coach Mark needs your support to accomplish this notable feat. Details will follow on how you can be a part of this historic event for Coach Mark and Swim Dogs.

SWIM LABS instructor and coach David Lee will visit our Swim Dogs practices on Friday, March 6th. Come learn about proper swimming technique and how to improve your speed and endurance.

Thanks for expressing your opinion in our survey. To read the recap, click here: Survey Recap.

With the start of the new year, The team has seen A LOT of growth! We're thinking it is due to new years' resolutions of better fitness and that children are in between fall and spring sports. Or maybe our current members are having so much fun, they are recruiting their friends! Whatever the case may be, we're happy to have you all in the pool.

Turns out we need to manage some of our crowded days and right now we are seeing a lot of folks on Wednesdays at 6pm. It would be really helpful if: a) beginner swimmers (GREEN group) attend the Tuesday & Thursday practices instead of Wednesdays and, b) other swimmers coming on Wednesdays occasionally opt for a different day during the week. This should help level things out a bit and get us back on track for providing more instruction to swimmers. Thanks for your help!

It has been a busy month with swim meets and activities. On Jan 16, 17 & 18 quite a few swimmers participated in the Heart of Winter Meet in Loveland. Click HERE to see the recap page with photos.

Last weekend (January 25th) we went to visit the FREEDOM SERVICE DOGS organization. This is a charity that Swim Dog families have decided to support and thanks to a collection taken up over the holidays, we were able to give FSD $300.00. Click HERE to view more photos of Swim Dogs having some fun with REAL dogs.

Tomorrow (Sat. Jan 31st) get ready for our meet with CAC Stingrays! Currently our home page has a link to meet entries and the meet program (download these for FREE!). Now you can get a jump start on tattooing yourself with your event/heat/lane information! Here's a link to the meet info (location, start time, etc.).

We hope everyone had a nice holiday break. Mark and I went to Mazatlan and had our own Christmas celebration on the beach. Here we are...a couple of iguanas in the sand!

Mark's folks liked the Swim Dog sweatshirts they received for Christmas and I know that many of our team members also received some dog gear under the tree. Enjoy and wear it with pride!

It was nice seeing lots of you at practice the last week of December, especially the variety of high school gals who joined us in the pool. Unfortunately on our final day (Wed. 12/30) the chemical balance was off, so we had to miss that day. A few of us Dogs (Briney and Egelhoff families) went to our health club and had our own little workout as evidenced by this picture below:

With the start of the new year, I know that many of you are thinking about goals and resolutions. Our family has set some for ourselves and we will be supporting each other to success. This month I will be talking with each of you who set personal goals for swimming this season to see where you are and help you get to where you want to go. Stay focused & Happy New Year!

Have a great holiday everyone! Dana and I are off to Mexico to the warm weather!

Thanks for a great 2008. Our team has grown from 40 to 140. We're swimming better than ever, and the future is bright.

This weeks practice were pretty relaxed. We had more swimmers than I expected, and everyone was in fine holiday spirits.

Friday's practice was the most fun for me as I got to get into the water with both groups, and we had some fun competitions, some "square swimming," and the late group even got to play water polo.

What a great week we had preparing for our dual meet against the Aurora Sea Dragons. After typical conditioning early in the week, the Swim Dogs worked on starts and turns in every practice: That practice paid off as the team won its first-ever dual meet by a score of 350 to 250!

For meet results, pictures, and more information, visit the Meet Recap page. Overall, there were 22 individual and 14 relay TOP DOGS records! I had to make up 90 TOP DOG Tags. WOW!

Thanks to the Swim Dogs for the cool silver Dog Tag/Key Chain and the wonderful donation to the Freedom Service Dogs Foundation: "Swim Dogs for Service Dogs!" Click on the logo to visit their site.

We have one more week of practice before the holiday break. In 2009, we hope to focus more on some faster swimming, but we'll always work on technique.

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving Holiday! I hope you all had a nice turkey day and are ready to get back into the pool.

The week's focus continues to be on technique, and I think it's paying off. Everyone is looking much better; even when we're swimming fast.

In addition to the stroke work, we are spending time on starts and turns. Many of you will improve your times by really working on the streamline position off of every wall. You can take 2-3 stokes less per length (saving energy) and also swim faster.

The highlight of the week was the masters meet at the Denver Athletic Club over the weekend. To read more and see additional pictures, click on the Meet Recap link.

Our dual meet with the Aurora Sea Dragons is coming up next weekend at GW High School. Entries are now closed: 59 Swim Dogs have signed up for the meet to go with 41 Sea Dragons.

