As you may know, we order fun & funky colored T-shirts in the summer time. So we’d love to hear your ideas for colors. Simply comment on our Facebook page post with your suggestion. Rails Swimming will like your post so you know we’ve seen it.

Past shirt colors include: Safety Green, Texas Longhorn Orange, Fuchsia, Teal Blue, Powder Blue and more!

Vote For Your Favorite
You can also vote for your favorite colors from the suggestions. Simply like your favorite color comment. While we don’t promise the one with most likes will be the color – it will definitely be something we consider!

The commenting and voting will close Monday, May 7th.

How Articles Are Submitted
The Rails Swimming coaches take care the Des Moines Register. We often submit articles after big meets for all seasons (high school and club) and with registration details for each club season.

However, we don’t submit anything to the surrounding area papers. Generally a team representative from Norwalk has photos and meet/team details and submits them to the paper.

Interested in getting Rails Swimming published in your local paper? Be sure you have a photo. Newspapers like photos because they are visually interesting. Don’t forget to think of other places that publish community news like church bulletins and, especially, school newspapers (or newsletters)! These school publications are often looking for news – os if you can offer it up, there’s a good chance of being published.

All of our original MidWest Regional Qualifers made the cut in at least one event. Here’s the final event entries for the big meet March 31st.

You can learn more about the meet online.

How The Cut Works
For big meets, there are cut-times in place for swimmers to hit. Once you hit a cut-time, you’ve qualified in that event. You can qualify in as many events as allowed by the meet. 

Once all of the original qualifiers are known, the meet host goes through and does a cut.  This cut brings down the total number of swimmers in each event to a desired number. The swimmers that make the cut get to swim in the meet!

For example: In the 50 Free, the cut-time could be 30.00 seconds. If 50 swimmers go that time, they all qualify for the meet. But if the host only wants 24 entries in each event, they will cut the list down to the 24 swimmers with the fastest times. These 24 swimmers will actually swim at the meet.

Swimming may be considered a “small” sport, but we sure are getting some big press!

We look foward to making some headlines this summer too. Go Rails!

Registration is due to the South Suburban YMCA by May 7th. You can print the form and drop it off or you can fill it out at the YMCA’s desk. 

When registering, you will be required to choose a morning or evening practice time slot for your child(ren). Simply write the practice number you select in the appropriate box on the form. As you can see – we’ll have seven practices a day this summer. 

Note: There is a registration limit for each practice time. If it is important for your athletes to attend morning or evening practices, then fill out the form and get it to the South YMCA as soon as possible. Once the practice cap is reached, we will close that practice’s availability. There will be no exceptions made regarding the practice limits. This policy was implemented to address the most common concern highlighted in our survey, overcrowding. These limits are in place to eliminate this issue.

Practice Times & Details
You will notice that practices are split by elementary and middle school aged kids. Both age groups have a morning and an evening practice option each day. High school is first thing in the AM only. There is also a “advanced” option for those kids that have reached a higher level of swimming (offer in the AM and PM each day). All parents with swimmers eligible for advanced practice have been contacted. They are the only ones able to choose those morning/evening practice options. If you feel your child should be considered for that practice, and you didn’t get an email, please contact Coach Weber.

As the summer season progresses, there will always be time for kids to move up to the advanced practices. Once again, structuring practices this way helps keep the numbers more even and allows every child to receive the best coaching and practice experience.

Parent Open House
The parent meeting is set for May 15th at 5:30 pm. in the Lincoln High School Commons. There you will get the chance to talk with the summer coaching staff, purchase team suits, goggles, FAN T-SHIRTS, and have a picture taken of your child wearing their summer league T-shirt by Dan’s Portrait Studio.

Offering photos is new! We’re very excited about it too! A photo order sheet will be given to you at the South YMCA when you turn in your registration. You can come prepared with a check for the photos or pick up a packet that night.

Please note: all photos, gear, and t-shirts are optional. None of these purchases are required. The summer t-shirt is provided to all swimmers for participating on the team (no separate purchase needed).

As usual, this is an informal open-house. You can come and go as you please and take part in as much or little as you want.

Additional Questions
If you have any questions at all, please email Coach Weber. We are looking forward to a GREAT summer session, vying for the second consecutive conference championship and getting all of our young swimmers to that next level!

Go Rails!

These swimmers still had practice this week after celebrating the end of the regular club season on Monday. Y-state is a great opportunity to gain swimming experience. The atmosphere of a big meet can be daunting and the sooner athletes are exposed to the pressure – the better! This allows them to learn to focus on their race instead of the crowd when the meets really matter.

These swimmers are striving for personal bests (and even a few medals) so good luck to all of our Y-State Swimmers!

Y-State Qualifiers
Alex Bennett (medley relay, free relay)
Will Bennett (200 free, 100 free, 50 free, free relay)
Lauren Benson (25 free, 50 free)
Arvin Garcia (free relay)
Edwin Garcia (50 breaststroke)
Jordan Greenwood (200 IM, medley relay, free relay)
Courtney Meyer (100 IM)
Brittany Purscell (200 breaststroke, 100 breaststroke, 50 free, medley relay, free relay)
Javier Santiago (50 fly, 100 IM, 100 free, free relay)
Valeria Santiago (200 IM, medley relay, free relay, 100 fly)
Ane Skartvedt  (200 IM, medley relay, free relay)
Alexis Trucano (200 free)
Sam Wilson (25 free, 100 IM, 50 back, free relay)

We post results from the meet early next week, so check back then.

The club season ended with victory, as the Rails swim club took first place at the Two Rivers Swim Conference Championship meet hosted by Lincoln High School. The two-day meet (2/24 & 2/25) was packed full of local swimmers, parents and fans out to support their teams. The Rails  outlasted second place Dowling Catholic by 143 points earning the championship for the second straight winter season!

With so many great swims we can’t list them here, but you can always check out the full meet results!

Final Scores
Lincoln Rails: 1598
Dowling: 1455
Urbandale United: 1141
Riverfront Y: 854

Rails Swimming is proud of all of our swimmers from ages five to 18 who dedicated their time and energy to make this season a success! It was impressive to watch everyone improve their ability, work as a team and learn competitive sportsmanship. We look forward to seeing you all this summer!

Summer Season Details
When: June 4-July 21
Cost: $120/child
Registration Deadline: May 7
Practice Schedule: Athletes will swim one practice per day. Time slots (shown below) will be chosen on the registration form.

Morning Practice Time Slots:
- 7:00-8:30 a.m.: High School (only option for HS Swimmers)
- 8:30-9:30 a.m.: Advanced Elementary and Middle School Swimmers
- 9:30-10:30 a.m.: Beginner/Intermediate Elementary Swimmers
- 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Beginner/Intermediate Middle School Swimmers

Evening Practice Time Slots:
- 5:15-6:15 p.m.: Beginner/Intermediate Elementary Swimmers
- 6:15-7:15 p.m.: Advanced Elementary and Middle School Swimmers
- 7:15-8:15 p.m.: Beginner/Intermediate Middle School Swimmers