All season Ian has struggled with swimming. He has balked at practice, loafed at meets, swam like he has forgotten how, and generally wasted time. I don't care if the kid is a champion or not. It is exciting when he does well, but he does not have to be the best of the best to make us happy. I do not, however, want to spend every Saturday and Sunday from November until now sitting at swim meets to see him not even try. Let's take a year off or something.
This weekend was different. He showed up. He tried. He was happy, and felt very accomplished when he actually succeeded. He proved the block was mental, not physical. He made the finals (top 8) in all six events that he swam. He dropped time every time he swam except one. So he had 11 time drops on the weekend, and has had 8 for the whole season until now. He even won the 100 IM after taking 5 seconds off his time. More than anything, he SMILED all weekend long!!
Mentally, he seems to have gained some too. He is excited about regionals next weekend where he now gets to swim five events. Remember the Indy meet a month or so ago? If it was now, he would have qualified for 7 events instead of 3. He is psyched about summer swimming, and talking like he plans to love it. That will help a lot as we put these next three munchkins on the team, and have to be there 6 days a week.
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