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First chance I’ve had to sit down and get some things done in many many days.

The girls arrived in Vancouver almost two weeks ago after three long days of travel. The mean coach that I am made them rest for a brief hour or two before going directly out to Coquitlam for their first practice. As much as they were exhausted, I couldn’t say no to free pool time in a 25 m all deep pool with an underwater sound system. Considering how incredibly new everything was that night, they seemed to be mostly unfazed. Their reaction seemed to be like, wow, nice pool, rather than OH MY GOD IT’S AMAZING. They did however thoroughly enjoy the automatic doors, elevators and escalators. I think they were simply too exhausted for huge reactions. The next four days were busy. Twice a day swimming at either Kerrisdale or CCAC, finally getting to hear their music underwater, and trying to fit as much tourist time in as possible. We did manage to make it to the beach, the PNE, Capilano Suspension bridge, and of course some shopping. More window shopping than anything, but it was fun. I think we were all excited to finish up those five days and get on the road to Calgary. Our competition schedule was a lot more relaxed than practice was.

We got to Calgary last Wednesday for our first practice day. Considering at the competition you receive 5 minutes of music time, which ours was somehow cut to about 3minutes and 45 seconds, it’s a good thing we had five days in Vancouver. I have no idea how this would have worked if those five minutes had been the girls one and only time to hear their music underwater and swim in an all deep pool prior to competing.

The competition was such a great opportunity for all of us in the end. Lisa and I talked to lots of the coaches from around South America, found out about upcoming synchro competitions, and we finally got a good idea of what the level of synchro is in South America. And the truth is, there are some very strong swimmers. I think Aracely and Milenka definitely have the opportunity to be competitive in the future – everybody was really impressed with their duet. It will be nice to attend a club competition rather than a competition where each country is only sending their national team. The girls had two great duet swim, they smiled for the first time, looked like they were having fun, and achieved a huge step up from their last swim in Tarija. Can’t ask for too much more. I’m really proud of them.

Everybody at the competition was so supportive of the girls. Lots of cheering, lots of great comments with how their duet was. Everybody came up and said hi and told them good luck in the future, and to keep swimming hard. The countries from South America definitely want to see Bolivia at their next competitions. I’m so glad the girls got to experience that, and the girls back in Bolivia should feel the benefits of this very soon. We have found out a way to potentially get Venezuelan coaches to Bolivia, which at this point is our biggest concern. All the coaches were surprised when I said I wasn’t heading back to Bolivia to continue coaching. I’m afraid as much as the girls were great, and it is a really rewarding job most of the time, I didn’t imagine coaching in Bolivia for a few years and I still can’t see that being the plan. At some point obviously I have to go back, and I’m excited to, but I’m afraid synchro is going to have to move forward in Bolivia without me. I know I’ll stay in touch with Lisa and help out in anyway I can from Canada.

The girls are at a coaching clinic all day today, tomorrow and Wednesday, which although they don’t have time to be coaches with training and school, this information coulnd’t go to waste, so they’re there, hopefully taking lots of notes, and will share that information with the older swimmers once we get back home. Friday they will be getting on a plane again for three more days of travel all the way back home. I think they’ll be excited to see their parents. I forget sometimes how young they are.

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