End of Summer Splash Swim Meet

I took a picture of Natalie jumping into the pool for a warmup swim today, and I'm tickled that it looks like she's rising up out of the water. Yesterday and today, she was in yet another swim meet, the End of Summer Splash meet. This one is a short course meet, and last year she was at this same meet as an unattached swimmer, her first "big" swim meet. She has come such a long way since then. Even with all of the meets she has been in this past year, this is still a very big meet. Someone said that there were over 600 swimmers at this meet. She only swam in four events last year, because she was just "getting used to it". This time she swam in six events assigned by her coach. She could have been in 10 events, but I'm guessing her coach wanted her to be at her best in these six events.

I missed yesterday's events because I was on call at the hospital. Luckily I got some sleep so I could at least pay attention to today's events. Of note, even though she knocked off so much time on her 200 IM on Saturday, Patrick commented to me about the fact that her breaststroke didn't look good. Her timing between her kick and her arms was off. That just means that she will do better in the future. She has been working very hard on all of her strokes, especially breaststroke to hopefully catch up to the other strokes. The meet results are as follows:

Saturday
100 yard Freestyle--1:09.80 (-6.74)
200 Yard IM--2:55.33 (-15.90)
100 Yard Fly--1:25.47 (+00.52)

Sunday
50 Yard Fly--33.86 (-2.05)
100 yard IM--1:21.53 (-5.84)
200 yard Freestyle--2:43.43 (-5.01)

This was our first meet at the new outdoor pool. It's a nice facility, but it's outside--it's hot outside in August! According to Patrick, yesterday was very disorganized. They started the meet 45 minutes late. They didn't have heat sheets for sale. Instead, they posted the heat sheets at various locations so people could go look up their child's events.

This is a picture of Eric at the start of yesterday's meet. They sold breakfast tacos and various "healthy" foods such as fruit and nuts. The meet was very long and they didn't leave until around 2pm. Natalie and the other swimmers were all in the sun by then. No wonder she didn't do well in her last race! Eric was such a trooper. He played on the iPad a bit, but also played with his dinosaurs. Anthony drove back from sleeping over at his friend Alejandro's house at about 1pm and picked up Eric to take him to lunch. They didn't even sell lunch at the concession stand!

Today went a bit more smoothly, including starting only about 15 minutes late. Patrick volunteered to be a timer today just so they would not have to wait as long looking for more timers. We were able to leave by about 12:30pm. Again, Natalie was not happy with her last race. She had an "A" time in the 200 Free during the long course season, and she wanted an "A" time for short course too. She still has high goals for herself.

Last year when Natalie was at this meet, the Olympics were going on and she had just watched a week of Olympic swimming. She wanted her name on her swim cap just like the Olympic swimmers, and both Patrick and her coach said that she would have to earn that. Well, this year she has a swim cap with her name plus "TAGS team" on it. She has really earned it.