Swim

[TU_BLA]

So I had been posting about my daughter's swim exploits on the Rivals site. She swam in a meet in Edmond this past weekend...lots of her favorite events (NOT). She swam the 400 Free and 1500 (mile) free. She qualified for the state meet in both cutting 21 seconds off the 400 (time was from a month ago) and she cut 3 minutes off her mile time and qualified for state by 35 seconds or so. Considering she absolutely hates freestyle and would prefer doing the fly or breaststroke, this was quite the accomplishment. Her coach doesn't understand her hatred of freestyle as she has said she's quite good at it.

She'll have 6 events at the state meet in 2 weeks (in Jenks). And she'll be on varsity as a FR at Union.

 

[Chris Harmon]

So I had been posting about my daughter's swim exploits on the Rivals site.

Those posts will EVENTUALLY make it over here. Taking too long, IMO, but just have to wait. Things will feel much more normal around here when all the historical posts and content make it over.

And congrats to your daughter!!

 

[TU_BLA]

Those posts will EVENTUALLY make it over here. Taking too long, IMO, but just have to wait. Things will feel much more normal around here when all the historical posts and content make it over.

And congrats to your daughter!!

Thanks...and she has become a beast in the pool. She got out of the pool after her mile swim the other day and she wasn't breathing hard at all. She was literally in the pool for 22 minutes straight. (By comparison, Katie Ledecky swims this event in under 16 minutes, so my daughter still has to find a way to cut 12 seconds PER 50 METERS to get anywhere close. She said her next goal is to make the Oklahoma HS state meet next March. In order to do that she has to be in the top 24 statewide in a given event. Right now her best bet is the 200 IM where her club team time would have placed her 22nd (as a 13 year old).

High school does some weird stuff because they simply don't have the volume of events and swimmers are limited to 2 individual events and 2 relays per meet. (competitive you get 3 events per day plus a relay), so for a 3 day meet you could swim 12 total events. High school also doesn't do any 200M events. All 50s, 100s, and the 500 Free. I think they do have the 200IM and maybe the 400IM. Which might not be the greatest for my daughter...she doesn't necessarily like the sprints and is more of a middle to long distance swimmer and she's able to keep her pace later in races better than a lot of swimmers this same age.

 

[TU_BLA]

My daughter will have 6 individual events this weekend and 3 relays (we think 3). Her individual events will be the 1500M Free, 400M Free, 200IM, 400IM, 200M Backstroke, 200M Breaststroke. Mile swim is Thursday evening and then she has 2 events on Friday morning and 3 events on Saturday morning. Likely add 1 event to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday AM sessions for the relays which are typically the 1st events out of the blocks. She will have a chance to make finals in the 400IM, 200M Breaststroke and 200M Back.

 

[TU_BLA]

1st event on Thursday was the mile swim (1500M) freestyle. My daughter dropped another 30 seconds and with this time she’s already qualified for 15 and up state when she reaches that age…in another year.

Today she swam a leg in the 400M free relay and dropped 3 seconds off her previous fast 100M free time. She also swam a 400IM and dropped about 15 seconds off that and then she swam the 200M breaststroke and dropped some time off that (when converted from a short course yard time which her qualifying time was). Shes in the B-final for the 200M breaststroke tonight.

 

[lawpoke87]

1st event on Thursday was the mile swim (1500M) freestyle. My daughter dropped another 30 seconds and with this time she’s already qualified for 15 and up state when she reaches that age…in another year.

Today she swam a leg in the 400M free relay and dropped 3 seconds off her previous fast 100M free time. She also swam a 400IM and dropped about 15 seconds off that and then she swam the 200M breaststroke and dropped some time off that (when converted from a short course yard time which her qualifying time was). Shes in the B-final for the 200M breaststroke tonight.

Trying to follow your “swim” posts and learn as I go. Is the B-final the equivalent to the silver bracket in a soccer tournament?

 

[TU_BLA]

Trying to follow your “swim” posts and learn as I go. Is the B-final the equivalent to the silver bracket in a soccer tournament?

It is, the top 16 advance. Places 9-16 swim in a B-final and the top 8 swim in the A final. If you are 9-16, you can place no higher than 9th for the team points stuff. Top 3 from the A final are your 1st,2 nd, and 3rd place podium finishers.

