One day, we had a stroke clinic where the Chattahoochee Gold coach came in and taught the kids some special techniques. Justin really enjoyed him and learned a lot from him. He even mentioned that he may want to do swimming year-round. He has NEVER mentioned any interest in that before!!!
It was a little lonely at swim team this year since most of our friends weren’t swimming with us. The Hills were the only friends we had this year. Fortunately, they were able to be with us, but when you are used to the crowd we had last year, it seemed kinda lonely.
As I posted before, Justin got chosen to go to the County Meet. He chose to do 50 yd freestyle and 25 yd breast stroke. He was very excited but got really nervous once we got there. It was mass confusion and organized chaos (As we expected) but Justin was at a disadvantage because he was the second event of the day. The coaches didn’t get there until late. Too late really!! They weren’t there for warmups so if another coach hadn’t stepped in, the kids would have missed their only opportunity to get in the pool and warm up. Then they had a team meeting but it wasn’t clear on what we were supposed to do. Justin was supposed to go to the bullpen but it wasn’t explained when. Since he was the second event, we were trying to figure out if he needed to line up at the pool or go to the bullpen. I wasn’t allowed to be back there and he was not going to interrupt an adult to ask what he was supposed to do. He was nervous and confused and stressed and almost in tears before he even did anything.
We finally figured out where he was supposed to be and then they were lining them up. He ended up swimming against 1 other boy in the 50 freestyle and he had the better time. So, I was hoping and praying that he would do good and get off to a good start. But it was not to be that way….
It was pretty close to the wall and then the other kid took a pretty good lead after the flip turns. Justin worked hard on his flip turns this year and just started doing them in meets.
At this point, it isn’t as fast as just touching the wall, but we have assured him that you have to do them to get used to doing them. So, he has done flip turns most of this year.
Obviously he came in second (or last, whichever way you want to look at it! :) ) but that was fine. All we asked was that he do his best. We kept assuring him that it is an honor to even be there. They have 10 lanes, so there will be plenty of kids who come in 10th place in their races.
Justin walked back over to where we were standing and I hugged him and told him good job, but he started crying. I asked him what was wrong but he couldn’t tell me. Finally, he squeaked out that he had gotten dq’d. He had gone all year without getting any dq’s (disqualification) but had gotten dq’d at the county meet. He was devastated!! He messed up his flip turn and the official said he didn’t touch the wall. He said he touched it lightly but the official dq’d him and told him as soon as he got out of the pool. He was so upset with himself and there was nothing we could do to console him. We tried telling him it was okay and that there would be lots of kids getting dq’d throughtout the day. But he was so upset that it didn’t matter.
The whole thing turned out to not be a positive experience for us. He was ready to leave at that point, but had another event to swim. Justin sat with us for the next hour trying to regain his control and concentrate on the next event. You couldn’t talk to him without upsetting him again.
He headed over for his breast stroke event. This was the one I was nervous about, because he had the slowest time of all 10 boys who were competing. He had a faster time than the boys in the next heat, but his time was two tenths of a second faster than some of those boys. Anyway, there was still confusion but he raced and did pretty good. I think he came in seventh or eighth, so I figured he would still be upset.
But, he came back with a smile on his face….thank God! He had seen one of his friends on the blocks behind him and was eager to tell me all about that.
All of the Hill girls got the MVP for their age groups. They are such good swimmers!! Jaclyn broke almost every pool record (all but one!) this year. Her goal was to break them all but I think she did an awesome job!!
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