San Juan Island Fitness swim team holds intra-squad meet

By Tim Collins

San Juan Island Fitness swim team head coach

On Saturday, Jan. 5, the San Juan Island Fitness swim team hosted a meet against Whatcom Family YMCA in Lynden, but they were unable to come. Instead, the San Juan team made the event an intra-squad meet, or a practice drill, to check members’ progress.

The San Juan Island Fitness swim team is a developmental swimming program, not affiliated with USA Swimming. The team has been fortunate to schedule meets with the Thunderbird Aquatic Club in Anacortes and other teams affiliated with the YMCA.

The season starts in November and runs into February. The majority of the swimmers are under the age of 12. The team had 38 swimmers participate on Jan. 5. That is a good number considering that it was the end of winter break. There are almost 60 swimmers registered on the team. The swimmers were allowed to enter up to three events each, out the four competitive strokes. Many of the kids showed improvement over the last meet, which was at the Mount Vernon YMCA in December.

San Juan Island Fitness also provides numerous year-round opportunities for swimming instruction, some of which is through Island Rec. There are three other co-coaches besides the head coach Tim Collins and the team is divided into three training “pods.” The meet was organized by the aquatics director Amy Wynn and the bulk of the newer swimmers come from the swimming programs she manages. For more information, visit www.sanjuanislandfitness.com/swim-team.html.