AUS Invite

Hello UNB Swimming Enthusiasts!

As a fifth year athlete I cannot express how happy I am that I came back to compete this year. What a strong, diverse team on the 2012-2013 roster!!

UNB Swimming stepped up nicely at the beginning of November when we traveled to Acadia for a quick three session swim meet. Quick swim meets mean more races in a short period of time - good for building mental strength in racing! Our team was very tough which translated VERY well this past weekend at the AUS Invite at DAL.

On Friday morning we got dressed up, got on the bus and headed to beautiful Halifax. I suppose I should step back and tell you the difference between this meet and the other two we attended earlier in the season.

1) We tapered for this meet which means that we did less meters but higher quality swimming the week going into the competition. This made us more rested and ready to race.
2) We wore racing suits. For people who do not know what these swim suits are like I will give you a little description - TIGHT. I am talking like 30-40 minutes to slowly inch it up your body.
AND last but not least
3) WE SHAVED. Yes folks, we had been saving our facial hair (men) and leg hair (women) for this fine event. It is a glorious moment when a swimmer gets to shave after many weeks or months of not doing so.

SO these factors combined helped UNB explode onto the scene this weekend. I could pick out individual swimmers who had high points, good standings or were close to CIS standards but I think it is important to focus on the fact that our team did so well as a whole. Every single person on our team contributed something this weekend: best times, fast racing, confidence, cheering and support.

This weekend was something to truly be proud of for the Men and Women of UNB Swimming!! Amazing work VREDS!

Amby Results 2012

Amby Leger 2012 was a success for UNB Swimming. We had some best times, great placings and racing opportunities. Our team was the loudest on the pool deck and the support from team mates was electrifying. YEAH V-REDS!

Overall as a team we learned lots from our first races of the year. In two weeks we will travel to Acadia University for our next competition.

As of this weekend Danielle Losier is ranked #1 in the country for 100 I.M. and 3rd in the country for 50 Breast. Losier won the 100 I.M. and broke her own university record. She also qualified for CIS Championships that will be held in Calgary in February  2013.

This was the last home competition for swimmers Danielle Losier, Monica MacDonald, Shauna Manning, Ryan Steeves and Melissa Hilchey.

UNB Swimmers MP Chasse, Melissa Hilchey, Holly Wright, Brittany Harvey,
Monica MacDonald, Juliana Vantelligen, Sarah Lynch, Jacqueline Murchison
and Michaela D'Intino at the Amby Leger Invitational this past weekend.

Below are some of the top finishes UNB had this weekend:

50 Meter Free
2^nd Chris Garcelon            :24.36

200 Meter IM
2^nd Danielle Losier            2:29.49
100 Meter Butterfly
1^ST Kaitlyn Young              1:07.76
200 Free Relay (women)
2^nd UNB                                                1:50.69
200 Free Relay (men)
3^rd UNB                                                1:42.50
100 Meter Free
2^nd Jessica Leblanc           1:01.06
50 Meter Backstroke
2^nd Chris Garcelon            :29.33
100 Meter Breaststroke
1^st Danielle Losier             1:15.53
200 Meter Butterfly
2^nd Katelyn Young            2:27.36
200 Medley Relay (women)
2^ND UNB                               2:03.51
200 Meter Breastroke
2^nd Danielle Losier            2:45.58
50 Meter Butterfly
2^nd Monica MacDonald  :30.99
400 Medley Relay (women)
2^nd UNB                                                4:34.18
100 Meter IM
1^ST Danielle Losier            1:06.83
3^rd Jessica Leblanc            1:10.21
4^th Kaitlyn Young               1:10.48
50 Meter Breaststroke
1^st Danielle Losier             :33.59
4^th Gabrielle Doiron         :37.18
50 Meter Breaststroke
1^st Chris Garcelon             :30.72
800 Meter Free
1^st Juliana Vantellingen  9:40.41
1500 Meter Free
4^th Brandon Warren        17:56.24
Mixed 400 Meter Free Relay
3^rd UNB                                                3:33.41

Combined Team Scores
1. Dalhousie University Swim Team 507.5
2. UNB Varsity Reds 233
3. Mount Allison Mounties 200.5
4. Acadia University 164
5. UPEI Panthers Swim Team 30

Women - Team Rankings
1. Dalhousie University Swim Team 262.5
2. UNB Varsity Reds 162
3. Mount Allison Mounties 68.5
4. Acadia University 38
5. UPEI Panthers Swim Team 14

Men - Team Rankings
1. Dalhousie University Swim Team 227
2. Mount Allison Mounties 122
3. Acadia University 120
4. UNB Varsity Reds 63
5. UPEI Panthers Swim Team 12

Starting Off Strong

Hello!

