Thursday, April 11, 2019

DAY 2 SAINT PETES

The alarms sounded and it was off for a quick breakfast and an early ride to the pool for our morning warmup.  Today’s warmup went much better than the previous days.  Yes we know it was early but we were able to spread out into 4 lanes and get some easy stretch out swimming in before the hordes of other swimmers arrived.  In fact it work out so well that we made an executive decision and will arrive early the next two days also.  Yes my lovelies that means we will be in the pool by 6:30, and by the time we are finished you may head over to the back for some light stretching and enjoy the sunrise over the bay.  This is what we mean by doing things that
will help us be successful and swim fast in our races.  Get a good night sleep everyone.

Unlike yesterday this morning both courses would start off with the 100 IM for our 10 and unders and the 200 IM for everyone else.  Sadie started off the morning gaining valuable experience in the 100 IM, and swimming herself right into finals this evening. The Small sisters would both swim two great
 IM’s with Sara dropping 8 seconds, while sister Skylar after realizing it was a 200 not 100 IM would
 drop over 10 seconds.  Not to be out done our boys Adrian (3 second drop),Ben (2 second drop),and Blake swam some great IM with Blake swimming his way into finals this evening.  Our big boys Matthew, Ethan and Brady had some excellent IM’s in posting personal best.  Kitty, Kendall and Katherine Helms took their shot at this event all posting personal bests in the event dropping over 10 seconds cumulatively.

It was now time for some fliers to take their shot at the pool, and first up were the 50’s with Sadie, Emily both posting lifetime bests in the event.  We had 2 of our Mako swimmers take a crack at the 200 fly with Blake dropping 2 seconds and getting the gift of doing it again later in the evening at finals. Catherine Lim our senior statesman wound up winning her heat and dropping over 10 seconds.
We just watch Blake finish his 200 fly at finals not only winning the event but dropping another 5 seconds.

It would now be time for our backstrokes to begin their quest in the pool and also to see how they would handle this bright sunshine right over the top of the pools and not a cloud to be seen.  Swimming backstroke would be Sarah Small and Claire Dobrydney touching the wall with personal best in the event.  The 11-12. Boys would feature Chaz, Adrian and  Blake entered the pool and finished with some good swims.  Adrian and Blake would return in the evening and according to ESPN turned in 2 stellar performances finishing 8th and 2nd respectively.  Matthew and Ethan also enjoyed the rare experience of racing two good 50 backs and according to Ethan he had a time drop of over WAIT FOR IT, 30 seconds.  The 13-14 girls of Sophie Scadron, Kathleen Altenburg, Jaime, Emerson, Riley, Kendall,, Catherine, Ava, Mackenzie, Jackie, Nicole, Catherine Lim and Sophia all turning  in some great 50 backstroke races.  Sophia Cloutier would return in the evening posting a faster time and moving up 2 places.

Last swimmers in the morning would be our 500 girls with Katherine, Jackie, and Kitty.  The heat was really starting to build and to give those three a little extra down time we took them out of our relays to get ready for that 500.  Katherine was first to go in and fighting both the heat and a persistent girl next to her during the entire race turned in some incredible splits and would post a best time while finishing 2nd in her heat.  Next in was Jackie who also while fighting the heat lead early in the race and finished around her best time.  Kitty was our dark horse in this event as we have been working real hard both mentally and physically with her distance events.  With the sun blazing she dropped over 5 seconds and placed 2nd in her heat with a great effort.

The finals this evening were great for the Mako swimmers consisting of Sadie, Blake, Adrian, and Sophia and the 11-12 boys of Adrian, Blake, Ben and Chaz all posting personal best times on the scoreboard.


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