Summer Swim Ends

A's summer of swim (practice and meets) has come to an end. She's glad for the break, but sad that it's over. We're glad she feels that way. She's had a lot of fun swimming with her team this summer and she's learned a lot over the past year that she's been involved with the sport. She earned 12 first place ribbons, 4 second place ribbons, 1 third place ribbon 1 fourth place ribbon and 1 fifth place ribbon this summer. Considering that a year ago she didn't know one stroke from another and she belly-flopped anytime she tried to dive into the pool (she would come out with a red front to prove that any time they worked on start dives!), that's an AWESOME start! She's already talking about where she's going to swim this fall and what she needs to improve on. As much as she had to drag herself out of bed some mornings for practice, she was always glad for that early morning swim to start her day. Wish I could have done that! Swimming was definitely NOT something I found appealing at any time in my life - not REAL swimming anyway! I'd rather have some sunscreen and a beach towel! Here are some highlight pictures of her swimming adventures.

A is the one still on the wall (blue swim cap) looking the same as she did before they blew the start whistle. She needed to work on her starts. HOWEVER, guess who won this race . . . hmmm, A DID!





A looks so focused and ready in this picture. She's getting ready to swim in the free relay. They had a good team and won 1st almost every time! Look at those little shoulder and back muscles she's working on!





This is an interesting picture. You see A in the foreground looking like she's going the opposite direction of everyone else? Well, she is. The funny thing is, she got a late start (recurring summer theme) and was actually behind everyone else. This was the IM (Individual Medley) where they swim butterfly, back stroke, breast and free - 25 yards of each. By the 3rd stroke (breast) she was almost half a pool length in FRONT of everyone else! This was her first time to do this event and she'd grudgingly agreed with Mom to do it since she hadn't done it before and needed to get a "time" for all the events. We didn't have to convince her to do it again . . .

More to follow - I'm only able to upload 3 pictures to this post, so the rest will have to follow in a subsequent post . . .