The Countdown Continues: 23 Days Until that Driver's License! So, what will be the benefit of that Driver's License? Well, for instance this morning...instead of rising and shining at 4:30 a.m., driving to the Nat, hanging around during warm-ups for a meet that began at 8:00 a.m., I could have sent The Swimmer off and joined him at a much more reasonable hour, say something along the lines of strolling in at 8:00 a.m. or even slightly later. And, instead of driving him back down for finals at 3:30 p.m., hanging around during warm-ups for a meet that began at 6:00 p.m., I could have sent The Swimmer off and joined him at a much more reasonable hour, say something along the lines of strolling in at 6:00 p.m. when the finals session began. I am thinking this is a HUGE benefit! 
Welcome to the 2008 Mega Zones: USA Central Zones at the Natatorium here in Indianapolis hosted by Indiana Swimming. Yes, indeed, we have nearly 2000 top swimmers swimming nearly 8000 events Wednesday through Sunday. 
Here is a photo of Team Indiana, ages 13 and older this morning before warm-ups. Matt is somewhere in there, you can click to make the photos larger...middle back with the reflective goggles perched on his head. I always laugh at all the suits and what all the kids wear for warm-ups, an array of everything you can imagine, the boys wearing drag suits and the girls wearing two suits, one on top of the other, whereas for the meet, they are all very professional looking in their gear. 
The next photo shows warm-ups where all the swimmers are swimming back and forth for 45 minutes or so like trout...today at the Nat they were using this pool, the instructional pools, and the diving well for warm-ups. A lot of trout at this meet. (Matt is in lane two just to the left of the lifeguard chair in front of Mickey with his red Indiana cap.)
Matt swims four events (50, 100, 200 Frees and 100 Back) and he made relays also.
Zones are different than our regular meets. For one thing, we do not swim for Carmel, we swim for Indiana Swimming: Team Indiana. 
You need some fancy times to qualify for Zones, so there are really no slow swimmers here this weekend, making the meet go fairly quickly...that and chase starts during the prelims...OH how we love chase starts! (To give you an idea just how much, we were finished with four different events this morning in 30 minutes using only one pool...normally that would be like about two hours.)
So, who are the teams at Central Zones? Well, the states of Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Wednesday night's relays went well. Matt was on the 400 Medley Relay and they placed First and the 400 Freestyle Relay and they placed Second...fancy hardware for each swim. (No photos, sorry about that as we just ordered them from the photographer and can't put those on here for copyright reasons.) 
Here is a fun photo, from today, however, of Murph fulfilling his "timer" duties with this lovely little bit of flowery goodness around his neck, goes well with the hat, don't you think...not something one sees every day, or actually ever...and since Murph is a fairly regular reader here of the swimming news, I figured I would include this photo as he is immensely entertaining and I figured he would be entertained by this particular photo. They have a different theme each day of the meet: today's was a Hawaiian beach theme...lots of Beach Boys music and all. Matt wore a Hawaiian shirt and his reflective goggles...that was pretty much the most he was willing to play along. The girls get into it much more than the guys at this age. 
Today was, well...not so good. Matt swam both his favorites, the 100 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke, and added time in both. (Photo at the right shows the Indiana guys all waiting a bit for the start of the meet, Matt and Ben seated on the podium in the middle, looking up at me. Ben was at the Arizona camp with Matt in June.)
Matt was seeded 3rd in the 100 Back and ended up adding three seconds, YIKES, and still qualified for finals this evening, but placing 16th, so that put him in the second heat with no hope of a medal as you can only get a medal if you are in the top heat in finals.
In the 100 Free he added a second and change and didn't make it back for finals in that event. One very disappointed boy, but on the way home, I told him that we really didn't think he would do ANYTHING this year, as it was his aging up year, and we were all figuring we would do a family vacation, he would get to go on the trip with Aunt Nan, etc., because he wouldn't qualify for anything, and that he should look all that he accomplished this year! That made him feel better, but still the disappointment in the swims was running pretty high tonight when he returned for finals and he wasn't in the top heat.
During finals in the 100 Backstroke this evening, he finished tied for 11th place, so that was a bit of an up-note as he swam 1.2 seconds faster than this morning. And, now, this gal needs to get organized for that 4:30 a.m. wake-up call in the morning. Hope you are having a great week! (You know, really, you can all skip reading the swimming news if you want...I type it all up so I can copy it for the scrapbook, but I can imagine the non-swimmer readers yawning fairly quickly during these posts. It's an acquired taste and there won't be a quiz!)