Swim Season 2008

This year on swim team both girls were young in their age groups. Vivian is now in the 7-8 age group and Emma is in the 9-10 age group. Vivian's group was HUGE! I think there were about 30 kids just in that group! Emma was actually only 1 of 2 nine year old girls on our team. I think there were a total of about 12 kids in her group total.

We started practices in the afternoons the first week of May and switched to mornings in June when school was out. Vivian practiced at 7am and Emma at 7:45. We get to do that again next year if they choose to swim again. Yippee!

Our team is in a recreational league, so the scoring and placing is done differently from more competitive leagues. The first heat has the fastest swimmers and is the only heat scored. (Seeding of swimmers is done by intramural time trial prior to each meet.) Each swimmer receives a ribbon based on where they place in their heat. So, if there are 3 heats of 7-8 girls freestyle, then each heat receives 1-6 finishes and the corresponding ribbons. We have a lot of 1st place ribbons, but the girls were usually in the lower heats.

Emma swims for fun and for herself. She is not particularly competitive but likes getting ribbons. If she doesn't like a stroke (butterfly), she doesn't try very hard. If she does like a stroke, she gives it a good push. She is working hard to achieve "legal" strokes, so in that respect she does try hard in every stroke. Interestingly, Emma's times don't accurately reflect her true speed. She swims much faster in meets than in time trials. She says she doesn't like swimming against her friends (in time trials) but wants to beat the other team in meets.

Here are Emma's times (all distances are 25 meters):

Butterfly: 34.48; 39.72; 41.06; 40.15

Backstroke: 36.51; 32.28; 36.59; 36.46

Breaststroke: 43.60; 46.91; 46.62; 41.06

Freestyle: 26.22; 29.61; 26.91; 27.02


Vivian is also out for fun. She is competitive with her sister. In the second time trial, the girls had the opportunity to swim against each other for the first time. You'll notice that Viv posted her best times in that trial. Her coach is quite complimentary of her. He considers her one of his top swimmers, loves her technique (especially freestyle) and then bemoans, "If I can just get her to understand the concept of a RACE!!" Vivian has a long, smooth, beautiful freestyle stroke. She just doesn't get speed out of it. She seems more concerned with how it looks than with going fast. Ah, well!

Also, although her times don't reflect it, she is also a budding breaststroker. I watcher her technique get better and better of the 2 months of practice. Her timing is better and she's staying on top of the water more than before.

Here are Vivian's times (all distances 25 meters)

Butterfly: 40.21; 34.93; 41.55; 48.19

Backstroke: 41.52; 40.67; 45.19; 49.82

Breaststroke: 45.30; 44.47; 49.82; 50.44

Freestyle: 31.50; 29.65; 30.94; 32.11


Both girls qualified for the Meet of Champions held at the end of the season. Vivian went in individual butterfly and freestyle along with freestyle relay. Emma went in backstroke. Both swam well and had a good time. We were all especially proud of Emma's performance. She swam a 26.?? for a 25 YARD backstroke, stayed on her back (not DQ'd like last year), finished 18th overall, and was the second fastest 9 year old. She has a beautiful stroke, and with some more practice and good technique coaching, she'll be ready for finals next year as a 10 year old.

All in all a good swim season.