PCC - Autumn Cruise, Huron High School, Ann Arbor

The first thing you notice when you get to Huron High School is that it is simply massive, making the pool almost impossible to find. The second thing is that they are practically on the bank of the Huron River, which flows through Ann Arbor. The third and most amusing thing is that, above the football stadium are these words: "Home of the Huron River Rats."

Yikes! Who wants to tell the grandkids that the mascot for their alma mater was a rodent? Well, I guess a lot of people. Look at all those crazy University of Michigan people cheering for their beloved Wolverines.

This was a two-day meet in Ann Arbor, and Lexy swam four events on day one and two on day two. Even though she was swimming in the afternoon, the events were well organized and the meets went like clockwork. Much better than last week!

The way they categorize times at these levels are Q1, A, B and C times. If you get a Q1 time that means you are CRAZY FAST!! It also means you qualify to compete in the state finals at the end of the season. Each event has it's own qualifying times in each category, boys' and girls' times are different, and are separated by a few seconds. Lexy has mostly B times, with a couple of C times that are really close to Bs. Our goal for this meet was not to lose any time on the Bs, but to do better in those events where she has C times, and move them into Bs. For example, she needed about 3.5 seconds in the 5o Breaststroke to get a B time, and she needed 1 second in the 5o Backstroke to get a B time.

On Saturday, Lexy swam the 100 IM, the 50 Fly, 50 Free and 50 Br. Of these, she had three new best times: 1:39.82 in the 100 IM; 37.05 for the 50 Free, shaving off about 1 and three-tenths seconds (and staying in B time range), and a new best time for the 50 Breaststroke, shaving off about 3 seconds. She needed another three-tenths of a second to get a B time!! We will be trying for this next weekend!

On Sunday she swam the 50 Backstroke and needed only one second to get a B time. Her fastest time was 47.77 and she got a 47.79 -- so essentially the same. Again, we'll try to get better next weekend on that one.

Lex gets a little discouraged when she comes away from these meets without making any visible progress but these USS meets bring in some amazing talent from all over the state. I think it will be key to keep her interested while she is 9, to get her to that 10-year old status where she is at least in the top 8 again, and, I hope, getting some A times!!