On the road again… this time we slept in a bit. Warmups were still technically at 7am, but with my son not scheduled to swim until almost 11am, no reason to be there 4 hours early. We arrived about 9am, which gave my son plenty of time to warmup before his event began.
50M backstroke was the first event, his last individual event of this meet. He did not beat his time, and thus, did not crack the top 10. He would finish this year’s festivities with no individual medals, but… there was still a chance to bring some hardware home with the 200M freestyle relay; this time, the entire team was present. There were 2 heats with I believe 15 teams. The top 10 teams would qualify for the finals. They qualified for the final, finishing 9th in the prelims. Yay! The only downside was that the final in this event would be swam about 6 hours from the completion of the prelims, so… back to Chicago, then back to Indiana, then finally back to Chicago again after it was over. That would make a combined 7+ hours on the road this weekend when it was all said and done. Actually, my son said he didn’t want to come back; I corrected that quick. Sure, deep down would I have been devastated if they hadn’t made the top 10… no, but… the fact that they did plus the fact that he had zero medals thus far plus the fact that this was a team event… there would be no “I don’t want to come back” talk. First, congratulations on making the finals; second, we’re coming back, period… it’s all good.
So we came back about an hour before the relay final would kick off. The boys got a chance to warmup in the pool together; they were ready to go. These state meets are VERY long… hours and hours… waiting for your kid to swim; it gets kind of boring. However, there were some exciting parts. There was actually a “swim-off” to determine the last finalist in one of the events. Two kids, side by side in the pool, winner gets to the finals; that was fun. It’s always fun when the event is neck and neck, the different place finishers separated by hundredths of a second. The other part that is pretty cool is the relays. The crowd gets into it a little bit more seemingly, cheering on their teams. Here we go…
My son swam first; I don’t agree with this, but… that’s another story. When his leg was over, the team was in the middle of the pack. The second swimmer came in; they lost a little ground. The third swimmer came in; we lost more ground. Finally, the anchor… we went from finishing in 9th, to finishing in 7th, to finishing in 8th, to finishing in 9th, to finally… taking 8th place in the event. It was pretty exciting. My son was extremely happy. Based on all the times of each team, realistically, we would finish in the last half of participants. My son didn’t want to finish 10th or 9th because they don’t get on the stand; they have to stand on the deck. He didn’t want to finish 5th either, because he’s got a ton of 5th place medals… haha. So 6, 7, & 8 were the sweet spot, and they hit it.
Walking out of the pool that evening, seeing my son with the medal around his neck, there was no question all the back and forth, all the time watching all the events… it was 100% worth it. Another swimming medal for the boy; add it to the collection. Congrats… again! On to the next sports…
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