Swimmer Girl checks out the line-up
 

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here she is dry and all full of team spirit at the homecoming game.....

So, it's been ....a week ...10 days? really? wow feels like more.....

So Saturday was a fresh/soph invitational meet. 8 schools attended. coach allowed 1 swimmer choice for those who happened to be online at the time. SG asked for 100fly or 50free. She's faster than all the other freshmen in fly, but some of them are good, and she's better at breast and IM, so she hasn't swum it at a meet yet. And the 50 free because she know's she's gotten (sorry brits) faster and wants to know how much.

Her fly wish was granted and she also swam breast and two relays (4 is max # events).

Top 12 swimmers medal, Top 8 relays. She medalled in everything. 5th in the breast with her second best time ever. wtg! dropped 5ish seconds from her fly time.

Then yesterday, an away dual meet against a tiny team (17 athletes, we have 45). So they each only got two events and not what they usually swim. We still slaughtered them. It was kind of embarrasing -I'd fire their coach. I understand that this is a poorer area, and swimming is not as big of a deal/priority as it is in Ann Arbor, but their starts were terrible and that's kinda easy/quick to fix/improve. Every single one of the races was lost by all three of their swimmers and won by all three of ours by the time they surfaced from the start. I could have improved their starts and I'm a faux swim coach..... I'm not exaggerating.

So SG swam the 50 free and a free relay. 1st in both, new personal best for the 50 free (28.16s for enquiring minds -good but nowhere near states) awesome.

So, big stuff coming. the team is 6 - 0 but next week we swim the other Ann Arbor high school -the one she should have gone to. and it will be so close. both teams are unbeaten.

and then, on Saturday, there is the MISCA meet -an invitatational only open to swimmers who have made the cut in each event. SG made the breaststroke cut. But coach also entered her for the IM. She should be able to make the cut, but hasn't yet. She needs to shave 5 seconds off her 2:29 time. So no pressure or anything!

No other freshmen are going.

proud swimmom tonight.

And coach and I had a chat and we're good. We have differences, but I can deal with her being a bitch and she can deal with needing my kid ;)

Shes Just driven Mon ,
So are You ,

the big question is IS SG happy ?? is she haveing fun , can she deal with all this ??
And are you ready for an Olympian and what country will she swim for ?????

She's having a fucking blast! I'm thinking of buying shares in Speedway and Speedo.

It's going to be so weird when the season ends. But at least we have polo season to look forward to -I already have the sticker on the car and she's never played a game in her life (she's been to clinics and open sessions and kinda scrimmaged) -she made me get it.

She's having a fucking blast!

Good , Then Proceed !!

The big meet against the school she should have gone to and all her summer swim buddies. We leave in an hour. I have my eagles in pink t-shirts at the ready, she had a 10 minute strategy session on the IM with the former U or M swim coach this morning....... ready as we'll ever be......!

Have fun storming the castle!

We WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And she got the IM cut for the MISCA invitational! She dropped that 5 seconds, baby! -she was 4th And another personal best in the breaststroke! -she was 3rd

And I think a new personal best for her split in the 200 free relay and possibly also for her 50 breast split in the 200 medley relay.

pwned, River Rats! Go Eagles!

congratulations!!!!


Interesting note for me. A LONG time ago when I swam and was a coach, our team was called the River Rats. Those were some good times!

So the story behind the river rats.... long long time ago, there was only one high school in Ann Arbor. Then the built a new one, on the Huron river. And it took the kids from the less financialy-abled side of town. The Old AA high school was forced to get a new name -they became the AA Pioneer. Home of the Pioneers. They decided to call the AA Huron students River Rats -in a derogatory manner. Huron ran with it. AA Skyline is even newer, and had no say in the Eagle thing. It's not very original. But it could have been worse. Plus the new zoning knocked the pioneers down a little and as of tonight, WE RULE ANN ARBOR. :lol:

That reminds me. I'd love to hear the story of how you and Beest wound up in the states and Ann Arbor.

Way to go HEBE!!!!

