Lexy's Triumphant Return

Lexy has been away at swim camp for a week, and a long week was had by all. Lex had some less-than-ideal experiences with the other campers and her roommate, resulting in some late night sobbing sessions. But she persevered, and had a very successful week.

I couldn't believe how many kids there were! It was easily over 60 total. Here they all are, on the starting side of the pool deck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQx7GcnKzi0

Coach Pete Hovland has been coaching at Oakland over 30 years, and he told the parents he used the same techniques, the same drills and the same teaching methods with the campers that he uses on his varsity swimmers. It made me feel that Lexy's received a quality first swim camp experience.

Today, on the last morning of camp, the coaches organized a mini swim meet for the parents to demonstrate what the kids had learned. It was very obvious to me and, according to the comments of the parents around me, that the kids had made a lot of progress in the week.

The meet was comprised entirely of relays, with each team having 8 members. Since the ages in the camp ranged widely, there were a variety of ages on each team, but they were organized to compete with kids in the same age range, i.e. 13 year olds would swim against 13 year olds; 9 year olds would swim against 9 year olds, and so on. This way, the teams were really close competitively.

After each event, the teams were assigned points based on how they finished First Place got one point, and so on -- so the team with the lowest score after eight events would be declared the winner and all the participants would win a Varsity Oakland Grizzlies swim cap!

By the time we had reached the seventh out of the eight events, Lexy's team, in Lane 1, was in first place, leading by one point.

The last event was the Freestyle relay - I recorded the entire event because I knew it would go fast and was it ever exciting!! Remember, Lex is always the last swimmer.

Watch Freestyle relay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K05O0Gn98M
P.S. -- They won the swim cap!!

Here are the other relays. I missed the backstroke relay (forgot to push Record!) but I have all the others. I only taped the last couple of legs because the videos would get quite long. Some are crazy and fun! If you're a Lexacuda follower, I hope you notice her great improvements in breaststroke and butterfly!

Corkscrew Relay: alternating freestyle and backstroke, they swim in a spiral to the other end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSqQzsE-zqw

Breaststroke Relay: they got second in this one, but look how close it was!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cxWwdjkFTk

Inner Tube Relay: the kids had to sit in the tube and get to the other end without falling out. They weren't supposed to lay on their backs and do backstroke, but some kids got away with it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL3SL-U4hHE

Butterfly Relay: Sorry about the bad camera work. I got so into watching her stroke that I lost my focus! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKF7NqA7UA

T-Shirt Relay: kids had to swim with a shirt on and then transfer that shirt to the next swimmer. They got pretty creative with it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4nCi_rSRa0

Well, not sure if we'll go back to the same camp next year, but if we do, I'm sure it will be a positive experience. Now -- let's see if Lex gets any more Q1s for the state meet!