Swim With Dad @ GaTech (6/16 - 6/17)
Brett's first meet with Chattahoochee Gold was a huge success...he was very concerned about swimming so many long races leading up to the event (in fact, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say he was stressed out). Before warmups he had a borderline panic attack, because things were so different for him...(he didn't have his siblings with him, doesn't really know anyone on the team well, couldn't find his coaches, was scheduled to swim long events, and I was out of town and for the first time ever would miss on of his meets). Thankfully, one of the team coaches came by...got him to relax, took him to his coaches and they were able to calm him down and focus him on the swimming...
Day 1
200 Free - First time ever swimming this event (long or short course) and he did a very nice job. Form looked so much better and effort was unquestionably greater (saw the wife's recordings)...
3:17.41 - not far off of Bailey's time a few weeks back...
100 Back - was really not excited about this race as he doesn't like back and it is a longer swim than he had ever done before in this stroke. Form was pretty good...time was acceptable for him
1:45.10
100 Breast - Brett swam this one well and posted a personal best time of
1:44.22...an improvement of 2.25 seconds, and good enough to finish 8th out of 25 swimmers
Day 2
50 Breast - Brett swam this at time trials and he swam a 49.9...in this meet he swam a
47.72 for a personal best and he missed a state cut by less than .5 seconds...
200 IM - This was the huge stressor...really was scared about it, but he talked to his coaches, didn't fuss and jumped up on the blocks when it was time to swim. He was DQed for an illegal fly to back turn (he got on his side to much...I think he was so focused on the swim he actually thought he needed to swim another leg of fly...like he was swimming 200 IM short course). Regardless, the error didn't help him and he posted a nice
3:33.xx time...
50 Free - Brett's improved kick and effort showed up here as his best coming in was a 41.12 - he again improved by about 2 seconds swimming a
39.xx (unfortunately, I don't know the exact time because the timing system messed up and officially recorded his swim as a 24.37...we are getting that deleted before he ends up swimming in heats with national level competition)...
200 Breast - Finally, he got a chance to swim the 200 Breast. As you may remember from short course he got the state cut but was DQed for a one hand touch on the final turn. We entered him in the State Meet but he failed to get the cut time, which cost us $50...but because he never actually recorded a state cut in this event, he hadn't qualified for state in long course. Brett had never swum the 200 Breast long course so we didn't have a time for him....but also because he is faster in the middle of the pool and turns and pullouts are where he struggles I felt he had a decent chance of getting the cut time of 3:52.39...I wasn't there to record the splits and the official results didn't post them either (unfortunately)...but he swam a...
3:43.04...almost 10 seconds below the cut time
...I didn't expect that...his coach also told him there are some pacing issues they can clean up to improve the times significantlly....