I'm guessing
Beest is some sort of science teacher at the University

Oh, and I'm not sorry about ur rats

Car industry. He works for a parts manufacturer.

Ooookayyyyyy. That was a bit shorter than I expected.

:lol:

They're in the Witness Protection Program.

shhhhhhh

;)

Sorry, it's really not all that exciting. Here, if you're an immigrant, you're either U of M or you're car industry.

Beest's company was bought by an American company. They also bought a German company, then they decided the two needed "consolidating" so the put the German company in charge of that operation. So the Germans closed the British operations down and fired everyone. Then the American company said "wait, we needed that section!" So those lucky dozen people or so and their machinery and their families got shipped over here. Everyone else lost their jobs.

Oh and then the American company went into chapter 11 because it bought too many companies with too many problems -most notably the British company....... and it stayed there until very recently.

Please can we get a payrise now?

Witless protection more like.....

I'm in the Whitbread protection program. I'm not doing a bangup job of it either. They keep vanishing.

Wigless Protection Agency

Well she wouldn't have to bother with a swim cap......

MISCAs today.

OMFG she dropped another two seconds on her breaststroke and is now within one second of a Division 1 High School State cut! She has 4 meets left in which to drop that second..... no pressure, though..... :lol:

ETA: 103 swimmers, seeded 71st, finished 25th, highest placed freshman......


her IM was also good -tad slower than thurs (and her seed time) but not much, and finished 10ish places above her seed position...... plus coach had told her not to kill herself on it so she's be good for the breast.

This is crazy. Fun but crazy. I had no idea quite how much the ante was going to be upped when she moved to high school swimming. or just how good she was..... No-one drops 8 seconds in a 100 of their best stroke in 6 weeks. That's 10% in breaststroke.

The totally nuts thing is she was still the third placed swimmer from her school -and another two faster than her didn't swim because they already had state cuts and needed cuts in other events.....

Soooo.... at the MISCAS, most of the super-fast girls were wearing tech suits rather than their team suits. The $300 variety. So I gulped and thought, well she's just a freshman, I guess I'll start watching the sales and special offers ready for next year or the year after....

...nuh-huh. SG came home today saying that volunteer coach (head-coach's hubby, former U of M (Phelps) coach, who gave her the game plan for the IM last Thursday that dropped her the 5 seconds- (=God)) .....says that all swimmers who could make it to finals at the division championships in two weeks should have one. And he currently has connections with Speedo (and that is the only suit to have) and he can get them approx 50% off if we have enough orders...... If we can't buy one right now, they may be able to find loaners ...but they only get the 50% discount if enough people want them. ...and that discount is way better than I could ever find in a sale.....

So suddenly next year or so becomes next week? eek!

I have to say I was totally in the No camp until the MISCAs. I thought they were a con -especially at this level. I mean how much time can they really cut? But then I saw wet swimmers coming up to the bleachers to talk to their parents, and those suits were amazing! They were repelling water to the point where it was balling and looked like it was trying to jump off the suit -not even just perching in a hemispheric blob on the outside.


but... we only paid $120 for the team suit, two silicone team caps -with individualized name and team t-shirt and shorts. and that felt like a lot at the time......

I thought the tech suits were banned.

I still think they should be.

lots of them are. So they all want the maximun that isn't banned..... These are like fastback swimsuit tops, knee-lenght jammer-style bottoms.

Damn, that's a lot. Can you earmark some scrip money for the cause?

No, this is a different school. And the thing about scrip is that it can't benefit ndividuals directly. They'd have to be aiming to get suits for the whole team.

and yes, I know this isn'r how many schools run it. mostly they are in violation of federal law. but mostly they are private cathloic schools and a blind eye is turned.

So shoot me for making an observation. occasionally the feds make an example. We weren't one, but we were close enough to have to change fundraising in a way detrimental to income, and yet the private catholic schools carried on regrdless. Bitter? maybe a little...

