OK back to my son and his swimming ventures; this is the last week of the season, that will be capped off the 18th & 19th at the State swim meet. So I’ll be talking about his swimming at least one more time… haha. This week we had received news of a bonus event before the state meet; this would take place Saturday. Any kids that are close to qualifying for state can take advantage of this last minute opportunity and punch their ticket for an event. In my son’s case, since he had already locked up 4 events, he could potentially add 2 more. His first opportunity came in the individual 100IM.
The 100IM is of course 25 meters for each of the 4 strokes; I can never remember which order. I think it goes butterfly, backstroke, breast stroke, then freestyle. Anyways, he was a little less than a second off the state qualifying time. They needed more timers for this event, so of course I volunteered; I was timing with someone else in Lane 2, which just so happened to be the lane my son was swimming in for this event. Will I have an extra quick trigger finger on that stop watch??? Haha… Of course not! I would do anything for my son, but not this. As he came down the stretch in that final 25M, it was going to be close. As I hit STOP on the stop watch, I saw that he did NOT improve on his time; he was a half a second slower than his previous time, which would NOT be good enough for state. Damn. Of course he asked as soon as he could. When I told him the news, he was pretty upset. One more chance.
His last chance came in the 50M breast stroke. He needed to beat his time by about a second to qualify, and that’s exactly what he did! Yeah, I wasn’t timing this one; I actually got to record this state qualifying performance. I thought he wasn’t going to get it, because I was thinking about the wrong time he needed!!! As he approached the end, I realized I was wrong, then I thought, he may get it… It looked good, but I walked over to his coach to confirm. He confirmed; my son will be in 5 events at the state tournament.
He’s already nervous. I always tell him there is nothing wrong with being nervous; don’t be scared, but having butterflies is totally natural, especially if you really care how you do. I don’t know how many kids qualified for state in his age group, in his events, but… whatever that number is, I told him he’s already a top X swimmer in the state. How much higher can we push that #? Top 20? Top 10? Top 3? THE Top??? Not sure if I’ll get any of this intel prior to the day, but what I told him was just let it rip. The fact that you made it to state is a huge accomplishment; all the meets you went to, all the heats you won, the ribbons, the tags, the medals… However you do at state, you’ve already accomplished so much. But… since you’re there… you might as well kick some ass! Haha… I’ll be telling him that last part the day of the meet… ready for state!
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