B/C States Swim Meet

Maya and Scott have been swimming

for New Wave swim team

for exactly six months.

Yesterday, 

both of them competed in

their first ever swim meet with the team.

It was the B/C States Invitational

held at Optimist Pool

in Raleigh.

It was huge.

It was wild.

It was more than a tad bit chaotic.

It was also a lot different than the summer league meets

we went to nearly three years ago

when the kids were members of the Stingrays swim team

in Littleton.

For those of you who are in the dark about these things

as much as we were until yesterday,

allow me to enlighten you.

This here is called a Heat Sheet.

It shows you information like this:

In this case, Scott was in event number 38, 

Boys 8 and Under 25 yard Freestyle.

He was in heat 2, lane 7.

We had to buy one of these Heat Sheets,

(which is a large sheaf of pages stapled together)

for $10...$13 if I wanted a t-shirt,

(an offer that I declined,)

and then I wrote all of this pertinent event information

on the under sides of our childrens' forearms

so that they, and their coaches,

could get them where they needed to be

when they needed to be there.

Year round team is simply a lot more

than summer league.

Everything about it is a lot more.

We pay for monthly practice time,

we pay entry fees for meets,

we pay for heat sheets...

It's more expensive,

it's bigger,

it's longer...

But,

it's also pretty awesome all at the same time.

Scott swam four races.

His first was a 25 Free Style.

When he was done, he assessed his performance

before going back to confer with Coach Michelle.

His second race was a 50 Breast,

and then a 25 Back.

His last race was a 50 Fly.

Here he is jumping off the block.

He swam incredibly well

with times in the top third of his group,

(except for backstroke...

he's FAST in backstroke!)

Maya stuck by us at poolside

for all of Scott's races

and cheered him on.

Then we took a few minutes,

went back to the car and ate lunch together

before it was Maya's turn to swim.

Here she is warming up.

Maya swam three events.

Her first one was a 50 Free.

Her Freestyle is a thing of beauty;

long, graceful, powerful strokes

with an amazing fluidity.

Just gorgeous.

This is Maya after she'd finished her second race,

a 50 Back.

She was nervous about her flip turn,

but she did great and had a good race.

Scotty found another kiddo to hang out with

and spent some time running around

in the spring weather playing and letting off some steam.

He checked in from time to time

and yelled for Maya on the sidelines

during her races.

Maya also befriended another swimmer named Mimi

who swims for New Wave at the Optimist pool.

The two of them swam all of their events together.

Coach Michelle stood poolside during Mylee's last race,

a 200 Free.

All eight of her laps were consistent and strong

and she finished well.

Coach Michelle and Maya after the last race.

Maya was very proud of herself when she'd finished.

It was a long, tiring day,

(about 7 hours,)

but both kids were awesome.

One meet down...

and hopefully a lot more to go.