Yeah, I've never been involved closely enough to know the details of our fundraising. My daughter is in the school band, and they do band trips to competitions where they need to pay for the bus and hotels. But there is fundraising done so that everyone, regardless of income, can go. I don't know how they determine which students get a free ride, and which pay out of pocket, but we have always just paid out of pocket. (Maybe they look at the list of who gets the free school lunches.)

It seems a little strange that you have to buy the team suit, but then are encouraged to swim in a different one. Maybe they should tell parents about that up front, so you can decide where to focus your spending and get one or the other and not both.

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to buy normal swimsuits for all the other competitors? [/commie]

If they all go, then it's good.

having digested it and thunk about it, I'm kind of fine with it actually. Although I'd obviously rather not fork over the 150. This is a suit that you would only wear for the BIG meets. Teams suits are de rigeur at dual meets. This is for when you're REALLY FLIPPING SERIOUS. Only 10 of the team of 45 made MISCAs most had only one cut, she had two. Less than that have made States so far. She is good, $150 is not really a lot for a pice of sports equipment at this level. it just feels like a lot because it's an itst bitsy thin swimsuit. But we paid $70 last year for a used blocker and catcher for Hector and knew we had a steal. and $40 for used legpads and $40 for a used helmet and $40 for used skates...... And coach says these suits now last for much longer than they used to, and she's going to try and instigate a pass-it-down program, so if SG outgrows it, hopefully she will be able to pass it down to the next person with her body shape, and there will be someone to pass one to her....

So anyway, I was kinda thinking I was into it, but needed to discuss with beest, then i walked onto deck tonight and was immediatley accosted by coach, who let me know in no uncertain terms that SG is awesome, they have huge plans for her and the suit is pretty much not a choice......

And apparently Stu -the coaches husband- was one of the 5 responsible for it's design and development -the American part of a 5-people, 5-nation team. And then i saw him personally supervising SG's warm up. These people -who are well respected in the swim coaching world- are investing so much in her it's wonderful and scary.....

Today, while waiting to pick her up from school, I was reading her USA Swimming magazine, and saw that her time was much closer to the current olympians' times than I had thought it would be, so I checked it out, just a few minutes ago. Her current time for the 100 yard breaststroke -when converted to 50m long cours as per olympics) would have been a world record in 1958. OK, so things have come a long way -but that's pretty bloody fast. She's 6 seconds behind the fastest high school girls in the State (who are actually also on her team), but she's 13 and one of them is 18. And she's dropped 8 seconds in the last 7 weeks. I'm totally blown away by this. I know it seems I'm all brag here, but that's really not the point of this. I knew she was good, but I really hadn't grasped how good and how excited people were about her until today.... So many other parents made a point of coming over and saying something complimentary tonight.... Their daughters are even faster, it's so nice that they noticed and took the time to say so.

Tonight, she didn't swim any relays because coach wanted her to save energy for the breaststroke (it's always the penultimate event). She swam the IM towards the beginning and took 3rd with a new personal best time. She came second in the breaststroke, only 4 seconds behind the State champion of 2 years ago and in front of the girl who did get a state cut on Saturday. She hated her race -and it's true, her turns were poor, but she still swam her second best time ever.

We remain undefeated. Next week we swim the state powerhouse, though. they are undefeated in forever. But SG says she likes that pool and is confident she will get her state cut there. go SG, I love you. I'm so proud of you and the work you put in to be the best that you can be.

Man, I can't wait until I can watch her on TV in the Olympics, and I can trot out the awkward photo evidence and say, "She came to my house once!"

This is exciting. Way to go SG!

SG just got a text from coach.... only two more morning practices and then tapering for SECs (Regional championships)... but her and two others who are sooooo close to a state cut are on a "special taper schedule". we have yet to learn what this means, but it involves more weight training, apparently..... this is really starting to feel pretty heavy...... and exciting... and scary... and suddenly way beyond recreational swim team....

wow.

oh and the special suit may now be $225.......

....oh, and, they heard that one of the seniors River rats is going to Olympic trials. They raced each other in the 200IM at our dual meet. Olympian was 1st, SG was 4th, but not even by half a length....

