Summerfield vs. Hunter's Creek

The memory of the chaos and of a sobbing little boy was still fresh on my mind, but we had another away swim meet on a weekday. Where we were worried about rain with the swim meet last week, we were worried about bugs and sunburns with this one. Wow, it was super humid outside! Patrick and Anthony were fresh from their trip to London, having just arrived on Sunday night. With the time difference, the meet felt like it was starting at 11:30pm for them. Natalie's friend Margot had also returned from a trip on Sunday. Her trip was related to her maternal uncle who died last week from cancer.

Margot came with us to this meet because one of their school friends, Ally, was also swimming at this meet, except she was swimming for Hunter's Creek. I took the kids early so we could get a good parking spot and so I could help a little with the set-up. Anthony brought Patrick a little closer to the start of the meet and he stayed to watch Eric's first race, the Boys 5-6 25 meter Freestyle.

Eric got first in his heat, with a time of 47.25 seconds. His seed time was 1:11.97, so he improved his time by over 24 seconds! I knew that he seems to be swimming faster and faster, but now I have proof. Never mind that his heat was the slowest of the three heats. He got 8th place out of 13 boys overall. All he knows and cares about is that he got first in his heat. All I know is that I was happy that he got to swim the freestyle this time. Patrick personally took him to his spot and stayed with him until it was his turn. A lot of parent volunteers stood by to make sure everyone got to swim at the right time. My friend Alicia, who is the team parent, did not relax until all of the five- and six-year olds got to swim their freestyle and backstroke races.

Eric also swam in the Boys 5-6 25 meter Backstroke. His seed time was 58.71. He was in the second of three heats this time, and he got second in his heat! His time was 48.53 for an improvement of 10 seconds! He just asked me this week if he could join the swim team again next summer. Of course I told him "yes"!

For this swim meet, they got to sit down in chairs behind each starting block when they were awaiting their turn to swim. This is way more organized than in the last meet. I caught Natalie in a moment of concentration here. Patrick joked about how she wouldn't be able to do her pre-swim routine while she was sitting down. She likes to do a series of stretches and joint cracking just before each race.

At these neighborhood swim meets, each swimmer can swim up to two relay races and three individual races. Natalie's relays did well, placing first in the Girls 9-10 100 meter Freestyle Relay and the 100 meter Medley Relay. However, apparently their Medley Relay was disqualified for a technicality that Patrick thought was wrong. I preferred to focus on the positive part of that. Those teams won pretty handily as they have this summer so far and hopefully they will do well in the Championship Meet in a couple of weeks. They also had some excitement. During the Medley relay, they were pretty much neck and neck until the third leg (Natalie's butterfly leg) where she pulled ahead with such speed that several parents remarked on her swimming ability. This is just her proud mama bragging. :)

Natalie was equally impressive in her individual events. She swam in the Girls 13-14 50 meter Backstroke. Because she hadn't yet competed in this event for the neighborhood team, she didn't have a time recorded. That meant that she swam in the first heat, which is usually the slowest heat. That also meant that she would have to go as fast as she could without the feedback of other swimmers being close behind her to push her faster. She beat the other girls in her heat by almost a pool length. When all the girls swam, Natalie's time was two seconds faster (39.56) than the girl who came in second place. Sorry--more mama bragging.

Her next individual event was the Girls 9-10 100 meter IM. She came in first place with a time of 1:34.75 and about ten and a half seconds faster than her friend Anna. She was trying to beat her time from a couple of weeks ago (about 1:32) but she was happy with that time because it had only been about five minutes or so after her last race.

Her last individual event was the Girls 13-14 50 meter butterfly. I videotaped this one because I figured it would be a close race. There were only four girls in this race, and one of them was a 14-year-old girl named Sydney, who is very athletic and comes from a family of athletic kids. Sydney's seeded time was 41 seconds, which is around what I thought Natalie's time would be. She again had "NT" or "no time" since she had not yet competed in this event for the neighborhood team. It was a photo finish. In fact, I was watching at the end so intently that I didn't focus the video at the point where they were touching the wall at the end. Natalie out-touched Sydney in real life. Their official times were 39.53 and 39.97 respectively. That was an exciting finish!

I've bragged enough about my kids for now. I was going to post a little about Alex's birthday today, but this post is long enough. Today is Alex's 14th birthday. I will post about him tomorrow.