Shockwaves, Episode 4

Swim races again. It was supposed to be a tri-meet but one of the teams cancelled. The host team wanted to cancel but then our coach asked if they would let us run the meet with their supervision and oversight so that in the future, we can host meets at our pool. They agreed. I signed up to be a timer, which was okay because Patrice would be there with Nicco to help him listen and get to the blocks for his races.

It was another far away meet and it turned out that Patrice was not going to make it due to a project at work. Nicco and I got to the pool and I helped him get settled in with some friends and their boy promised to help Nicco get to the blocks on time. Patrice called and said his work project got cancelled and he would make it after all. Yay! I checked the board for Nicco's races and he was not registered at all! Boo! I called Patrice and told him not to leave yet, I might be heading home myself. Smoke coming out of my ears and darts launching from my eyeballs, I did my best to maintain control when I approached our coach about the mistake. She smiled and said, "No problem. We'll go add him right now." So I called Patrice back and told him to come on down.

Nicco's first race was the butterfly leg of the medley relay. He subbed for a kid who didn't show up. He did great! His armstroke was excellent and he kept his feet together on his kick. I don't know what his time was because the Daddy had not yet arrived and I was timing in a different lane.

His second race was the backstroke. I totally missed it. So did the Daddy. He was chatting with another daddy. The Papa said he looked up and there was Nicco, all wet from his race. "Great swim, buddy!" he said, assuming he was right. I assume he was right too.

The third race was the breaststroke. Like the butterfly, his technique improved a ton since his last race. I don't know his time on that one either...I gave the Daddy the stopwatch but I'm not sure how he did.

His final race was the freestyle. There was nobody swimming in my lane so I timed my own kid. There were four stopwatches on him in that race. I watched him kicking and pulling and at 20 seconds he was so close I was sure he would reach that elusive 25 second mark, but he always seems to slow down a bit right at the end. I don't know if he wears out or if he coasts to the end. I kind of think it is the latter because he's never heavily out of breath at the end of his race. I think that if he really focused he could do it. But, alas, all four stopwatches read 26 seconds point something. Again, so close!

With only two teams and the fact that we were able to combine a bunch of events, the meet finished before 9:00. My kid was in bed asleep before the time that we are usually just finishing up races! That was nice.

It was a good night. I had fun timing with my friend, although we chatted through a couple of announcements and found ourselves running to the other end of the pool once or twice. And since we both had kids swimming, there was a time or two that one or the other of us forgot to start our watches. Good thing we had two timers for each lane!

I think Patrice had fun chatting with my friend's husband. At one point, the 10 year old son of my friends came down to talk to his mama and mentioned that "for three straight hours, Dad has just been talking." "That's what grown-ups do," she told him. I don't think he was satisfied with that response.

Nicco had fun racing and playing on his tablet. I let him bring it because I didn't think his Daddy was going to be there. Turned out he didn't need it, but he used it anyway. We'll just call it a reward for his good swims.

And another night of racing is in the books. Four meets down, two more to go.