We just returned from the Far Western Championships in Morgan Hill where Jeff and I took 4 swimmers to compete over 4 days of competition. I was expecting a strong performance and alas it didn't happen. Unfortunately, I cannot find blame anywhere obvious (the plot thickens) and I am filling away a whole bunch of info that may make sense later.
Monica Sears had a tough meet which started with a problem with her race suit in her 200 free. She missed a best time by 1.7 seconds and recovered nicely in her following race, the 100 fly where she posted a best time and a new team record. The following day she swam the 200 IM and although she was 3 seconds ahead of her personal best half way through the race, she wasn’t able to maintain the intensity of the swim and fell back a bit to miss a best time by half a second. On Saturday, she swam the 500 free. We all had great hopes as she was seeded 8th in prelims and stood a good chance to qualify for finals. Unfortunately after the second 50 she was already off pace and never recovered. She finish that race 8.5 seconds behind her best! Two hours later she dives in for her 100 back and somehow pulls off a best time by half a second and break another team record. Talk about highs and lows! Finally, Sunday arrives and her first race is the 50 free, she stood a good chance to improve, and she did, not by much, just one tenth of a second, but that was enough to break the third and last team record of the meet, a record that stood for over 10 years. Fifteen minutes later she dives in for her last race of the meet, the 100 breast. By now she is pretty tired, physically and emotionally and she falls short of her best time by 2.6 seconds. Throughout this whole meet she maintained her cool, sure she was bummed about her slower races, but she kept attacking each one as if they were her first.
Jared, her brother, swam the 200 back with a great improvement on his transition. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get a best time. Two days later he raced in the 100 back and raced slower than he did back in July of last year. It happens, even with hard training, sometimes it can go bad.
Tyler Welty was there to improve a race that he had done 2 weeks earlier, the same race that got him qualified for this meet. He fell short of his goal by three tenth of a second. I could blame his turns (and I could be right) but all in all he swam a much better race this time. It was well paced and he finished strong.
Aidan Cumming qualified in the 50 breast like Tyler, two weeks before. But unlike Tyler, he had to change his dive, his pull down, his kick and his glide. How did he qualify for this meet in the first place? That’s how much raw talent is in this kid. The cool part is that he did change his dive, lengthen his glides, cleaned up his pull down and manage to fix his kick, at least for the first half of the race. And yes, with all that he did get a best time.
I usually do not ramble about the specific of each race, but I felt there was a good story behind the numbers. 36% best time was just not giving the whole picture. Anyways, good job to all of you, and a big thank you to your parents for the support they afforded you.
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