Bringing The Gold Home!

I am so sorry, but emerging from 1 12 hour swim meet and another 10hour swim meet, I have been completely dead, and right now we are heading out on a tour. But I am happy to report, I received a gold medal in fly and backstroke, a silver in free, and 2 bronze in our relays. Happy overall. I did good times for myself, so that is all I can ask for. I must say, relays are the most fun! I will try to post more details tomorrow...

Later,

Anna

Ok, so it is later... Let me think about where to start... The swim meet organization was a night mare, we had people swimming for the wrong age group, for the wrong country, and the wrong events. It was totally chaos. Luckily the only thing they screwed up with me was that they listed me as 33 instead of 32. I can deal with that. So I didn't swim until the second half due to preliminaries in other age groups. I was so thankful that I didn't have to do prelims, or I would have been so exhausted for the real competition. My fly was against another USA team mate, Hillary. It was fun swimming together as we knew we would place gold and silver. I wanted to do my absolute best, to see what I could do. I got gold in the race and came in with a time of 39.33 seconds. The important thing to note here is we were swimming long course, which means 1 length across is 50meters. This is very different than how the majority of my swim practices are. In the US we have 25 yard pools, not even meters. So a 50 meter pool is so long! I was told adding the meters makes the length we swim 10% longer, so what ever your time in the 25 yard pool is you need to add 10% to figure out what time you would swim in meters, so hopefully ou can understand as I explain my times. In practice at home, my fly time was 37.00 seconds. So you would expect it to be 40.70 in a 50 meter swim, so getting a 39.33 was incredible. Very very happy with it, and I know the things I need to work on for next time... 

The backstroke race was not much of a race as everyone else scratched out. But I gave it my best (when you are racing someone else, it makes it much easier to swim faster and push yourself.) but I managed to do well for myself with a 44.61. My time back home was 41.37, again faster than the 10% time addition. So I cant ask for much more. 

Then we get to the freestyle. I was racing 6 ladies, 1 French national swimmer and then, the British tank. This girl was a beast, who ate the pool for breakfast. She dominated all her races, and despite her large rugby player like appearance, she was killing it in the pool. I was scared, but it also motivated me to want to try to beat her. I sure did my best. She just out touched me by 0.30 seconds. So close. My mom told me I was gaining on her, and if I had just a little bit more length I would have beaten her. Ugh. This one will drive me crazy. If I only.... My time was 33.53, and my last time at home was a 32.33, also faster than the 10% time difference. I was happy with my time, but if I was placed in the lane next to her, and could have seen her swimming, I know it would have helped me a little. But that will always be the gold that got away.... I am just so happy to have beaten the French girl. So that is that.

Our relays were awesome. It was me, Holly, Agnes, and Dianne. 3 young'ns and the gammy ( as Dianne said). We did awesome. I was the last swimmer, or anchor, in the free style relay. We were in about 4 or 5th place when I went off the blocks, and just kicked it into turbo mode, and pulled ahead and got us the bronze. I was told it was an exciting race to watch. When you are in it, you have no idea what is really happening, you just go and swim your best. It was awesome. 

The medley relay was comprised of the same people, and I swam backstroke, so I started first. I did my best, but compared to thos skittle Brits we just couldn't come out ahead. We got bronze again, and everyone did a great job swimming. I was really proud to swim with everyone. Collecting a medal with team mates is much more fun than on your own.