Region VII Meet

Region Review:

Our guys dominated! Several of the guys upset horrendously, and SHS rolled over and died, so the margin between first and second was substantial. The girls sufffered key losses, and we took fourth by a larger amount than we were supposed to. The serval feels horrible about her last race; she added ten seconds and fell out of scoring range.

Individually, I did well. In the I.M. I moved up from 8th to 6th place and I dropped a half a second. I think I'll make it to state! The 500 was much cooler.

Recap: At the LHS vs. OHS swim meet, I swam the five. The girl next to me had a seed time six seconds faster than me, and I decided to pace off of her to go faster. I kept up with her perfectly, but she out-thouched me at the end. And you know what else? SHE DIDN'T GO HER TIME! She went my time, so really my pacing off of her did nothing for me, AND I lost. Since then, I've been itching for a rematch, and I've engrained a rivalry in my blood.

Come Region, I was delighted to find that we were seeded next to each other, and we would be in the center of the lanes: perfect for pacing off of each other and creating competition. In my excitement for the meet, I would often say, "I'm swimming the five against ________, whom I hate." Not a I-want-to-kill-you hate, but a healthy hate. Seven seconds worth of hate.

When I got into that pool, my only goal was to blow her out of the water. I had spent the past two and a half hours getting focused. I was so focused, I was about to snap. I went out fast; too fast, if I wanted to keep a steady pace. However, steady pacing was not my goal. When I got to the 15th lap (there are 20 in the 500), my lap counter was signaling that my coach wanted me to pick up my pace by one second. When I saw that, I just about puked there and then. I still had five laps to go. The only thing that kept breakfast in my stomach was the knowledge that if I threw up, they'd stop the race and I'd have to do it all over again. So I died at the end. My last few laps were signaled by continued efforts to get me to speed up and kick harder. But I was several body lengths ahead of the other girl, so my prime motivation was satisfied. Even with the dying that occured, when I pulled into the wall, I had a time seven seconds faster than my seed time: 6:11.

Even better, in my 8th-place ranking, I should have earned five points. I broke into the fastest heat and took 5th place (one shy of a medal), earning 10. I was really, really, really happy.

Oh, and then there was Preference. I'd almost venture to say that it was the funnest date I've been on. But I'll go into detail in another post. Right now, I need sleep.