For ages 13-14, they don't swim 400M events twice in a day. So everyone who qualifies for the event will be placed in heats and they'll swim the 2 slower heats (based on qualifying times) in the AM session and what they call the "fastest heat" in the evening. Your time in those events determines your placement for final standings. For instance, on Saturday AM my daughter swam the 400M free along with 2 of her teammates and 5 other girls in heat 2 (the slower qualifying times). My daughter cut 12 seconds from her entry time (which was recorded 2 weeks ago). Her 2 teammates cut 27 seconds each (that was just ridiculous) and because they went so stupid fast in this race, they ended up actually finishing 7th and 8th respectively.

In all, my daughter had a good meet. She cut time in every event and made at least 3 more 15+ state qualifying times. She's also maybe a second or two away from recording some "A" standard times which will open her up to some more regional meets. Crazy thing is she could identify areas of her swims she needs to fix.

She swam the 200M backstroke on Saturday, in the AM and then as part of the B final in the evening. Both times she slipped off the starting block and so she didn't get the start she wanted. The AM slip wasn't quite as bad. The B final slip was brutal and she found herself behind the pack by 5 meters in the first 25. For anyone not familiar, the starting "block" for backstroke is a slat of plastic or rubber about 2 feet wide, 4 inches tall and 1/2" in depth. You're supposed to grip the slat with your toes. Well, when gearing up for that push back, her foot slipped. Anyway, she recovered nicely and finished 4th in the B-final and she really recovered well and she ended up cutting almost 4 additional seconds off her prelim time...and the time in the final would have actually qualified her 6th for the A-final.

Sunday she only swam the 50 back as the leadoff in the 200M Medley relay. She swam one of her fastest backstroke 50s to date. She's got some time off from swimming for about 3 weeks before the resume practices for short course. With that break, she's going to train for a mini Triathlon. Last year she finished 2nd in her age group of about 40. She's gunning for first this year as she has committed herself to actually do some running (she hates running...she can probably swim the mile faster than she can run one )

 

[lawpoke87]

It is, the top 16 advance. Places 9-16 swim in a B-final and the top 8 swim in the A final. If you are 9-16, you can place no higher than 9th for the team points stuff. Top 3 from the A final are your 1st,2 nd, and 3rd place podium finishers.

For ages 13-14, they don't swim 400M events twice in a day. So everyone who qualifies for the event will be placed in heats and they'll swim the 2 slower heats (based on qualifying times) in the AM session and what they call the "fastest heat" in the evening. Your time in those events determines your placement for final standings. For instance, on Saturday AM my daughter swam the 400M free along with 2 of her teammates and 5 other girls in heat 2 (the slower qualifying times). My daughter cut 12 seconds from her entry time (which was recorded 2 weeks ago). Her 2 teammates cut 27 seconds each (that was just ridiculous) and because they went so stupid fast in this race, they ended up actually finishing 7th and 8th respectively.

In all, my daughter had a good meet. She cut time in every event and made at least 3 more 15+ state qualifying times. She's also maybe a second or two away from recording some "A" standard times which will open her up to some more regional meets. Crazy thing is she could identify areas of her swims she needs to fix.

She swam the 200M backstroke on Saturday, in the AM and then as part of the B final in the evening. Both times she slipped off the starting block and so she didn't get the start she wanted. The AM slip wasn't quite as bad. The B final slip was brutal and she found herself behind the pack by 5 meters in the first 25. For anyone not familiar, the starting "block" for backstroke is a slat of plastic or rubber about 2 feet wide, 4 inches tall and 1/2" in depth. You're supposed to grip the slat with your toes. Well, when gearing up for that push back, her foot slipped. Anyway, she recovered nicely and finished 4th in the B-final and she really recovered well and she ended up cutting almost 4 additional seconds off her prelim time...and the time in the final would have actually qualified her 6th for the A-final.

Sunday she only swam the 50 back as the leadoff in the 200M Medley relay. She swam one of her fastest backstroke 50s to date. She's got some time off from swimming for about 3 weeks before the resume practices for short course. With that break, she's going to train for a mini Triathlon. Last year she finished 2nd in her age group of about 40. She's gunning for first this year as she has committed herself to actually do some running (she hates running...she can probably swim the mile faster than she can run one )

Appreciate the education. At least now I will have a bit of a clue as to what I’m reading. Good luck to her in the mini triathlon. Quite the accomplishment.

 

[TU_BLA]

My daughter won the girls 10-13 division of the St. Francis Mini Tri on Saturday. She improved her time from last year by over a minute and won over the 2nd place finished by 27 seconds. She also finished 3rd overall when you include the boys. Pretty proud of her. The swimming part is the easy part for her but she doesn't do much on a bike these days and she put in some work running the last couple weeks to prep for this as she hates running but knows it's a necessary part of training for this and her pom team will do some running for conditioning.