With the short week due to the holiday, we made some adjustments in the schedule and actually fit in an extra practice! We needed the extra work though for the highlight of the week: Thanksgiving at The Rock swim meet for 10 & Unders. Click here to see the Meet Recap.

USA Swimming rules are a bit different than Summer League, so the coaching staff went over what the expectations would be for the upcoming meet.

For the older group, we continued working on technique. I already see the difference in our style over last week of practice, and I am hoping it will pay off in faster, easier swimming.

We will probably continue on this track through the month of December and then set some goals for the Spring.

Again, due to the holiday, we adjusted our practices to the daytime hours, and it worked out great. I was actually surprised to see the turnout we got! Thanks for coming!

In addition to our regular practices, we were also able to set up some special instruction time with Abigail Sheldon and her mom, Heather. We're happy to do that whenever possible.

Finally, special thanks to Chloe and Sonja Briney for helping us to decorate our Christmas tree. They really brought some well-needed enthusiasm and holiday spirit to the Johnston home!

Welcome back to Coach Mark! Mazatlan was great, but I missed the Swim Dogs, and I am happy to be back on deck.

After noticing that our swimming was getting a bit sloppy, I have decided to dial things back a bit and work mostly on technique again. Look for lots of drills this week.

We had a bit of a problem with the pool this week as DPS shut down the facility due to cloudy water and chemical imbalance. Fortunately, we only missed one day of practice.

The highlight of the week was the parents' meeting on Thursday. Of our 80 families, over 50 of them showed up to hear the "state of the team address" from Coach Mark.

Stay tuned for holiday practice updates. The pool will be closed Wednesday evening, so we are trying to move practice to mid-day.

I am visiting my folks while on vacation in Mazatlan, Mexico. I also celebrated my 48th birthday there on Monday, so don't forget to wish me Happy Birthday upon my return.

In addition to eating some great food and watching some wonderful sunsets, I participated in a turtle release on the beach at the hotel. The turtles are hatched in a local aquarium and then released into the water to help repopulate the species.

I hear that practice is going well back in the states, and believe it or not, I really miss the Swim Dogs! All of my friends in Mexico think our team is very cool! Thanks for covering practices, Coach Dana, Sam, Wes and special guest coaches Christina and Jon!

I have been swimming a bit myself in the Pacific Ocean and the hotel pool...trying to stay in shape. One morning, a friend of mine and I swam from the mainland to Bird Island, about 1000M off the coast. It took us about 13 minutes to make the crossing, and my cousin Dana (not my wife) spotted us in a kayak. Everyone on the beach was pretty impressed with our swim.

Before I arrived to Mazatlan, my cousin Dana went out fishing and landed a 200 lb. marlin! The deep sea fishing is world class around here.

Halloween Week was highlighted by the Pumpkin Relays (squash, actually) and the Kevin Nash Memorial Swim meet where the Swim Dogs set thirteen Masters' records.

On Wednesday and Thursday, practice consisted of Pumpkin Relays, Monster Mashes, Frankenstein Kicking, and Mummy Arms! Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun!

On Saturday, eight Masters swimmer participated in the Kevin Nash Memorial Swim Meet in Northglenn, and 13 Swim Dogs' records were set.

We are still working on getting the pool temperature right, but for those of you who have not noticed we've made the following improvements at the pool:

These things have all been in a state of disrepair since last year. DPS has really stepped up nicely! Look for more upgrades in the future.

The highlight of the week was the team dinner at Old Chicago Pizza after practice on Friday. Despite the late hour, over over thirty Swim Dogs participated.

These are the nights that make Swim Dogs a special experience as all the families get the chance to meet each other and talk about things other than swimming.

This week focused on backstroke as three of the days were dedicated to doing backstroke drills. My favorite, of course is the "duck drill" and hearing everyone come up with creative ways to sound like a duck...or some other kind of farm animal.

We missed Coach Dana on a couple of days, one of which she spent at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs where she got the chance to learn how to develop a swim team. She also met a couple of Olympians, including Ian Crocker, the world-record holder in the 100M Butterfly (not Michael Phelps)

We also started learning more from our new coach, Wes Biggers who will be working with the Green Group on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Rocky Mountain Splash Synchronized Swim Team visits the Swim Dogs: Click to go to the RECAP PAGE.

The pool continues to be warm! As a result, we have tried to focus more on technique and not so much on yardage. It's just too hot!

Tuesday and Wednesday, the practices focused mostly on butterfly with lots of body-dolphin and timing drills.

Now the TJ pool is too warm! Can you believe that? Hopefully, when the high school team starts practicing, there will be more monitoring of the situation.

