Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Rex did swim team this year and it was rough.  He liked it.  I liked it.  But it was rough.  

Swimming is not like other sports.  First the negative: so much time.  I thought baseball was time consuming, but I was wrong.  Swim practice is every night.  We weren't required to be there, but if other kids are practicing that much, then we should make an effort.  For the first half of the season, we compromised with 2 swim practices a week.  But with practice starting at 7, we weren't home until 8:15 and not in bed until after 9.  And then there's the meets.  Meets are twice a week. Rex had to be there at 5:30 for warm ups and by the end of the season when Rex had learned all the strokes, he was swimming 6 events and was there until 9.  I usually left early with the little kids but still, it was a lot of time.  That's not to mention the championship meet that was five hours long.  I'm not going to lie, I was exhausted and all too ready for swim season to over.

Now for the positive.  I really like individual sports.  Because one kid cannot ruin the game for the team by striking out or scoring in the wrong goal or traveling.  Every kids gets a chance to do his best and make individual improvements.  Rex got really into that.  He checked his times constantly comparing and working to improve.  Swimming is also a community.  Because swim teams, or at least Rex's, goes from age 5 to 18, the parents and kids all know each other from swimming together year after year.  Swimming is also just a good work out.  It's low impact and full body.  And he can do it forever,  unlike team sports that require a team, swimming is just you.  In fact, I'm thinking of taking up swimming with I have fewer little people at home (for now it's just too time consuming for me).  

Rex had a great season.  He wasn't the fastest.  He wasn't the best.  In fact, he probably preformed about as well in swimming as he does in other sports: mediocre at best.  But the great thing about swimming is, his improvement is measurable.  He cut 10-15 seconds off his time for each race from the beginning of the season to the end.  He even got the Coach's Award for his age group for teaching himself the butterfly.  His coach needed someone to swim butterfly for one of the relays and stuck Rex in.  She told him to just do his best, not thinking he'd be able to do it, but low and behold, he could.  It wasn't the most graceful butterfly, but considering he learned it from watching Micheal Phelps last summer, we were all super impressed.  A few meets later, he also got to try the breast stroke, which he also taught himself.  I was well-pleased with Rex's hard work and determination.  We'll be swimming again next year; I think I may even have Alice swim.  In the meantime, I'm just going to catch up on some much needed rest.

Getting ready to dive in during the regular season.

Finishing his leg of a relay

Rex won 3 of his heats one meet--he was stoked.  The next meet he got bumped to the faster heat and didn't win so many heats after that.

Free style 

Free style

"Diving" in at the championship meet.

Zora Jane learned how to clap and got pretty into cheering Rex on at the championship meet.

Getting some last minute instructions from Coach Sabrina

Ready to go at the championship

Here's Rex doing the butterfly in the 100 Meter medley relay.  His team got disqualified.

This made me pretty happy: Rex was pretty excited about getting the Coach's Award, but even sweeter was how excited Alice was that Rex got the Coach's Award.  She just wanted to look at it and kept telling Rex how cool it was.  Alice is really such a happy, loving girl.

 And that's the end of swim season, and not a weekend too soon, because the next weekend was our anniversary.