The Carmel Swim Club Pool at Carmel High School...our home away from home! (Click to enlarge.)
We are well into long course meters season...the state swim meet only about a month away. It was so great to be swimming this meet at our own pool this weekend...very nice to go home between preliminaries and finals each day, and to go home each night to sleep in our own beds. It was also very nice to see all our swimmers and families working together to host a three day meet. It's just a lot of fun! Matt did very well. 200 Free: 1st; 100 Butterfly: 2nd (Who knew that was a possibility? NO ONE saw that coming.); 400 IM: 5th; 100 Back: 1st; 400 Free: 9th; and the 50 Free...oh, we don't want to talk about that one...disappointment and heartache. He finished 1st with a new best time, only 5/100ths of a second off a AAAA cut, and got disqualified for moving on the block prior to entry into the water. He said he felt a shudder, could not stop it, and it made him shake just slightly. The judge caught it and the DQ was written up before he ever hit the water (the swimmer is not allowed to move on the block in the final starting position or he/she gets disqualified under "false start"). Oh, well, he swam the time and it is definitely there, so maybe at the next meet. Mike finished 2nd, so with Matt's DQ, he got to own the 1st in that swim, and Matt was happy it was Mike taking it home instead of someone from another team. He was one very disappointed swimmer about not getting to keep that time, but to his credit, he rallied nicely and went into this morning's round of 100 Free and 200 Back with gusto, finishing finals this evening with a 1st place finish in each of those two swims...we are so proud of him! Everyone kept coming up and saying, "If we could just get Matt to give up this choir business so he could focus on swimming, just think what he could do!" Matt always takes a lot of grief from the swimming world about missing swim practices, etc. for singing gigs. He leaves Thursday with the choir for 11 days in Italy...you can imagine the "grief" he is getting for that little adventure! Yikes...no swim practice for all that time...a swim meet the weekend after he arrives back home, wonder what that one will look like...better enjoy this one right now! Exciting new times this weekend. The kid can swim a little.