This is my blog and I’m a mom.  That means I get to blog/brag=blag, right?    My apologies for the length of this post, but for those interested in Ethan’s swimming, here is the play by play.

We spent the weekend at the Oregon Swimming 10 & Under Championships.

The kids had to qualify for the various races by meeting A-standard times during the season, so the kids at this meet were all fairly fast.  Over 400 swimmers from 51 teams came from all over Oregon to compete in 72 events (1/2 for the girls and 1/2 for the boys).  Ethan was one of 30 ten-year-old-and-under kids who qualified from his team.  At swim meets, the 8-and-under kids swim against each other, 9-year-olds compete against 9-year-olds, and 10-year-olds compete against 10-year-olds.

On Saturday afternoon, he began with the 100 yard freestyle.  He won his heat and improved his time by three seconds.  He placed 9th out of 24 (1:24.77).

Next was the 50 yard butterfly.  He improved his time by two seconds and placed 9th out of 26 (46.05).

The last event of that day was a 200 yard freestyle relay.  Our team only has three 8-year-old boys on it, and a slew of quick 9 and 10-year-old boys.  Ethan was able to participate on one of our three 10-&-Under relay teams, which was a real privilege.  Ethan’s team placed 2nd in their heat and 17th out of 19 teams (2:28.81).  Our faster relays placed 4th and 6th.

Wow!  It was an intense, hot, crowded, loud, exciting first day!  We were all thrilled with Ethan’s new personal best times, but bummed for him that he missed a medal by one placement, twice.  He really wanted a medal.  First through eighth place received medals and ninth through sixteenth received ribbons.  Medal or not, he did a terrific job.

That night, we went out to dinner and I ran into a friend from college who was in town with her family, watching her 9-year-old boy compete at the same meet!  In fact, she used to swim for Ethan’s team when she was a youngster.  That was cool!  Back at the hotel, we relaxed with the Olympics and tried to get some good sleep.

The next morning, we were back at the pool.  Ethan had four events to swim on Sunday.

First up, the 100 yard Individual Medley (25y each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle…in that order).  This is one of Ethan’s strongest events, but it proved to be a tough race that morning.  Still, he was only one second behind his best time and finished 13th out of 22 (1:39.87).

(By the way, his diving starts have improved SO much!)

In the 50 yard freestyle, he was seeded in the final heat of eight (the heats were seeded based on entry times and the last heat was always the fastest).  Dropping two tenths of a second off his time, he came in at 10th place out of 24 (37.30).

Next came the 25 yard backstroke where he was also seeded in the last heat of eight.  Less than 1/2 a second off his best time, he placed 9th (out of 17) for the third time (21.31).  That medal was still elusive.

Ethan’s final race of the meet was the 25 yard freestyle.  He was seeded 13th in the event and honestly, I didn’t expect him to fare all that well in this race.  He seems to do better in the 50 and 100 yard distances, and it was nearing the end of a long two days.  But he turned on some jets or something and shaved 1.22 seconds off his time (which is tough to do in such a short distance), won his heat and ended up placing 5th out of 31 (16.43)!  Oh, the drama!  He was able to snatch a medal at the last possible second!  We were amazed and so happy for him.  (In the following video, Ethan is in lane 7, second one up from the bottom of the screen.)

Things we learned at this meet:

• Arriving 40 minutes before warm-ups begin (and 2 hours and 10 minutes before races begin) is not early enough.  We ended up with decent seats, but not without some consternation.  (Remember the 400+ swimmers?  Come to find out, they all have parents and grandparents and friends and siblings and aunts and uncles who come to watch, too.)
• A blue, fine-point sharpie works the best (for writing the race info on the arm); a stubby green one…not so much.
• Mothers who whistle louder than…louder than…I don’t know what…just…shouldn’t.  It drives everyone else crazy, hurts people’s ears and their swimmer probably doesn’t even hear them.  (We noticed that some of the coaches, who were sitting at tables right in front of a bleacher full of parents, were wearing ear plugs.  They’ve obviously done this before.)
• It’s best not to discuss the results or performances much (with Ethan) while at the meet.  Logic goes unheeded in that charged environment.
• Bleachers are uncomfortable (but we knew that already).
• Do not delete anything on the video camera until the movies have been put onto the computer.  We had an accident and lost the video of the first race of the meet.
• Consolidate everything you’re carrying (towels, blankets, chairs, food, water bottles, cameras, wallets) into as few carrying devices as possible.
• Relax and have fun!