Interesting thing...one of her good friends finished 2nd. They're both competitive swimmers but her friend also runs cross country for Bixby. The 3rd place finisher also swims at Bixby JH and the Bixby Swim Club team...and coincidentally she and her family visited our church yesterday and she ran into my daughter. Pretty fun.

All these girls age out of the competition. My daughter turns 14 later this week and her friends turn 14 in September. The Bartlesville Y sponsors a triathlon every year where the swim is an 800M swim, I think it's a 10 miles bike ride, and the run is a 5K. Told my daughter she should think about doing it just for that cross train.

 

[TU_BLA]

Short Course season gets under way this weekend in Jenks. My daughter will swim the 400IM on Friday night, and then 100FR, 200 breast, 500 FR (all on Saturday), and then Sunday 200IM, 200 back, 100 breast. No relays this weekend, so 7 total events...and she's not swimming the mile on Friday night so we'll at least get out of there at a reasonable time. It'll be interesting to see where she's improved in short course times. She's probably a better short course swimmer because she's got pretty powerful legs and gets a lot out of her turns, more than a lot of kids her age and short course you have more turns.

 

[lawpoke87]

I’ve learned more about swimming in the last year than I thought possible

 

[Li'l Eric Coley]

I did a mini-tri at St. John's about 20 years ago. I was the last one out of the 500 yards in the pool. Good lawdy, my arms were so numb I had trouble getting my shoes on to go upstairs and get on the bike.

 

[TU_BLA]

I’ve learned more about swimming in the last year than I thought possible

Me too...U13 and being part of the senior development team at her club is pretty eye opening vs U12. And the training schedule. 5 days a week with an AM and PM session on 2 days of the week plus "dry land" conditioning training which consists of a lot of stretching/cardio and agility stuff. There's nothing swimmers hate more than when the pool is closed for whatever reason and the coach says they'll do a 2 hr dry land session in its place. Probably the equivalent of a soccer coach saying that a session is solely for conditioning and they're not going to touch a soccer ball. There's a t-shirt in the swimming realm that basically says "If you think your sport is hard, try doing it while holding your breath" , "Oxygen is overrated" and "Breathing is for the weak"...I always found those amusing. Funny thing is there is a girl my daughter swims with who is supremely talented (holds the U12 1500M record in Oklahoma) but my daughter beats her in some longer races because she forgets to breathe. One of the coaches at my daughter's club is a HS biology teacher (my daughter actually has her this year) who the swimmers who don't manage their breathing well get sent to to learn about how oxygen deficits result in lactic acid buildup and fatigue and thus get a lecture on the importance of proper breathing.

And apparently many swim parents can't read. Every pool has a sign that says "No Standing at the rail" and yet every meet this sign is routinely ignored so parents can scream at their kids to go faster and film their race. My daughter has told us many times she can't hear a thing in the water which she demonstrated as my wife and I were her timers for a mile swim and we kept imploring her to pick up her pace slightly. We asked if she heard us and she was like "Not a word" Don't know if she was messing with us because you know, she's a teenager, or if she legit can't hear us.

 

[TU_BLA]

My daughter cut almost 5 seconds off her time in the 400 IM, has a 15-19 senior state qualifying time for short course now in this event (she’s 14) and she finished 6th overall in her age group out of 20 swimmers (she was also the fastest of the 8 swimmers in her age grouping from her club in this event). She really likes the IM races.

 

[TU_BLA]

Rest of the meet...she cut time in 4 of her 6 races and in the 2 races she "added" time we're talking .2 and .08. She cut almost 4 seconds off her 100 breast stroke and now has a state qualifying time for that. She cut 37 seconds off her 500 free style and has a state qualifying time for that. She already had a state qualifying time for her 200 backstroke but was shooting for a senior state time and missed by .1. She has no ID'd some goals for this season so it will be interesting to see where she ends up. Her next meet is in Fayetteville at the start of November, so she has some time to train and fix some of the little things (like coasting into the wall on the backstroke turns). Her coach is starting to nitpick little things for her which I think is good because it means the rest is solid and they're trying to find additional speed. It showed in her 100M breast stroke as she turned her stroke over faster than I've ever seen (anyone who has watched swimming, there are 2 theories are breaststroke, long and glide or short and quick. Both work depending on the swimmer and the power of their kick and pull). My daughter has been a long stroke on the breastroke and yesterday she shortened it just a bit for the shorter distance and she cut nearly 3 seconds to get that state time. She also swam a last 50 free in the 500 of 34 seconds. She caught sight of the swimmer in the lane next to her and decided she didn't want to finish behind her. My daughter really dislikes the free style and sort of has a negative feeling towards it and her speed. She sort of proved to herself she can go pretty fast when she wants (34 for the last 2 lengths of a 20 length race is pretty good especially for her).

