The kids had a lot to be proud of just in qualifying for this meet - you have to have at least two 'A' times to even be eligible to participate. This means that the participants of this meet were basically the top swimmers in San Diego County. The limited participation also meant that the meet was a little bit smaller, and on top of that, it was run with perfect efficiency. They started racing at 9:00 and were done around noon.
A swimming pentathlon involves all four strokes - at this level, done at 50-yard distances, done in the order of the IM - butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle - finishing with the 100IM itself. Here are the results:
Ethan
Ethan is now nine years old. Not many 9 year old boys qualify with A times, since they are on the low end of the 9-10 age group. Ethan had 4 other comptetitors. We decided his goal was NOT to be 5th. In some ways, I think the smaller group of competitors helped him to relax a bit - for one thing, he knew that no matter what, he'd get a trophy (top 8 got a trophy).
50 Fly - 36.75s - This was a very strong start for Ethan, with an improvement of over three seconds from the the last meet less than a month ago. This earned him third place.
50 Back - 39.01s - Second place
50 Breast - 49.03 - Fourth place
50 Free - 33.21 - Fourth Place
100 IM - 1:24.01 - Fourth place
Ethan ended up getting third place (they based the placing on a point scale based on times, not place). Ethan now has 'A' times and 'JO' (junior olympic, the top qualification level) - except for the breaststroke. About 5 seconds after he got the trophy, David broke the top off. I managed to get this shot before it was broken.
He did manage to get the top replaced before he left... only after he made David feel sufficiently ashamed for breaking his trophy! I also hoped you noticed the how we had Ethan go Idaho-style with the ski parka to combat the inevitable Ethan shivering. He also sported some pretty fly snow boots. It's easy to judge, but you imagine getting in and out of water when the air temperature is about 55 degrees!
Lucy
Lucy also had an extremely strong start with the 50 fly. She had a bit more difficult competition - 24 total girls in the 11 year old category.
50 Fly: 32.36s - Personal best by 1.6 seconds. 6th place
50 Backstroke: 37.81s - Personal best by 1s - 20th place - she would've been even faster, but was working on learning how to do the underwater finish.
50 Breaststroke: 42.17 - personal best by 2s - 16th place
50 Free: 30.85 - 17th place
100 IM: 1:18.86 - 17th place - personal best by 1s
Now you should note two things: (a) Lucy showed extraordinary improvement in everything except 1 race (where she about equaled her previous performance). However, you may have also noticed (b) her lower place - meaning, she did not get a trophy. Not many kids on her team that qualified for this meet didn't get a trophy. This caused a tremendous amount of angst, hence the lack of pictures of Lucy. There was a bit of a to-do, esp. at the end, but we are still all in one piece!
Another interesting wrinkle to swim meets in San Diego is that David usually feels the need to bike to them. This meet was a 40-mile bike ride away. He chose to do both legs.
He has not yet eaten the entire cabinet of food, but we did make a Costco trip today to fuel his increasing bike mileage!
I have some videos of the IM races, but it's not working out to load them here.