It’s really been amazing to watch Ethan progress as a swimmer and a person over the last eight months.  He’s gone from being very unsure of himself and having to ask the coach a million questions to understanding what’s going on, being confident about getting to where he needs to be at meets and interacting with and cheering for his teammates.  He’s had a great time learning and honing a terrific skill while making friends and getting some great exercise in the process.  Swim team practices will continue, and soon we’ll be into the long course season, setting our sights on another championship meet this summer.

Since September, we’ve been a swim team family.  Well, actually we were one over the summer with our neighborhood team, but now we are with an “official” team.  Ethan is the swimmer, of course, but as parents, we have to volunteer 30 hours over the course of the swim year (Sept – Aug) to help the team function.  It’s a large team (maybe 250 swimmers from ages 6-18) and there is a lot going on behind the scenes.  So far, I’ve enjoyed getting some volunteer hours by being a timer at the meets (once a month).  Last Saturday I actually got to time Ethan for one of his races.  That was fun.  At first, I felt badly that I wouldn’t get to take pictures if I was working at the meets.  But, most indoor swimming venues are poorly lit for good pictures anyway, and as a timer, you get the best seat in the house.  I’ve passed picture duties off to Seth who uses the Flip to get some video instead.

Entering the swimming world has meant learning a lot of new things…about how the team works, how meets work, what time standards are, what short courses and long courses are, etc…besides all the technical swimming details.  We’ve learned that each race, for each age group, for boys and girls, has an “A” standard time and a “B” standard time.  As far as I can tell, this is a way of tracking the swimmer’s progress, and if you achieve an A time, you get to attend a championship meet at the end of the season (I think).  It’s similar to track and cross country in that you’re really racing the clock more than your fellow competitors.  Your goal is to beat yourself, and hopefully end up with a nice placement as well.

Last Saturday was Ethan’s third meet with this team, and one of his races was the 100 yard Individual Medley (25y butterfly, 25y backstroke, 25y breaststroke, 25y freestyle).  This was the first time he had swum this race since August, when he did it with our neighborhood team.  Some of you may recall the divejumpflop?  Well, there have been some improvements!  Check him out!  He’s the one in the cap on the right when they come off the blocks (the kid in first place!).

-video-

The A-time standard for this race is 1:50.99.  Ethan swam a 1:44.20!  He has also reached an A time in the 25y freestyle and has a B time for the 50y breaststroke.  He’s really enjoying everything about this experience (except the early wake-up times on meet days).  We may be a swim team family for quite a while!

And here I thought September was a slow blogging month for me…good grief!  I could use another month tucked in between October and November, I think.  A month to catch up.  Catchupter.

This week will be the third (and final!) week about which my calendar has been hyperventilating.  October has had three weeks of seemingly non-stop activity, but after this week, fall baseball will be over and I hope we have a little more breathing room. (Just in time for the holidays.  What am I thinking?)  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that in the midst of the last three weeks, all three of us have been sick.  Seth was hit first, and I was so thankful we seemed to escape what he had.  It was unpleasant enough to just witness.  But the next week, I was hit with something different, and as soon as I felt a bit better, Ethan got it.  So, we missed some of our obligations and instead were put to work with the job of recovering.  I admit, some of the forced rest was good, but it didn’t really amount to much getting done, and it took longer than I expected.

This last week, we finally were moving back towards “normal” on Wednesday.  And on Thursday we even tackled a school craft project!  We’ve been reading about Native Americans, so a wigwam was in order.

Cute, eh?

We also looked into our solar system and were wowed with this video:

We are so small.  God is so GREAT!

Ethan quote:  I wonder if the moon is actually the sun, but it’s getting reeeaallly sleepy and turns cold. 

A friend shared this on her blog recently. I decided it needed to be shared again!