State

Bode qualified for state! He was 14th in the butterfly and 16th in the backstroke, AND both relays made it. 

A lot of parents took pictures at the Regional meet. There were a lot of Bode, but these are my favorite. Here's Bode on the final leg of his 100-fly race. That is Bode in the middle.

Next, it's right after the race and Bode showed some emotion.

We are very excited about having to go back to Ocala. Bode's friend, Zach, qualified in the 50-free and the 100-back, so it will be fun having a lot more swimming to watch. This last picture is at the start of the medley relay. Eric is starting, while Zach is next to Bode, and Jaicob is behind Bode. 

Here's hoping each boy can shave a second off their times :-)

UF

After the big regional swim meet, the team went out to lunch. Here are some pictures of Bode and his teammates as well as his coach.

We spent the night in Gainsville, and on Friday morning, we went and toured the University of Florida campus. Florida had a swim meet versus Georgia that morning, so we stopped by the pool; it is a very nice facility.

They introduce all the UF swimmers and they come out on the deck for the National Anthem. There are some tall athletes on the team.

We also went on a walking tour with another swimmer (Jillian) and her mom. I'm sure it pained Ashley to look at the Florida football field :-)

We came home Friday night to some happy dogs, and now we are on pins and needles awaiting the state selections :-)

Regionals

The Region 1 swim meet was on Thursday. Most of the team qualified for regionals, so Choctaw had 16 or so swimmers in the meet, which was just awesome. We all stayed in a motel the night before, and the kids had a great time--overnight trips are always fun. We woke up Thursday morning, had a team breakfast in the lobby, and then we headed over to the venue. It is a very nice pool.

Bode's first event was swimming the butterfly leg of the medley relay. The boy's came in with a qualifying time of 1:49. They swam great and finished in 1:45.

It will be extremely close as to whether or not this relay qualified for the state meet. We won't know until tomorrow, but we are hopeful. Bode's next event was the 100-fly, and this, by far, was his best race of the day. You can hear Ashley, Katie, and Sarah (Zach and Jaicob's moms) cheering hard for Bode.

He finished in an amazing time of 53.78, easily his personal best, and it should be good enough to qualify him for the state meet. He was 4th overall in the region which is just awesome.

His third event was the 100-back stroke; he swam a person best of 57.23 seconds, which will be very close for state qualifying. We shall see.

Finally, the 4 x 100 relay team swam; each boy swam their personal best in the 100-free, so they could not have done better. Bode swims the anchor in this relay, and his split was a 49:89.

The boys should qualify for state with their time of 3:28, but we just won't know until Sunday. After their swims, the boys were goofing around and taking pictures.

He was even nice enough to pose for a picture with us.

We are very proud of Bode and the team, and we hope they will be going to state next week!

Regional Shave Party

In preparation for the Regional Swim meet, some of the boys came to our house and shaved their legs. To help them, some of the lady-swimmers came as well. It was rather amusing to watch, but everyone had a nice time, although it took an inordinate amount of time (almost three hours!). Jaicob was the first to arrive, and him and Bode posed on the patio.

Olivia, Ava, and Jillian showed up and were ready to help the boys.

Before getting started, Zach and Jaicob entertained us on the piano.

Then, they all headed to the dock and started the de-hairing process.

Here is Jillian helping Bode get the back of his legs; note how dark it got...like I said, it took forever :-)

Ashley and I watched most of it from the beach; it was a beautiful night

We all got a good night's sleep on Tuesday. On Wednesday we drove to Ocala, and the big meet was Thursday. Spoiler alert: Bode did AWESOME!

Districts

Choctaw competed in the district swim championships this past week. Both boy's and girl's teams finished third out of seven teams. Bode got third in the 100-fly and fourth in the 100-back, and he qualified for the regional meet this Thursday. The two relays on which Bode swims both took second place. Below shows all of these results.

Here are some videos. First, here is the medley relay; Bode swims third.

Next, here is Bode's 100-fly.

Finally, here is the 4 x 100 relay. Bode swims the anchor leg.

After the meet, they took some group photos.

As a team, they swam amazingly well. We have seventeen swimmers going to the Regional Meet on Thursday. This is the big one; Bode has an outside chance to qualify for the State Meet in the 100-fly, and both relays could qualify as well. They will have to have the best swims of their lives :-) Here's hoping!

Gold Medal

For once, this post will have nothing to do with swimming :-) I played in a pickleball tournament this past weekend, and amazingly, my partner (Randy) and I won the gold medal. We played in the men's doubles 4.0 over-50 division, which meant I was probably the youngest person in the draw, but this was far better than playing against those 20-somethings in the under-50 division. We ended up playing a total of 15 games on Saturday over the course of six hours. Below is the completed draw.

We started off great and won our first two matches, but lost, and ended up having to play a decisive match to get into the gold-medal game. We lost the first game, and survived a number of match points in the second before winning and forcing a third game, which we won. In the gold-medal match, we had to beat the team that beat us, and then we had to beat them again in a winner-take-all game to 15. It was almost dark by the time the match ended. Here is a picture of the gold, silver, and bronze medal teams.

Below is one of Randy and me.

Finally, a picture of the standings.

We have a lot going on with Bode and the high-school swim season. Stay tuned :-)

More Swim

Yes, we are in the heart of the swim season, so most of our posts are swim-related. Today will be no exception. Bode had two swim meets this past weekend. Tuesday, Choctaw swam against Navarre. I think Navarre ended up winning the meet--they have a much bigger team, and we were without a couple of our top swimmers--but the venue was very nice. The team took the opportunity to pose for a number of pictures. Here's a nice one of a lot of the boys.

The whole team tried to get a picture as well; you can see Bode's head in the back just to the left of the light-pole.

Here is a shot of Bode on the blocks getting ready to swim a 100-breast. It's not his favorite stroke, but he's been working on it.

Yesterday, Choctaw swam against Fort Walton, and a lot of the boys on Bode's Coast team swim for the Vikings. Bode had the best swim of his life in the 100-fly, and to show you how much he has improved these past eight months, let us go back in time to this 100-fly race from early December 2022.

In the above race, Bode is in Lane 2, and Nolan, a boy from Fort Walton, is in Lane 4. Nolan is an awesome swimmer, and in the above race, he beat Bode by a few seconds. Fast forward eight months to yesterday's race, which was basically a two-man race between Nolan and Bode. Nolan is closer to us, and Bode is right beside him.

Note at the start, Nolan has a great underwater, and gets a good lead, but after the first turn, Bode pulls back even with him. Bode said he thought Nolan's turns and underwaters were stronger, and he needs to work on that. Both boys swam great--Nolan finished in 55.2, and Bode in 55.6.

We have very little else going on here. Practice (again) tomorrow morning, which means an 0410 wake up. Of course, in a month when the season is all over, I'm sure I'll be missing it (well, maybe not :-) Pleasant week to everyone.