Claire decided to swim on the neighborhood cabana swim team this summer. My siblings and I did this every summer growing up and have great memories from it. Luckily, my friend Sara who watches her after school, also has kids that swim, so she is able to take them to practice at 4:00 pm. I wasn't sure how she would like it after she had a rough start. The first couple of practices were overwhelming because there were so many kids. There are a little more than 200 kids on the team! She got more comfortable in the water and really started to like it. Here she is at practice waiting to do diving practice off of the blocks.
Some of the kids won't jump off the blocks, but she didn't seem to mind.
She kept practicing over and over.
Our first meet was a practice meet with only our team. They call it the donut meet because every swimmer gets a donut after they swim their first event.
She learned how to line up for her heat and where to wait.
Finally it was time for her first event - backstroke. It is a Larsen family specialty. Her age group swims 25 yards.
She knew how to hold on to the edge and when to go.
She didn't stop the whole way to the other end. I kept reminding her before the event that she needs to make sure that she ends the race on her back, not on her stomach and she did it. Before the season she didn't know how to do back stroke.
She also did freestyle. She doesn't know how to do backstroke or breast stroke yet. Hopefully she will learn them this season.
She did really good and didn't stop or pause during the race.
She got last place for her backstroke which isn't too surprising since she is a new swimmer. But she got 14th place for freestyle.
She got up at 6:45 am for our first meet without trouble. It was an away meet and you have to be there before 7:45 am to check in, so we left about 7:10. The meets start at 8:30 am and depending on how large the teams are they can go until 2:00 pm. She had a great backstroke race.
Both of Andrew and Claire's teachers at school have kids on the swim team so we see them all the time at the pool. It is hard not to call them Mrs. The girl with Claire below is actually Andrew's teachers daughter.
Great start!
She got 3rd in her heat for her freestyle race.
Although she got last place in backstroke, she was able to improve her time by 1 second at the first meet. We left before the freestyle times were posted, but I think she did better in that as well. It looks like it is going to be a really fun season and it is nice getting to know some more people in the neighborhood.
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