...and yet $225. Takes money to be an amateur....

$225 = new faster suit.
new faster suit = half a length per 200M.
Half a length = olympic trials.

So long as SG is still enjoying this and seroius about pushing it, this is definitely worth paying for. Sell Hector.

So we decided to/finally came to terms with the fact that we need to cough up the 225.

$225 for a 3oz piece of material that's virtually disposable is kinda hard to stomach. But if coach said "she needs to attend this weekend stroke clinic, it will cost $225", we'd've had far less problem commiting ...and yet time is also disposableand the results may be comparable..

Also... I was kinda hoping/dreaming she'd get the cut a the meet tomorrow (Thu), and it would make the decision (rqd by Friday) more crystal cut. But no, coach is resting her from the breaststroke this meet. Instead, she's swimming her worst stroke -backstroke. Because she's improved it so much. (IM -which involves all 4 strokes- is her second best event, so this is important) they want to see how well she can do. And they've put her in the 50 free. Also not her event, but she's come a long way, baby!

In other news, they're tapering (reducing practice to reserve energy for "the big one".). I'm all done with the 5am starts! Just as I was getting used to them. (Monday was the last 6am practice for most swimmers, but "State" swimmers taper later. Even though she doesn't yet have a cut, SG was included in the State group (which numbers about 10, out of the team of 45)

I joked with SG about the "shaved and tapered" thing (=readiness for a big meet). Swimmers shave all body hair before big meets, high school girls generally have a thing about not shaving their legs all season until the night before championships, so they get the "extra drag" at practice, and feel more aerodynamic at championships. She informed me she hasn't shave dthem all Season and Nov 3rd is shaving day. OMFG, my baby is not a baby any more.....

.....

So here's the thing.... There is a sophomore on the team who has times better that Senior River Rat who's going to Olympic trials (allegedly) did when she was a sophomore. i think this girl may also get invited to a trial when the time comes. but.... all of the swimmers who are serious competition for SG swim for he same powerhouse AA club (since they were 6sh, and off season now they're at high school) -the one Phelps swam for.... Costs a fortune. SG's coach is/was a coach for this team. They mean business. Swiming is not fun for them, it's business. The sophomore's mom is a coach there.

SG swims/swam with the nearest "rival" team. A fun team, with good, balanced workouts, but no olympic dreams. In her first season, she has dropped8 seconds on her best event. These other swimmers came in better, but only dropped two or three in their first season....

We're nervous.


Last night she (who sleeps like the dead) woke up and got up at 11 (when we were starting to head to bed) thinking it was morning. She reports also waking at 1 and thinking time to get up, but checking the clock and realising not. then at 3 she woke up and figured it must be time to get up, didn't check the clock properly, had breakfast, got her stuff together, then saw the clock...... so went back to bed for a couple of hours -dressed and ready to go. Today wasn't even THE DAY.

It's tomorrow and Saturday. (District Championships -all the local big high schools)

I'm nervous too, although I'm trying/pretending not to be. But I keep playing over the scenarios for if she doesn't get the State cut. She's 13 FFS, this is nuts!

We have the psych sheets, and she's looking good.... Psych sheets are lists of swimmers in seed order for each event. She's 9th seed (out of 38) in the 200 IM -highest seeded freshman. Heats have 8 swimmers, so 9th seed means she'll be in the prime lane in the second fastest heat -a good position to make it to the last 8. She has 9 seconds to drop to get a state cut in this event, so that isn't likely, but in the top heat at finals on Saturday would be spectacular!
And then she's 10th (out of 61) seed for breaststroke. Which seems worse, but 4 of the 9 above her are her teammates, and she's less than a second off the state cut on this one.

A state cut means you qualify to swim at the state chamionships. This is the level where universities start to take note.

Should have added
Olympic trials = college scholarship
College Scholarship > $225.

:lol:

Although, seriously, too much of this isn't good. I hope it is just the "first big meet" nerves.