My name is Melissa Hilchey and this is my 5th year swimming for the UNB Varsity Reds. I finished my undergrad and came back to do my Master's at UNB because of the fantastic atmosphere on my team, as well as the V-Reds community as a whole.

This season we have a new assistant coach Mel Melanson and our head coach Robin Ferdinand is back in action for the 2012-2013 season! We have many returning swimmers and 7 new additions to the team (5 female and 2 male). It is exciting to see UNB Swimming growing. My first year there was about 11 women and we are proudly up to 21 women this season. The men's team is also growing which is nice to see.

Swimming is a little bit different than other sports because it is co-ed. We all train together, travel together, and compete at the same competitions.

Training has been going well. There is a competitive atmosphere at the pool and we are all pushing each other to improve. We have been having really hard practices which is a good way to start the season off strongly. Our first meet of the year is here, so we will have to save the traveling together until November.

NEXT weekend (Oct. 19-21st) is our very own meet held at the Sir Max Aitken pool. Friday evening starts at 6:30 pm, Saturday am at 10, Saturday evening at 630 pm, and Sunday morning at 10 am.

We hope to see you all out to support us at our ONLY home competition of the year!

PS. 11/18 Girls on our team were Academic All Canadians last season! Good job ladies!

CIS Championships

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to drop a quick post on here about the CIS swim championships.
Competition is underway in Montreal, with day 1 already complete!

We have 5 athletes at CIS... Danielle Losier (3 time qualifier), Kaitlyn Young, Juliana Vantellingen, Cuba Garcelon and Jessica Leblanc (to top off our women's relay). The Brunswickan did a little article about the squad, here's the link!

http://thebruns.ca/articles/51697

I encourage you to check out the live results to see how the VReds are faring against the rest of the country! Live results can be found here http://resultats.carabins.umontreal.ca/index_us.html

Also, for your viewing pleasure, there is live video feed! http://www.ssncanada.ca/game/3975/

So, good luck to our swimmers at CIS!!! We're behind you 100%! While these swimmers are at the swim meet, the rest of the team has their eyes glued to our laptop screens waiting on results and catching live feed!

That's all for now, have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Natalie

More AUS photos

Graduating swimmers- after our last races! Melissa, Colin, Vero and I. Missing Jen from the photo!

Men's relay team getting their silver medals

Success at AUS

Hi all,

Brace yourselves, this will be a long one.

Well, our AUS championship swim meet ended late Sunday night and I've been incredibly busy catching up on school work! Big swim meets truly drain every ounce of energy and its always a challenge to stay on top of school work when competing is on the mind!

With 28 athletes swimming in 4 events, plus relays, it is impossible to highlight everyone's successes! To keep it somewhat short, I'll give you my version of TSN Top 10 performances of the weekend...

10) Scotty Mills breaking 28 seconds for 50m backstroke

9) Cuba's consolation final win in the 100m breaststroke that unofficially placed him on the podium

8) Jess Leblanc getting a chance to travel to CIS as a relay team member

7) Danielle Losier going 1:04.59 for 100m backstroke, shattering CIS standard

6) Monica MacDonald making the podium for 50m breaststroke

5) Women's team grabbing shiny silver for all 3 relays

4) Men's relay team 2nd place finish in a tight race Sunday night

3) Cuba winning GOLD in 50m breaststroke and the only guy under the 30 second mark!

2) Kait Young qualifying for CIS in the 100m butterfly. Getting it over with on the first night!

1) Juliana V. qualifying for CIS in the 800m free with 3 seconds to spare!

All results are still available for your viewing pleasure online at http://www.swimnovascotia.com/online/index.htm

Each and every member of the team had races that they can be proud of. The beauty of swimming is that we will never perfect our races; no matter how great the race may have been, we can always pick things out to improve. Congratulations to all my teammates on an amazing championship meet!!!
Women's team placed 2nd overall, Men's team placed 5th and UNB placed 2nd overall in the 6-team conference.

A big thank you goes out to all of our amazing families and friends who supported us leading up to/at the AUS swim meet. Looking up at the stands at the Dalplex and seeing that UNB parents and friends EASILY outnumber Dal fans at their own pool= phenomenal feeling!
Additional shout-outs: Trevor the trainer (we hated all the chin-ups at the time but loved the results!), Ryan Hamilton (offered us great sport psychology advice and strategies), assistant coach Stefan Mader (cannot thank you enough for all the coaching and motivating) and athletic director John Richard for supporting us all weekend!

