Mt St. Helens Memorial Invite @ Cumming Aquatic Center 5/18-19
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Bear
200 Free – 2:55.40 – So this race was difficult to assess. Bear was good enough to make the fast heat in an outside lane, meaning the middle of the pool was going to be quite a bit faster than he was. He start off and while he got left behind he looked like he was doing well…then he got to the wall did his turn and his head popped up immediately coming off the wall. He finished the 100 but didn’t swim very hard, he pushed for the back half, finishing with a poor time of 3+ minutes. However, the time didn’t matter because he managed to miss the wall on the first turn. In fact, when he got out of the pool he kept saying “I can’t believe I missed the wall”. One of Brett’s friends (Hunter) that was cheering Bear on turned to my wife (who was on deck timing) and said, “He really shouldn’t say that so loud.”…but an official overheard Hunter and responded, “We got the DQ already, so it didn’t matter.” I was very pleased with the way Bear handled this…
200 Breast – NT - This took forever, he tried hard, and he had moments where he looked good, but he still has a ways to go in this event. Moreover, he really doesn’t like the long Breaststrokes, he says they are too slow…(and he means the race is too deliberate…not that he’s too slow, though I’m sure that is part of the issue). He finished with a
4:03.53
50 Free – NT – Slight improvement here, and in fact, Bear’s seed time was an outside line, but he managed to win his heat and beat 1 kids time from the last and fastest heat. He finished with a
36.35
800 Free – NT – Bear was one of only 3 kids swimming in this race. 1 of the kids, Parker (who you’ll probably hear about more as we get closer to State) is a BIG 12 year old, who will turn 13 right after state…and John, also a really good 12 year old, but not a big kid. The race started and Bear was instructed to stay with John, who apparently was instructed to stay with Parker. Almost immediately Parker jumped out to a lead with John about a body length behind, whereas Bear decided when he saw the initial pace to pass on trying to stay with John, and he fell back a good bit. However, Bear was still posting really solid splits. In fact, this is another of the races where I wish I could create a graph that would move based on the splits because Bear and John ended up having a very interesting race. I’ll let you deduce from the splits. Here they are:
Code:
Bear John
100 1:28.95 1:19.50
200 1:34.75 1:30.39
300 1:33.75 1:33.25
400 1:33.00 1:34.47
500 1:32.98 1:34.26
600 1:28.83 1:32.28
700 1:26.76 1:30.15
800 1:22.15 1:27.05
Total 12:01.17 12:01.35
After the 500 split Bear began to close on John, after the 600 split the coach looked at me (as I was flipping the lap counter) and she said, “Bear’s trying to catch John”. After the 700 split she smiled and said, “I think he’s going to catch him,” It was pretty exciting for a 12 minute race. After the race Bear’s Coach shared the splits with Brett’s coach and the team’s head coach, and they were all blow away by Bears 1:22 split in the final 100…Brett’s coach even stated, “That’s crazy fast for final 100…”
100 Free – NT - Bear improved here, but not as much as I or he would have liked he posted a
1:19.90. I was hoping for about a second faster, but felt a 1:19 low was very doable (again I think it is important to note that his personal best is a 1:19.90 and he sway a 1:22.15 in the final 100 of an 800 free).
100 Breast – 1:56.79 – Swam almost exactly the same time, with a
1:56.88
50 Back – 46.76 – Another small improvement with a time of
45.21
400 IM – NT – Bear fought hard on this one. His fly was a 1:47.37, only a couple seconds off his personal best, then he swam a 1:43.24 back, and a 2:03.44 breast, followed up with a 1:28.69 free. Overall time was a
7:02.74. He just missed the State Cut by a couple of seconds…but…he’s ok with it. He really didn’t like this event. He was also disappointed following this race. With his recent struggles he’s back to feeling like he isn’t as good as his siblings. I believe in his heart he thought he might get Bailey in this one due to the distance. And in fact, he out swam Bailey in everything but Fly…I also believe without a shadow of a doubt that if he wants to swim this and he does it again, he can get the cut…but I’m not sure he wants to swim it again…