Summer Swim

CC finished her second season of summer swim team at our local pool, and she's still loving it. Because she joined a year-round team after last summer's season, this year she had to balance her practices from both teams -- so she had practice every day except Sunday!

Since she turned 11 in April, this summer she was swimming in a new age group: 11-12 girls. And it was a very competitive group! Her coach was very complimentary of her technique -- she has excellent form. Unfortunately, due to her extremely small size, she couldn't keep up with the others in her group.

But she learned several important life lessons:

1) Her technique was so excellent, she ended up earning ribbons twice for her 50m butterfly, despite coming in last. Why? Because so many other swimmers got disqualified! So CC learned that if you do something correctly, you will succeed.

2) She moved up from the C relay team to the B relay team. Why? Because some other girls wouldn't show up when they were scheduled to swim in a meet, or would leave the meet early before the relay began. So CC learned that if you are reliable, you will be recognized and rewarded.

She was surprised to realize that her least favorite stroke -- butterfly -- was what she earned both her ribbons in this season. Hey, sometimes your favorite thing isn't always your best thing! You can be good at something even if you don't like it.

Direct link to video: https://youtu.be/7JyfUDvg_AI

On top of all that, she reunited with her bestie from preschool, Clara, and they picked up right where they left off all those years ago.

CC's goal for the season was to make the all-star team. And as the season progressed, I realized how unlikely that was. They only take the top 2 swimmers for each event, and CC had never placed higher than 8th. However, much to her surprise, she made the team! She was named one of two alternates. I suspect this has a lot to do with the coach's confidence that she wouldn't get disqualified if she ended up swimming. (She didn't swim, but she was over the moon to be on the all-star team anyway!)

"Next year, my goal is to make the all-star team and actually swim!"