Nicknames -- The Shark

On Saturday, we drove to OKC for the Short Course Division II Championships. Sounds like a big title, but it really was a last chance for swimmers to make their times for Age Group, which is this coming weekend.

Anyhoo, my daughter's coaches have nicknames for many of the kids, but none for my kid. For example: one little girl is called The Baconator--her little sister is Bacon Bits. And yes, their last name is Bacon.

We're lucky if they even pronounce Golla correctly. It has a hard 'o' sound, people! Go-la. Simple, right? Not so simple for the majority of people it seems.

As I watched my kidlet swim, I decided she needed to be called, "The Shark". Now, I don't know if sharks have this particular behavior, but she would bide her time in an event and then during the last 25 yards, she would strike.

Da-dum . . . da-dum . . . da-dum-dum . . . da-dumdumdumdum . . . *think theme music from JAWS*

I've seen her do this in a couple of events over the last few months, usually the longer ones, and she almost always creams her victims. It makes for an exciting meet!

That said, we only made time in one event to qualify for OAG (Oklahoma Age Group), but it wasn't from lack of trying. As I mentioned, they made almost all the girl's times really tough to make--they were so fast--but she did qualify for the 200 Freestyle during this last meet. She also made 100 Fly, and 50 Back times from previous meets. She would have made the time for the 100 Medley, but she texted me that she messed up her turn from Breast stroke to Backstroke and drank some water. If her turn had been good, she would have qualified. She was that close.

She also swam the 200 Free Relay and had her fastest time of 31 seconds for a 50 yard swim. She was the lead-off on this event and kept pace with the big dogs. Their team was fourth out of nine teams.

Here's a breakdown of Saturday's meet, the times are 'unofficial', since I wrote them down from the scoreboard and didn't get them off the swim site:

100 IM -- 1:17.58 -- missed qualifying by 0.74 seconds
200 Free -- 2:30.79 qualified--this was the shark race. She paced herself right on her teammate's pace and then, *snap* ate her during the last 25 yards. It was an AWESOME race!
50 Free -- 31:72 -- shaved two seconds off her time, but missed qualifying by 1:32 seconds
100 Breast -- 1:32.0 -- shaved 12:25 seconds off her time, missed qualifying by 0.86 seconds--Wowzers!

Though Age Groups are next week, she already has a plan for next year--Aim for the 13-14 year old times. This makes perfect sense since she'll age up in November will will have to make those times to qualify.

All I can say is how proud this momma is of her Shark Baby!

Later, Peeps!