Externally, she's more excited than nervous. I think the sleep thing is partially due to the tapering -within a week she's gone from 5-6 hours per day to less than 2 with no morning practice, but she's keeping the same bedtime.

She posted on Facebook tonight about shaving her legs for the first time in the season -and all her other freshmen friends on all the other teams in the city were all IKR..... so funny.

IKR?

ikr = i know right.

TNX.

STATE CUT!!!!! She did it, bitches! State Cut is 1:10.69, she had 1:11.67 ...she swam 1:08.52. More than a 3 second drop. incredible. that's over 11 seconds since the start of the season -almost unheard of in a year-round swimmer's best stroke.

Better still, she came in 4th, just ahead of the now deposed #4 breaststroker on the team (The Breaststroke Battalion took 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and a few other spots in the top 16). only 4 from each team can swim in the final tomorrow, so SG is in the finals (fastest heat) and the other girl (sad for her but great for SG) only gets to swim in the consolation heat.

She also dropped 5 seconds on her IM and came in 7th, so is in the fastest heat of Finals in that too. And in her two relays, she also dropped time on her splits (and was again faster than the former #4 in the breaststroke -they keep leapfrogging each other, though, so chances are she'll be back to #5 tomorow. but hopefully still in the points....)


One of her relays got through to finals tomorrow too, the other had the right time to, but they are reserve because we already filled our allotted number of spots.

Congrats!!

Way to go SG! Fantastic.
Now go kick some azz in the Statessssssssss.

Holy Were-dolphin, batman! Hebe, you RAWK!

It gets better....... because she's so young, for USA age-group swimming, it's not only a state cut, it's a zone cut (= many states, like entire flyover country), so she'll get to swim for Michigan against the other states. (High school swimming takes no account of age, so they can be 13 or 18. Age group swimming is 8U, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 and 15-17.)

Good for ya Hebe !!

Is this with the expensive superfast suit or without?

with the expensive superfast suit.

and thanks all.

Finals today but I'm so much more chilled........

Sg already at the pool, I'm just getting my act together......

7th in the IM (dropping another 2 seconds), 8th in the breaststroke with another 1:08 (tad slower than yesterday but still well under state cut time, so not a fluke). The fastest heat in each event was paraded in with a sign displaying the race, introductions as they walked to the blocks and music! SG's brother got to be a sign carrier and led Swimmer Girl in for her IM which was quite cute.

......and we're back to 6am practices :( two more weeks.....

Sg= Super Girl? Swimmer Girl?

Swimmer Girl. I don't put it past her coach to look her up, so I don't use her name in this thread ;)

oh except the post above where i fucked up, apparently! :lol: was rusjhing out to the party. oh well

oh and, I'm not sure if I mentioned this on the cellar (I must have....), but back in March, when SG was swimming for her middle school at the meet at the High school she should have gone to, and won the breaststroke, We 'fessed up to that coach that she was going to Shiny New School aka the Breaststroke Battalion, and that coach emailed me around midnight that night trying to "help" fix the reasons I had given her for SG going to the other school over Grungy High.

Today her husband came over and said "are you SG's mom? Nice swims this weekend. Yeah, my wife was emailing you like mad trying to get SG to go to Grungy High...." So now I know I wasn't imagining it (They're not supposed to do that....). It's very flattering.

- - - -

10 of the 45 swimmers made the State team. SG is the only freshman. 5 of the 10 are breaststrokers. States are in 2 weeks. I honestly never thought she would make States as a freshman. In fact, foolishly, several weeks ago, when she was still a long way off a cut, I said I would dye my hair blue if she got a state cut..... :rolleyes: (we were swimming a team whose color is purple and my hair was purple and I was told it needed to be blue). It's no biggie except the blue just doesn't last and i hate high maintenance..... and I kinda like purple better than blue. But I'll do it.

Pic or it didnt happen !!

there will be a pic of the hair and I may have pix of her today... hard to say, camera is fucked -I'm on the back-up as beest hase the main camera at HockeyNut's tournament