It’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates… I blame technology! Yes, that’s right TECHNOLOGY! I had an update all set to go for Time Trials, back in late May – submitted it and nothing --- it posted nothing, all of my text was just GONE! 
I was tired, discouraged and gave up. Anyway, here I am motivated and WAY behind… So you might see several updates (like 10 or so) over the next week!
Swimming has been great this year. I’ve been really proud of Christian. He moved up to the 7-8 age group which means several things:
- More strokes – In addition to freestyle and backstroke he can also swim events with Breaststroke and Butterfly. Two difficult strokes to master, more technical but they also take more effort to execute properly to get across the pull.
- More events – At each meet there are now 2 relay events (freestyle and medley) and up to 5 individual events (short free, long free, back, breast and fly)… But a swimmer can only do 3 individual and 2 relay events in a meet.
- A younger swimmer – Being one of the 7 year olds he is competing with 8 year olds in the same events.
With Christian being a younger swimmer I was expecting him to continue improving his times while being somewhere in the middle of the pack for the age group. I was hoping he would make a relay event here and there, but I was not expecting it. Well, he has proven me wrong yet again!
At Time Trials he swam really well, improving his freestyle time from last year. He finished last year at 27.58 seconds with the Otters, did a meet at Thanksgiving with the Marlins and improved to 24.46. This year he swim the short free at 22.88 and then 21.12 seconds and the long free for 55.96 and then 53.11 seconds. His short free time has earned him a spot on the B relay teams for both Freestyle and Medley Relay!!
He’s done the same with backstroke, improving from 32.69 and 30.21 last year to 28.04 and now down to 26.29 seconds! With his new and improved backstroke times he has also taken his turn on the backstroke leg of the Medley Relay!!
The new strokes are taking some time to get used to. He first disqualified for both strokes but he can now do the Butterfly stroke correctly and is very proud of that – now he really wants to get his Breaststroke right! He’s improved his arms and appears to be doing them correctly – now we need to get his legs doing
the right thing and he’ll be good to go!
He’s having fun with swimming and is still talking about continuing to swim as long as he can (into adulthood). We continue to practice 4-5 days a week without complaint, he loves meets and then comes home and swims some more. My little fish!
I had a great picture of Christian after time trials, but another frustration I had at the time of the original posting that never happened – I accidently deleted that picture. So what happens after a day of swimming a meet?? SLEEP! I think it was his first nap since last swim season and it lasted a good 2.5 hours!
Swim Fast my Little Otter!!