Initial Results

Yesterday's time trials for the swim team was a pretty exciting day. Though, I did forget to wear flip flops and brought home spongy-squishy shoes, but they dried in the sun yesterday on the front porch. And I did forget just how moist and humid the inside of the "bubble" is when it is warm outside still. It will feel nice when the snow is flying outside.

The real exciting part happened after nearly 2 and a half hours after we began. Each swimmer was to swim 100 yards of each of the four strokes, plus a 50 freestyle sprint. When you are swimming full-out that many times, at that distance, you'd be tired. Right?

Well, The Girl did once more race after all those.

She jumped into a heat of the 500 freestyle, with 6 boys. She was the only girl in the heat. She was the only girl who wanted to swim that distance, so far as I know. It was the first time she's even been timed in this event. They don't swim a 500 in the summer season.

She ended up swimming this 500 freestyle in 6:53.??. So that is less than seven minutes--after swimming all her other events already, and not really planning on doing it, but seeing an empty lane and just jumping up as they called the heat. Off she went with little thought beforehand.

In this one heat of long distance swimming were three other male freshman friends, and a couple other boys who were older--maybe juniors.

At the first 100 she was even with Mr. J in the lane next to her. At the second 100 she nudged ahead of J and at the 250 she was even with Mr. B. At 300 she edged ahead of Mr. B and pulled even with Mr. B2. By 350 she was pulling ahead of him too. After that, she just built distance, slow and steady. Her stroke pace remained pretty much the same throughout the race. It was very cool to watch and she finished strong! I was so proud of her.

I think she was pretty proud of herself too, once she could catch her breath. I guess it was just like our moms taught us--you'll perform like you practice, so practice it perfectly, or as hard as you can push yourself.

I hope she sticks with this event. She is not as explosive off the start, but the steadiness of her stroke and the pacing she puts herself through make the difference in longer distances. You Go, Girl!