Lindon Storm (Summer Swim Team)

I encouraged Jack and Eliza to join our town's summer swim team this year and they did and it was great!  Before school got out, both kids had to complete a swimming evaluation to determine which level they'd train with.  They were excited that even though neither had done any competitive swimming before, they were both placed in the Silver group, which is early intermediate.  By the end of the summer, Eliza was offered a spot in the Gold group!

Eliza definitely enjoyed being on swim team more than Jack did, but both finished out the season with nearly 100% attendance at practice when we were in town, for 8 weeks.  I was mostly interested in the kids becoming very comfortable in the water, but we had the added benefits of getting the whole family up and moving in the mornings during the summer (practice was 8:45-9:45), and giving Jack and Eliza time outside exercising every day.  (It turned out that helping Luke do the physioneurotherapy exercises while Jack and Eliza were gone worked out well too.)

Jack competed in the first meet, swimming the 50 yard free, the 50 yard backstroke, and a relay, but being new to swimming he had a hard time swimming the full distance without stopping and ended up with DQ's in his races.  He was planning to compete at the next meet but it was cancelled due to the timing equipment not working.  He decided not to swim in the remaining two meets of the season.

Eliza competed in 3 meets altogether, with the following as her best times:

50 yard freestyle - 46.02 seconds
50 yard backstroke - 50.72 seconds (3rd place in 6/19 and 7/10 meets, 4th place in championship meet)
100 yard IM - 2:05.65 (1st place in 7/10 meet and championship meet)
50 yard breaststroke - 1:09.95

She also participated in the medley relay and the 200 yard freestyle relays.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was how long swim meets take!  The first one was the longest - we arrived at 7am with the meet expected to begin at 8am (it started late) and finishing at about 11:30.  Luckily, we'd brought snacks and I downloaded some things for the kids to watch on my phone during the down time.

Last day of swim practice!

At the end of the season there was a team party at the pool with lots of pizza and sodas, and free use of the Flowrider (surfing).  The coaches also gave out awards and Eliza was named one of the MVPs!  She's pretty sure she wants to do this again next summer, and maybe Luke will give it a try too.