Swim Season In Review

The regular season for the swim team has come to a close, with only the massive nine-team finals swim meet to go. It has been a terrific season for Michael, who has achieved nearly all of his goals, becoming a pretty quick swimmer along the way.

The swim league has "bronze," "silver" and "gold" time standards for each event. A "gold" time is the ticket to the County meet and the measure of a truly fast swimmer. The "bronze" and "silver" times are great targets for all the other swimmers. Last year, as a truly beginning swimmer and in the bottom part of his 7/8 age bracket, Michael improved over the course of the year, but only got to the point by the last meet that he could start to think that maybe he would get a "bronze" time. He came into this year with the firm goal of earning "bronze" times in his main strokes of free, back and fly.

Before the season was half over, he earned his first "bronze," in fly. A couple of meets later, he earned his "bronze" in free by a solid margin. Just last weekend, in a 25-meter pool (a bit longer than the more common 25-yard pools), he finally earned a "bronze" in backstroke.


Another one of his goals was to do a "no-breather," in which he swims the length of the pool without taking a breath. After achieving the goal in practice, he accomplished the feat in a meet about halfway through the season, and has done so in every free race since then. The first time he did it, the coaches were ecstatic, giving him a ton of praise, recognizing that he met one of his most important personal goals.

Over the course of the season, Michael also had the opportunity to participate in several freestyle relays, including one with three of our top swimmers (Michael filled in for a faster swimmer who didn't get to the meet). He also took part in medley relays (swimming the fly leg), and on one memorable evening, the individual medley. He nearly got a "bronze" time in the IM, even though he was dead tired by the end.

The season culminated in a nearly perfect meet this week. Michael won two of his three heats and set personal bests in all three, including finally breaking the 20 second mark in freestyle. Last year, he always placed at the bottom of every group of swimmers. This year, by the last meet he was solidly in the top 40%. He is not big enough to have a ton of speed, but his strokes are technically correct, and he has learned a lot this year about competing across the whole length of the pool. He has a drawer full of first place ribbons, which represent many come-from-behind victories since his starts are always the weakest part of his races. In all, he has become a faster swimmer and a mentally tougher competitor.


Through it all, Michael had fun with his friends, swimmers of all speeds.


But how could he not be faster ... the kid is ripped!