Welcome to the later hour. I was worried that there would be lots of confusion between groups, but we had two full hours of practice.

Coach Dana took over practice today with a great workout consisting of some drill/swims working on rotation and arm position. Both groups looked great!

The Swim Dog of the Day was Tate Shieman as he finally hung in there for an entire practice!

Practice tonight was spent mostly on swim meet prep for those swimming in the Molly Bloom Sprint Pentathlon on Saturday. The others did a regular workout (mostly Fun Friday).

It's great to see so many people swimming in the meet tomorrow. I am really looking forward to seeing how we do! Good Luck!

The Green Dogs worked on swim meet etiquette by swimming several 25s off of the starting blocks. Everyone looked good on free and back, but we all still need help with butterfly and breaststroke.

The Black Dogs swam the infamous "Hackett Set." It was slightly modified for the Swim Dogs:

The set reads much easier than it is to swim! Grant Hackett (pictured below) starts with 16 x 50s on :45 and progresses through the set by increasing the interval by :05. The total number is 40 x 50s for 2,000 total yards.

Since the boiler is still having problems at TJ, practice was moved to the rival school at George Washington HS. Despite the adventure, we had a good turnout (30 purples and 25 Blacks).

The pool was pretty cool as Coach Shawn (GW) has added some neat toys for swimming. I also liked the extra lighting, the space, and the bleachers. I think everyone like the water temperature compared to TJ lately.

Since we had not swum in several days, we hit the workout pretty hard with some middle distance freestyle (200s, 100s, and 50s).

We hope to get back to our home pool soon, but if not, GW is available in the short-term.

The Swim Dogs are sad as the TJ pool got really cold over the weekend. The boiler went out causing the temperature to drop to 70-degrees (perfect for Coach Mark, but that's about it).

Thankfully, things seem to be up-and-running again, and the pool should be back to normal (82-84 degrees) by Wednesday.

The week continued with some great swimming and ended with an awesome dinner at La Fogata on Friday night.

It was an IM week, so we worked on all of the strokes as well as some starts and turns.

Everyone did a great job, and I was particularly impressed that no one just got out!

Seth Perry broke the team record for the swim at 44 lengths of the pool (1,100 yards) in fifteen minutes.

There were lots of fast 50s, too, and it was fun to see people racing. There were several parent/child rivalries create today, I'm sure.

Things are settling down a bit with all the new Swim Dogs, and I am already beginning to see improvement in everyone.

This week, we tested everyone with some hard workouts and then lots of butterfly practice.

On Monday, we talked about the TOP DOGS and all the available Swim Dogs' records. Since we are only one-year old, most of our team records are still open, and I expect to see many of them broken at the upcoming Molly Bloom meet.

For practice on Monday, it was a conditioning day, and everyone swam some long-distances (up to 500 free!!!).

Tuesdays' practice focused on freestyle drills with several easy 100s to groove in the stroke.

Thursday's focus was IM-focused with lots of 75s where the middle 25 was a choice of stroke.

The Black Group had "Fast Friday" with everyone doing the USC Trojan's sprint practice: 25 underwater followed by 3 x all out 25s. Everyone did a great job!

Many of the Swim Dogs go out to dinner after practice on Fridays. Make sure you join us!

Last year, there were 42 registered Swim Dogs. This season, we are already up to 116!

The pool has been pretty crowded but not too bad. Wednesdays seem to have the largest turnout followed by Mondays.

The highlight of the week is the sponsorship by Cold Stone Creamery at 6300 East Hampden near the King Soopers store to the east of I25.

Cold Stone is supporting the "Swim Dog of the Day" by giving us coupons for a free child's cone.

Despite all the new people, I think practices have run pretty smoothly the last couple of days.

We had to go over all the safety, equipment and rules for everyone, but we tried to make it fun too. My personal favorite was the "Who Let The Dogs Out" team cheer!

Wednesday, we actually got down to some real practicing as the Black Group probably swam 1200-1500 yards.

OMG what a great turnout we had for our registration night! It looks like we'll push 100 swimmers. Thanks to all the parent who helped out. Dana and I really appreciate it.

Coaches Mark and Dana visited Las Vegas to participate in the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) annual convention.

In addition to meeting several renowned coaches (including Bob Bowman who is Michael Phelps's coach) and swimmers (Josh Davis and Pablo Morales), Mark and Dana won the "Doc Councilman's Creative Coaches Contest."

Their special workout, the Beizinger, was selected out of 100 entries for this prestigious award.

The entire trip was enlightening and very successful. Mark and Dana learned a ton and hope to bring that information back to Swim Dogs!