MIT Meet

This past weekend was full of swimming for Julia.  She and a friend from her swim team signed up for a big USA meet that was held at MIT.  There were hundreds of swimmers in each event, which meant hours of spectating for Madeleine and I.

Ethan came on the first day of the 2-day meet, but since he had to sing in church choir on Sunday, it was just Madeleine and I.  On Saturday, we arrived earlier than expected, but that didn't stop Ethan and Julia from taking an extremely brisk walking pace from the parking lot towards the Aquatics building.

The sidewalk we were walking along looked like this:

ME: (watching Ethan and Julia get increasingly further ahead of us) Uh...Ethan?  Guys?  Madeleine is only stepping on the BROWN ones, so we're falling pretty far behind you...

On Sunday, however, it was FREEZING as we walked towards the pool building, and Madeleine had under-dressed, due to being overheated in the pool bleachers on Saturday.  Because of those two factors, we were all practically spring-walking along the sidewalk, desperate to get indoors.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  This time I'm NOT stepping only on the BROWN ones, because that would take too long!

Julia had a later warm-up time on Sunday than she'd had on Saturday, so we spectators weren't there as early as we had been the day before.  Consequently, we would up stuck in a long line snaking through the lobby up a winding flight of stairs, waiting to pay our admission fee and get into the bleachers.  The staircase was made up of mini-flights of steps with a landing in between each mini-flight, and at one point, Madeleine and I were standing about two steps below the next landing.

MADELEINE: (pointing at a picture down in the lobby of an NCAA player) Mommy?  Who's THAT?
ME: I'm guessing it's a basketball player who plays college basketball.
MADELEINE: Yeah, he looks TALL.  And in P.E. Mr. B was telling us that one time, he met a real basketball player, and Mr. B was like, "To all of you, I probably look pretty tall.  But next to the basketball player, I was really short."
ME: Yeah, basketball players are often like seven feet tall.
MADELEINE: He was like, (raising her arm up) THIS high.  Mommy.  He was like, (jumping into the air with her arm extended upwards) THIS high.  He was like (jumping again with arm extended) THIS high.  Like, (jumping again with arm extended) THIS high.  Mommy.  Like, THIS-

Suddenly, as Madeleine jumped upwards with her arm extended, she lost her balance and next thing I knew, I was watching her completely startled expression as she tumbled down the mini-flight of stairs, bumping along each step until she was on the lower landing.  The soundtrack to her tumble was the voices of multiple adults exclaiming, "Oh oh oh!"

The literal second she hit the landing, Madeleine leaped upwards and scrambled up the stairs to me, proclaiming, "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay!"

Oh my God Madeleine. 

Luckily, Julia proved more graceful than her sister and did not fall off the starting blocks or hit her head during a flip turn, as she had done a few meets prior.  Over the course of the two day meet, she swam six events, and although she didn't swim the times she was hoping for, she had some great races.  She was most proud of her 100 butterfly; she had the slowest seed time in her heat of ten swimmers, and she wound up coming in 5th and swimming her second fastest time ever.  Overall, she came in 47th in the event, despite being seeded 50th, and for girls of her age group, she was 23rd, as many of the swimmers ahead of her were 15 or older. 

Julia's sixth and final event was the 200IM, and EVERY swimmer was dead tired by then.  It's actually pretty amusing to look at the event results, because nearly everyone's meet time was significantly slower than their seed time.  The results app shows how many seconds were gained or dropped from the seed time, with gains in red and losses in green, and the 200IM results are a sea of red.  Not only that, but the gains were huge, anywhere from four to fifteen seconds, so it's clear that the swimmers were exhausted.  Julia herself swam eight seconds slower, but again had a great race in that she beat out swimmers who were seeded faster than she was, and pushed through her fatigue to a strong finish. 

So, to sum things up, whether they were fighting through muscle exhaustion or tumbling down a set of stairs, both girls gave their bodies a little tough love this weekend!