Sunday afternoon (after I had my first (great!) experience with a spinning class) my brother and I took my niece to her swim club swim meet at the local community college pool.
Not having been a swimmer growing up, this was a new experience for me. My niece, however, is already an old hand (as is her father).
The afternoon started with a vigorous warm-up. Since there were several clubs competing there were a lot of kids in each lane of the pool. Luckily I saw very few collisions.
After about thirty minutes of practice the meet started.
My niece, A, competed in five events: the 100 yard individual medley, the 50 yard freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke, and the monstrous 200 yard freestyle.
I was incredibly impressed with A’s stamina, poise and good spirits as the meet progressed. Even though she had been up (too) late the night before, she finished every event and came in a very close second in the breaststroke for her age group.
The final event was the 200 yard freestyle; a truly grueling race that I knew A was not looking forward to swimming. In the end, she decided to go for it
and swam every lap.
Bursting with pride is too mild a description for how I felt at the end of the day.
knitting a life 