All the kids were great with seat assignments, going through their warmups and getting a lot accomplished in the 20/25 minutes we had. They handled their second warmup right before their events and apparently they knew what they were doing because they posted 48 personal best out of 52 swims. The 4 times that were off pretty well matched their entry times. I think we wish we could have a couple of those back but they are in the rear mirror now, lessons learned.
On Friday afternoon/evening the first event on the kids list was the 400 and 200 IM. In the early two sessions Charlotte Lim, Blake Madsen, and James Anderson posted best times in the 400 IM. Each of them approached each leg strong with a great effort and push on the back half of each leg. Blake would end up finishing 3rd in the event. In the next session Both Lilly Fisher and Blake Farello also posted best times in the event, Ben dropping over 16 seconds. Again the effort in the back half of each 100 was nice to see, we do believe you all are learning.
The last two sessions of the day had the 11 year olds followed by the 12 year olds swimming their 200 IM.
Our Mako swimmers Sadie Buckley, Anna Helms, Oliva Roca, Nick Harris, Claire Dobrydney, Lyla Devlin, Rebecca Prunty, Luca Iaci, Josef Gruendel and Tony van de Graff all had some great swims. During this event we did hit a few bumps ranging from thinking too much, too many expectations and not having fun and a little lack of focus, but those will be topics for another day. Sadie won the event while Claire placed 3rd in her swim. Sadie pulled off the Hat 🎩 trick winning all three 100's in the 11 year old session. Yes people she won the 100 breast from lane 1. Where did that one come from? Anna placed 9th in the 100 back dropping almost 2 seconds. Also dropping almost 2 seconds was Nick placing 12th. Claire won the 100 back for 12 year olds and Lyla dropped 2.5 seconds placing 8th. Claire also dropped 5 seconds in the 100 breast placing 3rd, yes that was a Dobrydney placing in a breaststroke event, but hold the presses Claire is not about to give up her freestyle events as she pointed out to me. Lyla again placed 7th in the 100 breaststroke event. Claire also placed 3rd and Lyla placed 8th in the 100 fly. We had a really good Saturday.
Sunday we all looked out to see a winter wonderland, but what about the meet, we had some unfinished business. Early on the meet was a go so off I went to the pool, and as I told the kids if the pool is open I’ll be there. As I arrived at the pool with the other coaches it was decided that we would run the first session for 13 year old but unfortunately we would have to cancel the other three sessions. With everything else in the last few months I guess Mother Nature wanted to get in on the action and remind us all that she is still out there.
James and Charlotte arrived early and went about their warmups for the 500 free and the 200 IM. Both of them swam great 500’s dropping over 20 and 30 seconds respectively. They really focused on the pacing strategy that we had discussed. The two of them finished off the meet with the 200 IM dropping over 5 seconds each in their races.
Our top finishers for the meet are;
13 year old boys Bake Madden 2nd
11 year old girls Sadie Buckley 1st.
12 year old girls Claire Dobrydney 2nd
12 year old girls Lyla Devlin 7th
Great job by all the Mako swimmers in the meet and also to our group members who had some great swims in their district championship meets over the weekend.
Rest enjoy the day off catch up on some homework and let’s get ready for that final push into championship season.
Comments