 

[TU_BLA]

So my daughter will be swimming in her first HS meet tonight at Union. There are 13 schools slated to be there with over 200 swimmers. East side schools include Owasso, BA, Booker T Washington, Bishop Kelley, Muskogee and Union. West side schools include Bethany, Edmond Santa Fe, Deer Creek, Edmond Memorial, Putnam City North, Putnam City West, and Putnam City.

My daughter is the only FR at Union on the varsity squad. She will be in both relays (200 medley relay, she's swimming the backstroke segment leading off), and 400M Free relay (she's swimming the 2nd leg); she is also swimming the 200IM (seeded 7th overall) and the 100M Backstroke.

 

[lawpoke87]

So my daughter will be swimming in her first HS meet tonight at Union. There are 13 schools slated to be there with over 200 swimmers. East side schools include Owasso, BA, Booker T Washington, Bishop Kelley, Muskogee and Union. West side schools include Bethany, Edmond Santa Fe, Deer Creek, Edmond Memorial, Putnam City North, Putnam City West, and Putnam City.

My daughter is the only FR at Union on the varsity squad. She will be in both relays (200 medley relay, she's swimming the backstroke segment leading off), and 400M Free relay (she's swimming the 2nd leg); she is also swimming the 200IM (seeded 7th overall) and the 100M Backstroke.

Congrats to her for making the high school team and best of luck tonight

 

[TU_BLA]

Update to last night's swim meet....my daughter swam well although he day started off a little ominous as she forgot her swimsuit at home after she thought she packed it in her bag so she was a little late to warm-ups (and most of us in youth sports have experienced a similar WTF moment in the past I'm sure...my son, the soccer GK forgot to put gloves in his bag for a game in Enid...another kid forgot cleats...I mean, they have one job to do before getting in the car...one... ).

Anyway, Union finished 5th out of 10 teams. Not bad considering they have one of the smaller squads for a 6A school. My daughter swam the opening backstroke leg in the 200 Medley relay. Union had a lead after that leg and only small fraction behind after the breaststroke. Union's issue on relays is they only have 3 strong female swimmers right now. The 4th for the relays is a swimmer and she works hard but she just isn't fast (more on that later). My daughter finished 7th in the 200IM, about where she should be but she could have been a little better as her backstroke segment was wonky. She also finished 8th in the 100M backstroke which was an improvement of 4 spots from her seed. She also cut about 3.5 seconds off her PB for that event.

Her final event was the 2nd leg of the 4x100M freestyle relay. 1st leg went off and handed off to my daughter with a 2 second lead...my daughter stretched that to 6 or 7 seconds and the 3rd leg maintained that. The aforementioned senior was the anchor...and she swam a full 20 seconds slower than the other 3 and the group finished 2nd in their heat by 4 seconds. There's an 8th grader at Union who swims with my daughter on her club team and I went up to her after the meet and told her she was in 9th grade now

So this meet ended with what they call a 50M Freestyle shootout. Top 8 teams (boys and girls, points combined) get to swim. Your finish in this determined your finish in the meet. Union was seeded 8th. Basically, top 8 teams pick 7 swimmers (4 boys, 3 girls) to swim a 50M freestyle leg alternating with a boy then girl, then boy and so forth. 1 team is eliminated after each 50M segment (team who finishes last in that heat). This little 10 minutes is insane...the pool is really loud. All the teams swimmers who aren't swimming in the event go to the far end of the pool in their lane to cheer on their teammates. Anyway, Union was eliminated on the 4th leg (2nd girl leg, my daughter was slated to swim the 3rd girl leg). But Union did beat Edmond Santa Fe, Bishop Kelley, and Deer Creek. Final 4 were Broken Arrow (4th), Owasso (3rd), Booker T (2nd), and Edmond Memorial (1st). Edmond Memorial has a really strong swim team.

Next meet is Tuesday, also at Union (hosting meets is a bear by the way).