Impressions from the Junior Olympics

This weekend was my daughter Camille's first Junior Olympics (JO's).  Mostly, I am just proud that she made the JOs, swimming a qualifying time in both the 50 and 100 backstroke.  But, going into it, neither of us had any clue what to expect.  One thing we knew, it wasn't going to be like any other meet.

Darned skippy it wasn't; when we got there it was overwhelming.  She had swam at this same pool just a few weeks before for the Zone 2 championships and I remember being able to see space in between canopies, this time it was just crowds.  Luckily, Bill is a very experienced coach and found a good spot for us to "squat" over by the FOG aquatics canopy; in fact, we took over their canopy and Coach Jerry's chair after a while.  Nothing like feeling comfortable!

In fact, that comfort was probably the best thing for Camille.  It had to have felt just like any other meet; Mallory was there to cheer her on and they sat under the canopy goofing around like always.  If I had any recommendations, it would be to mimic any other meet if you can.

Camille tends to feel nervous only before events she's never done and didn't seem to have any extra butterflies before her first event, the 100 back.  Bill had given her a good warmup, focusing on getting deeper on her start and the rhythm of her stroke.  It was cool, he walked her over to the blocks (yep, taking my usual job), stood by her and they both just looked confident.  Things were moving so fast that she was up on the blocks (err, down in the water) before I knew it.

Then she took off and seemed to forget that she always paces herself the first 50 of a 100.  In fact, her split was faster than her regular 50 time, hitting the pad at 38.8 seconds.  She had a little trouble going straight on the third leg but came flying back into the wall and touched at 1:22.85, a full 2 seconds off of her seed time!  In talking to Michael (now on Orinda) he said that you always go faster at the JOs, and boy did she!

Preparation-wise, Sunday was more of the same, just a different event.  Get there, find a spot to sit, warm up and then go watch some fast swimming.  Camille and I worked to temper expectations based on the previous day's swim which was both good and bad.  Because she swam even faster than the day before but she was like a car with a new, oversized motor; she was going so fast that she wasn't really able to control her direction very well, hitting the laneline all the way up the first leg.  Then on the way back, she over-corrected and had a tussle with the other laneline, this time hooking her arm around it.  Somehow, she came in at 39.01 seconds, only .08 seconds slower than her seed time.  If she hadn't made such good friends with that laneline, the time would have been fantastic.

Getting Camille's thoughts on the meet, she thinks a lot of the extra speed was excitement from being at the JOs but her main impression was that it was crowded.  She had an expectation that she needed to go faster because of the meet.  Finding friends there helped, getting to hang out with Jordan, Michael and Mallory.  We saw Hannah but she was leaving as we were getting there.  But, really, the highlight was the luggage tag and t-shirt; that's the best reason to go!