Gracie's 2009 Swim Season!

Grace loves to race and compete. As far as an athlete, she is strong, and has good form. However, she does not like to work too hard, and runs out of steam pretty early. She gains a lot of attention from doing sports and she loves getting attention. I'm not sure if she'll be an athlete in the future, but I expect we'll find something she can do to keep physically challenged!

This swim season hasn't been too good for Grace. She is a young 7 year old, swimming with other 7/8 year old girls. She is at the "bottom of her age group." Maybe next year when she is at the top of her age group she'll have better times and progression. Swimming is such a great sport, because it is an individual sport as well as a team sport. You are truly competing against yourself. It does not matter what place you come in, it matters if you beat your previous time. This is what we tell the girls to focus on, when swimming!
Her first meet, she swam real good and showed some promise for swimming real fast with the result of her times. However, each following meet she got slower and slower.

-----------------Meet 1--------Meet 2-------Meet 3----------Meet 4

Free------------28.84-----------35.85---------34.86-----------28.89

Back-----------39.94-----------43.50---------39.72------------37.89

Breast-----------na--------------na-----------46.94------------46.13

Above: Happily swimming back stroke!
Above: Getting ready to swim breast stroke.
Above: Grace is in the middle finishing 3rd in backstroke.
Above: Grace taking off for Back Stroke
Below: Grace getting ready for Back Stroke

Below: Grace with some of her 7/8 girls swim team mates.

Below: Grace finished Freestyle in 2nd place!

Below: 3 girls head and head with each other mid-race.

Below: Grace preparing for freestyle swim

Below: Grace with her game face on!

Below: Grace with BF Megan. Megan came to cheer Grace on and enjoy the teams late night swim, post swim meet.

I have been so baffled by Gracie's swim times that I thought I would try some different things to help her be in her best condition to race, for this last meet on 7/1/09. First, we worked with her in the pool, working on technique. Second, on meet day, we watched some of Michael Phelps races and talked about the importance of kicking steadily. We also rested most of the meet day. Third, I also made her a high protein milk shake prior to her meet. Fourth, Her pediatrician thought that her running out of steam may be the result of exercise induced asthma, she suggested using an inhaler prior to the meet, so we did. Fifth, Grace always performs best when she has an audience. So we invited BF Megan to come and cheer her on.

I guess it worked a bit, because she finally matched her best Freestyle time, and had her best season time for Back and Breast! She has one more meet, next Wed 7/8. then Conference finals next Saturday, 7/11. Hopefully she'll be able to continue to reduce her race times!