Over the weekend, we had another “first”… Sophie competed in her very first swim meet! Here she is in the (early) morning getting ready to leave for the pool:
All ready to leave…
I think I was nervous and she was just excited. We got to the pool, and waited for her coach to arrive. We found out her heat (when she would be swimming) and then just kind of hung out, got her official team swim cap (the Piranhas) and just went through the basics of how the morning would go. Sophie was the only one from our gym to attend the meet, so she had undivided attention from her coach Stephanie… and then a 2nd support person (me) to carry her towel, feed her snacks and generally be the nail biter for our group while we were waiting for the race. As it turns out… Sophie was the youngest (and smallest) person there to race…and this was the first time she ever had swum a pool that was 25 yards long! The one at our gym is only 17.5 yards long so this was a test for her in more ways than one! She had to do a warm-up swim (of about 150 yards…sheesh!) in the lap lane with about 20 other kids all swimming around her and getting knocked around a bit, but she took it totally in stride. She had to learn how to use a block to start from (she was doing the backstroke in her race) and even though she could barely reach the bar to hang from, she wanted to do it instead of hang from the edge of the pool… because that was what you are supposed to do! Here’s a little video of the warm-up… just to give you an idea of what it was like…
She got to watch some races before it was her turn and thought the butterfly was pretty cool and is looking forward to learning that one eventually. And then finally, it was her turn to race! As it turned out, there was only one other girl, an 8 year old who was also swimming in that heat. Sophie gave it her all… and even though I have seen her swim the backstroke much better before, she came in 2nd… out of 2 swimmers. 🙂 The other girl was finished a while before Sophie touched the wall, but when she did the whole pool gave her a big applause, which made me feel good, and Sophie just seemed happy that she had raced and was a little bummed out that she didn’t have any more races to do that day! There aren’t any more swim meets until the fall, so she has plenty of time to improve her strokes and who knows, maybe sometime sooner than later she might come in 2nd out of a lot more than just 2 swimmers! Below is a slideshow of the days events… it starts with the same pic of Sophie at home in her purple hoodie… try to start of from the beginning, it will make more sense that way. Bye for now!
Those Lintons 