Swimming 'Cudas

Swim Team is in full force. After the Time Trials on May 21, Alex was cleared for the normal Saturday "Dual" meets, but Ryan was listed for the Tuesday evening "Developmental" meets. I wasn't so sure how well this would go over with them. But we told the boys that there were so many people that only some could race certain days, and that seemed to work.

This past Saturday, starting at the ungodly hour of 6:15 in the morning, Alex swam in a relay race, a solo 25 freestyle, and a solo 25 backstoke. He actually won his freestyle race, and came in first place of all the 6 and under boys in the three heats. For Back, he came in 10th, and oddly enough, he got a ribbon for this. Back in my swim team days, you only received ribbons for 1st-3rd place. But Alex came home with "Heat winner"ribbons, "1st place," "10th place," "Improved Time," as well as a "Participant" ribbon. Not sure where we should place all these. At this rate, we will be ribboned out by the middle of July!

Tonight was Ryan's turn, and he did great. I was real nervous - my anxiety level was high. But he actually swam the whole length of the pool freestyle without stopping, and for back, he made it all the way with a not bad stroke. Granted, the arms were only moving about half as fast as his feet, but still... he did it! He even won the heat for freestyle.

Clearly we need to work on our other strokes. Alex has been practicing his Butterfly quite a bit, so we might actually try and race that next meet. We can't go to this Saturday's because of TKD testing, but I'm thinking that by June 12, we'll be ready for Breast and Fly and can maybe fore-go the dreaded Back.