Although I am personally entering retirement life as I have now finished my final season as a student athlete, I will still keep you informed over the next couple weeks as 5 swimmers prepare for CIS Championships at U de Montreal! Cuba (Chris Garcelon), Danielle Losier, Kaitlyn Young, Juliana Vantellingen and Jessica Leblanc will be representing UNB at nationals next weekend.

Thanks for reading!
Have a fantastic week everyone and be sure to check out the UNB bball and vball games this weekend at the Currie Center!

Natalie

AUS Swim Meet: Day 1

Hi everyone!

We arrived in Halifax yesterday for our AUS conference championship swim meet. Yesterday, we got a chance to swim at Dalplex to "work out the kinks" from the bus ride, and Colin Sonnichsen's parents hosted us for a team dinner. We are so fortunate to get spoiled by our amazing network of swim parents who cook and bake for us, as well as fill the stands at Dal!

We had an AUS luncheon today on the Dalhousie campus, complete with a buffet and some presentations. The graduates received a gift from the host team and I'd like to make a major shout-out to all the amazing teammates graduating with me this year! We did it! Also, congrats to Kaitlyn Young for receiving a prestigious AUS award recognizing her athletic, academic and volunteer achievements. Way to represent UNB!

This morning was our first session of racing, and I'm excited to report that we're off to an excellent start! I'm so proud of the team's performances already, but it would take pages to tell you about everyone's races. To make it easier, I have attached the link to LIVE results below.

http://www.swimnovascotia.com/online/index.htm

Tonight we have UNB swimmers in almost every final or consolation final, as well as Men's and Women's 400m Freestyle relay. The evening finals sessions are bound to be exciting and energetic, so if you happen to be in Halifax this weekend- come cheer on your VReds!!

Now to rest (and study) at the hotel. Stay tuned for updates and keep refreshing those live results!

Make it a wonderful weekend!

Natalie

Preparation

Hi everyone,

Its been a while since I posted so I figured I should update you on how the swim team is doing with preparing for AUS and CIS Championships!

With our conference championships 6 days away, our taper is starting to take effect. Everyone is getting extra rest and its really starting to show in practice! This time of the season is exciting because we're all chipping away at our times and the anticipation is building for the swim meet. Its critical at this time that the athletes get sufficient sleep, eat healthy and rest. On the academic side of things, midterm season has begun, and finding the balance between studying and resting is something we must perfect.

On a different topic... a shoutout to the swimmers who have been involved in Reading with the REDS this semester- well done! Its great seeing my teammates volunteering and getting involved in the community!

Make sure to "like" UNB Swimming on Facebook for even more info on the team. Our team roster didn't make it on vreds.ca this year, but you can check out roster pictures on our Facebook page!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/unbswimming

Good luck to the other VReds teams competing this weekend, especially for the Think Pink games which are raising funds for breast cancer research!

I'll be in touch again during our AUS Championships at Dalhousie!

Natalie

To the Island and back

Hi everyone, I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

This past weekend (January 21st-22nd) the team traveled to UPEI for a swim meet. Unlike championship meets, this particular meet only had "heats" and no finals. This made for a quick weekend of racing, with 2 sessions on Saturday and 1 session on Sunday.

We showed up ready to race, even though we did not rest the week prior. Despite being tired, many swimmers actually posted season-best (PB) times! There were even a handful of lifetime-best times, which was really exciting! We had a couple girls come incredibly close to qualifying for CIS: Juliana Vantellingen rocked her 800m free, Kaitlyn Young was within reach in her 200m fly and a couple girls were just shy of their 50m qualifying times. The whole atmosphere changes when we have close races like that; the whole team is up on their feet cheering and coach Robin is the loudest of us all. The weekend of racing got everyone thinking positive and pumped up for our conference championships in less than 3 weeks!

Now I'm going to tell you the single most amazing word a swimmer can hear... taper. According to Wiki, Tapering refers to the practice of reducing exercise in the days just before an important competition. If I had to put it in my own words, I'd say tapering is the absolute best time during our season because we get lots of rest, everyone is in good spirits and we can all stay awake in class! The idea behind taper is to rest our bodies for an upcoming meet, in this case, AUS Championships. Taper consists of less early morning swim practices, less meters swum at practice and faster swimming. To put it more simply, we're focusing on quality over quantity.

