Aqua Man, Part Deux...

Mr. Robby had his final swim meet for the current... uh, whatever they break the swim seasons into. 

Seasons? Semesters? Sections?  I dunno...

So anyway, Robby has swim practice on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I (Daddy) took him to practice on Tuesday night and noticed that he would swim, seemingly good, but then some other fella would start to pass him, he would suddenly come to life and race that fella to the end of the pool, swimming notably faster than he was.

I didn't care for that.

I mentioned it to mama and she had noted the same phenomena at practices as well. So we had a talk with the lad.  

The premise of that talk was that he was not to be concerned about what any of the other boys were doing, or how fast they're going or whatever else, he was/is to race his own personal times.  Always push to be his fastest and let the wins come as they might.

He seemed to take that to heart and while Thursday nights swim practice was cancelled due to "the little blizzard that wasn't", he was talking about racing himself this morning before the meet.  So far, so good.

So how did he do?  

He did awesome.  I don't have the specifics of all of his personal best times, and we don't have the official times from today yet, but he seemed to shave off a second or so from his previous best time in the 25 free, shaved off about 6 seconds in the 50 free, and he won two immediate ribbons as "Heat Winner".  He was fired up and it was fun to watch.


That doesn't mean that he was the winner of the race, he wasn't, but of the individual heat.

Don't ask me what that all means...  the only thing I know about swimming is that almost everybody who does it, gets wet.

The pool and the calm waters before the storm.

I'm not sure what's going on in this photo, but it looks like the boy is getting a talking too.  I asked the boy what was happening here, and he claims that the lady was going by giving them hi-fives and he started telling her about his best time, shy boy that he is.

Caleb's good for about 1/2 hour at these swim meets before he's ready to go, hungry, has to go potty and whatever else to start burning up time.  Here, he's playing a Perry the Platypus game on the Kindle to pass some moments.  He was really good today and we were there from 9 until well after noon.

Robby prior to one of his races.  It's hard to tell from a still photo, but he's burning off excess energy by playing air guitar and singing a song.  Probably gets that from his mother...

Doing a little toenail care while he waits for a teammate during one of the relay races.

It's a bad photo because he was all fired up, but this is the first of the two "heat winner" ribbons he got.

Clowning around on the bench again prior to another race.

I like this pic.  Caleb was excited that his brother won the heat and was out to congratulate him.  Robby is coming up the steps with the second of the "Heat Winner" ribbons. Momma and Daddy were very proud of the way the boy performed today!

That's his coach, Jim, in the foreground and Robby in the water just over his right shoulder as he's finishing one of the races.

As I've said, I do not understand swimming, the timing, the strokes or anything else about it, but other than the waiting in between the 2nd and 3rd races, I really enjoy watching these events.  Probably not as much as Robby enjoys swimming in them, but I like them.

I took video of the last race but I'll be cursed if I can figure out how to get it on this post.  Stupid computers (and users!) :-).