Caroline has proven herself to be quite the swimmer! She competed in her first swim meet a couple of weeks ago, and ended up capturing the title of Top Swimmer (High Score) in her age division.
Waiting for her first race
We had no idea what to expect going into the first meet. Caroline had been practicing with Sunkist since June, and we knew she could swim, but did she know how to handle herself during an actual race? Shawn and I read everything we could on the Sunkist website, and we tried to prepare her...
"Be sure to swim your hardest all the way to the wall - don't slack up before you get to the end - hit the wall with BOTH hands!"
"Put your toes all the way to the end of the block, and don't jump in until you hear the horn blow! When you hear the horn blow, GO!!"
"This isn't practice. You actually want to beat the person in the lane next to you. Move your arms fast! Kick your legs fast!"
We tried to explain to her what a "DQ" (disqualification) was, even though we weren't entirely sure of what all constituted a DQ, ourselves. (And yes, she did get "DQ-ed" in the breaststroke due to improper kicking. The other swimmers were disqualified as well.)
All of this being said, when it came down to it, Caroline swam her heart out and performed beyond our expectations! She won two of her heats - the 50 yard freestyle and 100 yard freestyle relay. She had awesome times in all of her strokes, i.e. swimming the 25 yard backstroke in 29.52 seconds, and the 25 yard freestyle in 25.63 seconds! (25 yard = one lap; 50 yard = two laps)
When she swam in the 100 yard medley relay, they put all of the age groups in the pool at one time. Caroline swam the first leg, which was backstroke. Shawn and I were amazed when we saw her swimming as fast as the 10-11 year old girls and boys!
We had so much fun watching our baby girl! While it sure was fun playing sports when we were kids, it's a totally different feeling to see our child practice something, enjoy it, and succeed at it. We are so proud of her! The next meet is in a couple of weeks...
Tired, after winning first place in the 50 yard freestyle
