Swim Champs

The culmination of a summer of swimming occurred last Friday and Saturday when the Jefferson Swim League held it's regional championship in the same pool that the UVA swim team (#1 in the ACC for 7-9 years running) competes.  The pool is decked out with touch pads in the water and a huge screen for the swimmers to see their names and times displayed.  This is big time!!   And to add to the pressure, this year looked like our team, the Crozet Gators,  might actually dethrone the 22 year champions, Fairview Seahorses Swim Team.  Grandma and Grandpa Hill were there for the events and the boys were very excited to show off their form and speed.   They were all looking to beat their best times of the season and with a few exceptions, they all did just that.  It was a remarkable two days.

Caleb and Liam started off on Friday afternoon/evening (12:20-7:00pm), when both of their age brackets were scheduled to compete.  Liam was first off the blocks for an Individual Medley which means he swims all 4 strokes:  butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, in that order.  Liam had the totally unfortunate mishap of stubbing his toe on his way to line up.  It required two bandaids to stop the bleeding and some mental mending.  Tears were shed beforehand, but he had a great swim....not his best, but under the circumstances, impressive.  He was determined to not let this race affect his chance to secure the one open spot in the final freestyle relay reserved for those who have shown their best times during the meet.

Here is his time:

Next up was Caleb for the same event, in his age group.  He was a little more nervous because Jamboree had kept him out of the water for almost two weeks before champs, but he came through and did great.

Caleb's Time:

Then it was time for games and hanging around waiting for the other events:

The neighborhood swim gang minus G. one of Caleb's good buddies.

Liam was next up in the breaststroke and beat his time by 3 seconds....for those of you who don't swim, 3 seconds is a HUGE improvement as he has consistently been in the 50 second range all summer.  He then went on the beat his time in backstroke, coming in a close second in his heat, and securing his spot on the final relay!

Next was Caleb on backstroke and fly, and he improved his time in both events.

We had some more down time where Grandpa Hill took a little snooze and the boys played a little "pinching kitty," a tag game made up by Gavin several years ago when he was a toddler.

The final event was the freestyle relay (200 meter).  Liam had set his mind on that one open spot the day before when his coach told him and two other boys that the spot was open to whoever swam the strongest.  He focused, swam strong despite the bloody toe and they came in 3rd place overall.  Nice work Liam!

Of note: this screen shot of the score was not right....a mess-up from whoever input the numbers:  ACAC was 1st, BHSC was 2nd was our team CGST was 3rd.

Caleb also knew he would be in his relay from the beginning of the meet:

At the end of Caleb's relay we were done for the night and rushed home to grab a quick salmon and pasta dinner and get Gavin and Jonah in bed before their early start the next morning.  Our team was in 3rd place at this point in the meet, about 100 points behind Fairview.

Now for Saturday, I will start off by saying that I was very anxious for this day where Gavin was going to be competing for 1st place in backstroke.  I still cannot imagine the pressure of going into an event like this already having the best time of all 126 boys competing.  I will also note, that because of their 19 month age difference and Gavin's late August birthday, Gavin and Jonah actually compete against each other this season, in the same age bracket (8 and under).  

Here are the two boys before the meet started:

Gavin's medley relay team (each boy swims one of the four strokes: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle, in that order) was first off the blocks and Gavin was the first of his team to start the swim with the backstroke.  They were projected to win this by about 10 seconds and came close to keeping that record.  Gavin's first trophy of Champs was earned and 15 points for the team were scored.  The gap was starting to close on Fairview.

The next event was Freestyle which both Jonah and Gavin were racing.  Jonah went first and did a great job and improved his time.  He always gets a good start with his nice dives which I think is in part due to a game we play that started in the Outer Banks 3 years ago with a great friend S. England.  When we are just messing around at the pool, they try to dive in the water with perfect form and I'm the judge.  A 10 is earned if there is little splash, legs together, arms straight, and head down and they are usually so desperate for that 10 that they do it over and over until they get it right.  We also play the game with other moves: pencil dive, cannon ball, sleep-walker, crazy-man, or whatever else they make up.  

Gavin was in a higher heat and made a mental decision to not go "all-out" in freestyle, so that he would have some energy left over for the backstroke.  Jared and I never even suggested this to him, he just put his own strategy into motion.  This is a boy with a plan, I tell you.

I have no photo of the scoreboard of this.....or maybe I will find it......but he did come in 8th place I believe.

Here are G&G watching the events:

Jonah was next up for breaststroke and he did a great job......we laughed because he kept glancing over and checking out his competition, something all the boys tend to do in this stroke.

Next was the moment we were all waiting for, Gavin competing in backstroke.  He was in the last ("winners") heat where the ten boys with the best times race.  We were all a little nervous and Jonah had been saying a quiet prayer for his brother.
 

Here he is on the blocks:

And here are the results:

Not only did he earn another 15 points for his team, he beat his own record of 20.72.  He was so thrilled he fist pumped the water!  Of course we were all screaming and cheering, so much that I thought I was going to faint from loss of oxygen!  I'm not kidding.  Like Liam the night before, he had a goal for himself, he worked very hard, stayed focused, and in the end he kept a cool head and beat 125 other boys for this spot on top!  It's so remarkable that I find myself shaking my head in disbelief that this is my child, my little boy.  How we were all feeling:

Gavin had one final event: the 50 freestyle race.  He was looking to come in 2nd place in this event behind his teammate, but turned one stroke short of the end of the pool.  This cost him some time and he came in 4th overall.  He got out of that pool smiled up at us and came out to where we were waiting for him.  

Here he is on the blocks and starting:

The Gators were closing in on Fairview in large part because of Gavin's relay team who together took first in their medley event and then individually took first in all the other events for the 8 and under boys.  They are total rock stars!  The second and final session were for ages that we didn't have any swimmers, so we packed it up, heading to a new spot for lunch, and made our way home to pack for the beach trip the next day.

That evening I got a phone call from one of our neighbors that told me that the Crozet Gators dethroned the Fairview Seahorses by a mere 20 points!!! The boys went crazy and immediately got suited up to head to the pool for a late night celebration with the entire gators team.  We sent G&G with them because Jared and I had a farewell party for some friends, but they reported back that a lot of junk food was consumed and some serious games of sharks and minnows were played.  The papers ran the story immediately and the team was even on the evening news.....it was history here in Charlottesville and the boys were beyond thrilled to be a part of it!  

There is so much I love about swim team.  I love that the only event I ever missed this entire season was Liam's backstroke. I was frantically looking for him after I finished my job as "sweep judge" to let him know I'd found a ride home for him so that he didn't have to stay to the bitter end (Jared was out of town) and realized after he came up to me asking if I saw his race that I missed it!  So sorry about that Liam.  But besides that I never missed one of their events.  I love being part of a "team" where we see the same friends, some new some old, every morning and every Wednesday evening we spend several hours with each other working our assigned jobs and cheering everyone on.  It's a great community to be a part of and I look forward to several more years of swim team!