First Swim Meet

Bode had his first swim meet today.  We could not be more proud of how he did.  This was our first swim meet as parents, so it was a bit of a learning experience.  First, Bode is in the 8-and-under age group.  Thus, he swimsagainst boys over a year older than him, so we had to temper our expectations.  Bode signed up for four events:  the 25-yard butterfly, the 25-yard backstroke, the 25-yard freestyle, and the 100-yard individual medley.

If you've never been to a swim meet, you must realize it is organized chaos.  Every child competing has two or three family members cheering them on, there are tons of swimmers, and a pool deck is only so big.  It was very crowded, but I was very impressed with the efficiency the officials conducted the events--very German-like, although by the end of the day, I was very tired of hearing a whistle blow.  We arrived a little after 7 am, and Bode and his team swam for 25 minutes to warm up.  This seemed odd to me, because some kids' events were until two hours later, so it wasn't clear to me how the warm-up was helpful.  But being a newbie, I kept my mouth shut.  Soon, it was time to race.

First up is a picture of Bode getting ready.  Next time, we need to get him a cap for his head and some bike shorts to swim in to cut down on the drag.  No speedos thought--a small number of kids wore them, and, in short, it looks horrible.

His first event was the butterfly.  Ashley brought the good camera and took videos of each race.  However, the file sizes are huge, so I had to reduce the resolution.  If you want the HD video, you'll have to come to the house to watch :-)  But I think the below accurately capture the events.  

Note he gets second in his heat.  He was third, but he had a strong second half of the race and passed that other boy.  Ultimately, he was 7th out of 12 boys, but he beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of one boy, Max, who is a ridiculously awesome swimmer, and he's six months younger than Bode.  Max was the overall winner in the butterfly.  Bode knows Max from his days at Donna's Dolphins, and I think the two of them enjoyed hanging out together between races more than the meet itself.  You can see Max in the first frames of the above movie--he's the blond boy leaning against the diving board.  Bode's second race was the back-stroke.  We think this is his best stroke, and he did very well, winning his heat by a large margin.

He was 9th (I think) out of 22 boys, and, like before, beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of Max, who was the overall winner (the kid is a beast).  Next up is the freestyle.  He won his heat by a large margin.  Note at the next meet, Bode will be in faster heats because he will now have an official time and will seeded accordingly.

Like the backstroke, he was ~9th (I think), but this time, another seven-year old (and Max) beat him.  Max must have swum poorly because he only got second--he's slipping :-)  Bode's final race was the 100-yard IM.  This consists of a 25-yard butterfly, a 25-yard backstroke, a 25-yard breaststroke, and finishing up with a 25-yard freestyle.  There is no IM for 8-and-under, so Bode was swimming against other boys who were 10 years old.  Thus, the reason for him looking slow.

He swam great, but sadly, he was DQed :-(  Apparently he didn't do his turn off the breaststroke properly--he needs to put two hands on the wall instead of only one.  He wasn't bothered by this--understood why, said he'll do better, and was his happy self.

It's getting darker earlier, the weather is a bit cooler, and the garden has stopped producing.  Winter must be coming :-)  Pleasant evening to all.