Aloha Long Course Meet

This last weekend we watched the kidlet swim in her first, and probably only, long course meet of the season. We have various camps and other things going on that it will be difficult to fit a weekend swim meet into the schedule.

I insisted upon this meet because:

• it was in Jenks and only 15 minutes from our house
• we could do all 3 days without much cost other than the actual events (no hotel, no eating out--beyond our normal, no excessive driving, etc)

Little did I realize:

• this meet took place the weekend before finals
• Sunday would be cancelled mid-meet, due to tornadoes
• there's a really cool app for this--Meet Mobile--search for the meet, find your swimmer, favorite them, and it gives you all the times, seed times, place times, split times, etc.

Long course is tougher for most kids. The pool is 50 meters long--Olympic-sized--and swimming that distance without the break for a turn is tough on most of the kids who routinely practice in a 25 yard pool.

Most of the kidlet's events were NT--not timed--which means she's never swam that particular event in an official meet before. She swims the distances, but not in long course version.

Prior to the meet being cancelled, the kidlet was having a really good meet, earning 90 points. I have no idea what the 'point' system is, but it gives you the points on the app. I think it helps in overall team ranking and swimmer ranking--to help rank them when they are NT for an event, but really, I have no clue.

On Friday:
200 IM, shaving 27.58 seconds off her previous time with a time of 3:13.25 putting her in 10 place for all the 12 & Unders who swam--missed OAG by A LOT, but it was her first Long Course event since last summer.

On Saturday, we spent a hellish day on the bleachers as the morning session went over by an hour, but we arrived when we were supposed to be there . . . seven hours later we hobbled out, crippled for the evening.

Here's Saturday's events:

She swam the 200 Free Relay with the 'C' group of senior girls from Swim Tulsa. She was the youngest one on this team as the girls had all 'aged up' (when you turn 13, you automatically swim with Gold team) in the past six months. The team finished 12 overall, from a NT seeded position of 16, with a time of 2:20.36. She swam the third leg with the second fasted time of the team--34.43 seconds.

200 Meter Free--no seeded time--2:58.45--missed qualifying for Long Course Age Groups (OAG) by 1 second.
100 Meter Back--NT--1:30.99-- Missed qualifying for OAG by 4 seconds
200 Meter Breast --NT--3:44.85--Qualified for OAG (by 1 second)
50 Meter Free--NT--36.53--Missed qualifying by 2 seconds. Even if she could use her relay split time, she would have missed qualifying by 0.03 seconds.
 
Sunday:
200 Meter Back -- NT -- 3:06.39--Qualified for OAG (by 8 seconds)

And then, after sitting there for five hours they cancelled the meet--This was when we heard about the Shawnee tornado. She wasn't able to swim the 100 Fly, 100 Breast, or 100 Free, but all-in-all, she had a wonderful meet.

It was hard for her to know how fast to swim when she didn't have a previous time in an event, plus many times the other NT's in the heat scratched and she was swimming against only one or two other girls.

That's it for now.

Later, Peeps!