[Breeze]

Woodie B Malone Invite - 11/19/12

This event takes place at a rival year round swim club's facility. We've swum here in the past, and it isn't one of our favorite venues. Crowded, old, and the event is typically over crowded. In the meet this time, Brett will be swimming in the morning, in the "outside" pool (it is actually under a huge permenant tent). It is a long course pool that they will swim from side to side
(Rather than end to end). Bailey and Bear will compete in the afternoon in the indoor pool (where we typically compete).

Bailey - Another meet, another chance for a state cut...and with numerous events in striking distance I feel pretty good we'll see her get one at this meet.

Bear - I'm hoping Bear will be able to continue his astonishing run of personal bests. He is getting pumped up about swimming for the first time in a long time and it is exciting to see.

Brett - Coming off a strong meet, I'm hoping we can build on that success and continue our improvements.

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Girls 10U - 50 Free
Bailey doesn't get a personal best, but she's close enought that I don't expect her to slide back for long. Her time of 34.13 is only fractionally slower than her best from Auburn.

Girls 10U - 100 Free
Bailey didn't swim the 100 free at Auburn...but like Bear did in his most recent 100 free, Bailey cut a bunch of time. She dropped from a 1.19.97 to 1.15.86. A very strong swim.

Girls 10U - 50 Back
Another shot at the State Cut missed, Back to the mid 40s in this stroke and still not confident enough going into the walls...

Girls 10U - 100 Back
This is a new event for Bailey (never swam it short course), but because she has 2 state cuts, I elected to have her not swim the 100 Breast and the 50 Fly in this event to try and get a cut in another race. I felt she had a good shot to get the cut...she didn't - swimming a good 1:28.90...but she stopped on the 3rd lap, sat up and looked around. Not sure what that was about. It was the strangest thing, but she honestly stopped swimming. Had she not stopped, I fell comfortable in saying she'd have gotten her cut. So we'll be swimming this one again at our next meet for sure.

Girls 10U - 50 Breast
Slid back here to a 47.28...about where she was before her improvement at the 10/1 meet.

Girls 10U - 100 IM
For the 3rd straight race, Bailey improved on this stroke. This time the drop wasn't significant (like the 5.5 seconds combined from the last two times she swam an IM), in fact, this time the drop wasn't even a full second. It was about .8 seconds, as she posted a 1:26.11. All she needed was about a half second for her cut, so Bailey got her 3rd State Cut
. It was actually cute when she got out of the pool following this race. This was her last race of the meet (though they aren't listed in any particular order), and she didn't think she had done well enough to get her state cut and she was upset. She really wanted to get another one this meet and It took a good bit of talking to convence her she had gotten it, at which point she perked up and gave me a big kiss...

Bailey continues her strong season, earning a 3rd state cut and showing that the 100 Back should be attainable (1:27.09 is what she'll need). Her strong kicking is really the catalyst behind much of this improvement. I brag on her about her efforts in practice and point our how well they are paying off. Coming into the season I thought Bailey would get 3 to 5 cuts...we already have 3 so it has been as successful season already in my eyes.

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Boys 10U - 50 Back
Another personal best - this time it isn't a minor drop as he posts a 41.60, that's a 1.3 second improvement and it moves him within a couple seconds of a cut (still a ways off, but reachable now).

Boys 10U - 50 Breast
Bear breaks the 50 second mark and swims his breast in 48.18. Another drop of 1.5 seconds, and his streak of peronal bests continue

Boys 10U - 50 Fly
Bear gets another personal best here - swimming in 39.76. So his streak of personal best is still going strong and more importantly he got his state cut by .03 seconds. Thank God...now I can relax a bit...as he won't be left out when the state meet rolls around. He was so pumped up after he found out he got his cut he was jumping up and down, giving me "bear" hugs...it was a truely awesome moment.

Boys 10U - 100 IM
A 4th straight personal best at this meet, as he posts a 1:28.40...1.5 seconds off again. And Bear's strong swimming continues. In this event Bear has dropped his time 12 seconds in the last 2 meets...

Boys 10U - 50 Free
In his second to last event of the meet (and I do remember it was his second to last event), his string of something like 18 straight personal bests came to an end...(which is how I remember it was his second to last event of the meet). He swam a good 36.18, but .4 slower than he swam at Auburn.

Boys 10U - 100 Back
I decided to Bear in the 100 Back due to the way the order of events fell (there weren't a whole lot of other options, and I felt he could do well in this one). He wasn't too thrilled about it...he was concerned about executing all those backstroke flip turns, but like the champ that he is, he attacked it. And he did extremely well, posting a 1:26.43...which is a state
cut. In fact, it is 3 seconds under the required time for a state cut...

Bear continues his incredible season with another strong meet, going 5 for 6 in personal bests (by the way, I was never so specific in counting how many personal bests out of how many swims the kids had, until Bear got on this run). And more importantly he has 2 State Cuts. I honestly don't expect another one, and that's fine, he got in which was my goal for him coming in. However, I will qualify my statement about not expecting another one...if he continues to improve the way he has all season, he certainly might get additional cuts.

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Boys 11/12 - 50 Breast
Brett starts the meet with his favorite stroke, so I was hopeful this would lead to a good meet. It didn't. In fact, just the opposite. Brett's coach worked in practice on him extending in his Breaststroke...wanting him to really reach on the streamline portion of the stroke, telling him that he has been shorting up in an effort to increase his stroke rate to go faster. He told him that he isn't strong enough to compete that way and he was slowing himself down a bit. Good advice, but unfortunately, Brett's execution of the
change caused him to slow way down. To times that he hadn't posted in over a year. He ended up swimming a 46.88...and he was crushed. You could visably see the fight go out of him following this race. I tried to keep him focused and positive, but he was not listening...

Boys 11/12 - 50 Fly
Breathed every stroke on the Fly (something he hadn't done since the time trials) and added 4 full seconds to his best time from the previous meet. Again, his heart wasn't in it...posted 47.30

Boys 11/12 - 100 IM
I was able to get a little spark of life out of him prior to this race, and he worked hard in this event, but he came up .4 second short of a best time. He thought he had it getting out of the pool...and was disappointed to find out he didn't.

This meet was a heartbreaker for Brett. He was coming off a good performance in Auburn, and he laid an egg in this one. It demoralized him so much he didn't go back to compete the 2nd day, and I didn't make him. It was a tough decision for me...I'm one that says you fight through your problems and you don't quit...but when I looked at the situation, his mom and I felt that if we make him go and he performs poorly again (which is possible given his state of mind isn't all that good at this point), it's liable to cause more harm and further depress him. To make matters worse, Bailey earned her 3rd cut and Bear got 2 in this same meet. Brett was proud of them and happy for them (he even told them so), but you could see the hurt in his eyes, and the knowledge that despite the fact that he was the one that truely loved swimming...he was doing poorly while his bother and sister were tearing things up. He feels like he is getting left behind...

We talked to his coaches following this meet, and told them how depressed he was. We asked if they could suggest some things we might do in order to build him back up. They explained that the jump to 11/12s can be a hard one (we knew that already), especially for small 11 year olds (that's us), because they just lack the raw strength needed to compete. Great insight but not terribly helpful...they did say they were sorry to hear that and they would try to do some positive reinforcement to build him back up. They were genuinely concerned. They don't want him to quit, because they believe he has a bunch of talent (in Breaststroke) and that he'll grow into a competitive swimmer.

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