USHAKA Championships 2017 Richards Bay
USHAKA Championships 2017 takes place on 28 & 29 January this year. A very excited Monica is awaiting our departure to swim this championship this weekend.
In 2015, at the age of 7, we attended this championship for the first time. Monica made us very proud as she earned 4 gold medals in the 9 & under age group.
Richards Bay is a 2-3 hour drive North on the East coast of South Africa which is very tropical. January is summer season and temperatures soar around 35-37 deg Celcius with a 70-75% humidity. Extreme temperatures to compete in.
Flashback 2015:
Most swim meets are a learning curve. At age 7, we aimed to swim as many possible meets in order for Monica to gain experience.
In 2015 we got a little more than what we bargained for. Firstly. Monica experienced her first cramp during the freestyle at this meet. Most likely caused by the heat, humidity and slight dehydration we all experienced. Monica remained calm and swam through the cramp – exactly what she is supposed to do.
The Saturday evening was, however, a nightmare. Despite all the fluid intake, our swimmer experienced dehydration. She had a headache, nausea leaving us very concerned. We managed to keep it all under control and Monica enjoyed a smashing meet the next day.
USHAKA Championships 2017:
We decided to swim this meet in January due to a couple of reasons:
- Our little racehorse cannot stay in the stable too long and it is, therefore, important to keep her in the water, racing. Early January and Monica says:
I feel like racing (Music to our ears)
- In March 2017, we will do another road trip to Gauteng to swim the SSA L2 Championships – it one of the three National championships that take place in the 3 swimming regions in South Africa (Eastern Region, Central Gauteng, and Western Cape). The pool in Germiston is an open pool. We, therefore, use this swim meet in preparation for the March championships as it the meet takes place in an open pool.
- Swimming a meet after nearly 3 months (resting over the festive season, training in January) shows us what we need to work on. Slow starts is an issue as we do not have starting blocks to train starts. Swimming meets is a good way of training starts.
- We plan to make a video of this road trip to share on social media. Enjoy our flashback to Ushaka champs 2015.