The reason I am telling you about taper is that it is an important preparation we do in the couple weeks prior to AUS Champs. The taper we did before our AUS Invitational swim meet in the fall proved to be effective for most athletes to perform their best. For the remainder of this week, we're still training at high intensity (especially in the gym) and the taper will truly begin next week.

I'll be posting again at the beginning of next week to update you on training!

Have an excellent week!

Natalie

Swimming: Individual athletes, Team sport

Hi everyone, hope you're enjoying your sunny Sunday :)

This morning we had our "Mini meet" during swim practice. Like I mentioned in the last post, we used this as an opportunity to practice our racing strategies, and to test our body strength and endurance. Waking up in the morning and racing top-speed is easier said than done. At major swim meets, being able to swim fast in the morning preliminary races ensures a swimmer's entry into the evening finals and a middle lane to race in. It is so critical that proper warm-ups are done, and swimmers are mentally and physically pumped up to race. The team took this morning's races seriously and got an idea of how they're doing at this stage of training. We're also very fortunate to have Stefan Mader (former CIS qualifier and Trinidad & Tobago National Team swimmer) working with us on technique and race strategies.

This morning, and during other swim practices, I can't help but to notice how supportive our team is. Swimming is a funny sport... we are all individuals focused on our own events, yet it would be near impossible to train and compete at this level without the support of a team. To be honest, I don't think I would survive a single 6am swim practice if I were to swim alone, as an "individual athlete".
Bear with me as I let my nerdy side out for a minute... In terms of nutrition, just because you eat lots of carbohydrates does not necessarily mean you will get lots of energy. Micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) act as enzymes to allow chemical reactions to happen and therefore release energy from carbs. Without these vitamins and minerals, reactions would happen slowly or not at all. The point I'm trying to make is 1) eat your fruits and veggies and 2) teammates are like micronutrient enzymes. Just like carbs need enzymes, an individual swimmer needs his/her teammates to succeed.
The support that members of this team show for each other is overwhelming. Any time a swimmer is racing or somebody is having a tough time in practice, you can count on a teammate cheering you on. We all look out for each other's well-being, in and out of the pool, and I believe this is the secret to team success.

This week, the momentum will continue to build as we get closer to our championship meet. This coming weekend, UNB swimming will once again show stamina and guts as we race at UPEI during a time of heavy training.

I'll be sure to highlight results from the UPEI swim meet in next week's blog post. Thank you for reading and make sure to share this with your friends!

Make it a wonderful week!
Natalie

VReds Swimming 2012

Happy New Year everyone!

My name is Natalie Doucette, I'm a 4th year swimmer studying Kinesiology at UNB Fredericton. I'll be blogging on behalf of the talented and mighty UNB Varsity Reds swim team.

To get you up to speed, this year we have a strong team of 20 women and we train with the men's swim team as well. Under the leadership of Coach Robin Ferdinand, we've had a successful season so far. In October, we hosted our only home swim meet of the year- the Amby Legere Invitational- where our women's team powerhouse Danielle Losier qualified for CIS in the 50m Breaststroke. In November, VReds showed some serious perseverance at the Acadia swim meet; racing during a time of heavy training. The AUS Invitational swim meet held at Dalhousie saw exciting results from VReds swimmers. Personal Best (PB) times were achieved by the many of the swimmers and UNB added another CIS qualifier. Chris Garcelon (aka Cuba) met CIS standards in the 50m Breaststroke after an incredible comeback to the sport.

Following the AUS Invitational in November, the team jumped back into heavy training to ensure that those swimmers on the brink of CIS standards would break those times in the winter months. Joining the Mount A swim team, we traveled to Orlando, Florida after Boxing Day for an intense week and a half training camp. The VReds took advantage of quality long-course training and came together as a team to push each other through the intensive training camp.

Now that you're up to date on the first half of our season, here are some events on the horizon for our team...

• January 15th- "Mini meet" during our practice time, as a chance to practice race strategies
• January 21st-22nd- Swim meet at UPEI
  
• February 10th-12th- AUS Championships at Dalhousie
• February 23rd-25th- CIS Championships in Montreal

In the meantime, the swimmers are training daily or twice a day in the pool, 3 times per week in the gym with our trainer Trevor and studying hard to maintain our reputation as focused student-athletes.

Check back often and stay tuned for more news on the UNB Varsity Reds swim team as we prepare to shine at our conference championships in a month!

All the best!
Natalie