2010 Michigan 12 & Under Short Course State Championships

It is with great pride in Lexy's achievements this season that we find ourselves at the Short Course State meet at Waterford Mott High School in Waterford, Michigan.

Just a handful of swimmers from Lexy's team made qualifying cuts, so we went into this meet very aware of what a special honor it is.

Lexy's first event at the meet starting Friday was the 500 freestyle -- 20 laps in a 25 yard pool. She qualified for this event just a few short weeks ago at the Michigan Open, beating the qualifiying time by 7 seconds. I chose not to video this event because it does get to be quite long (seven minutes)!

Here's Lexy, waiting for the start.

Lexy swam a good race. Her turns looked good, and she did a dolphin kick off the wall a few times, which is important. While she finished a few seconds slower than her qualifying time, her overall ranking went up to 27 out of 35.

Here she is after her race: still smiling!

On Saturday, we went back for the balance of Lexy's races: the 200 Free and the 100 Breaststroke. In both races, she was seeded last or next to last. Her goals for the day were to improve her standing in the rankings.

In the 200 Free, she swam strong, finishing with a 2:30.80, right on her qualifing time and better than the time she got at Junior Olympics. She finished ranked 18th of 25, and was second alternate to swim the Finals if anyone in the top 16 scratched from the Finals. Unfortunately no one scratched, so she didn't get to swim in the final.

Watch Lexy swim the 200 Free:

In her last event, the 100 Breaststroke, she finished about one second slower than her qualifying time, next to last in the rankings.

Watch Lexy swim the 100 Breast:

Overall, Lexy had a great season, qualifying for three events and getting to participate in the short course state meet for the first time. Now Lexy gets a much-deserved break before the next season starts.

Junior Olympics, March 6, 2010

It turns out that it is hard to describe the Junior Olympics swim meet. For that reason, I'm going to quote the meet program's description: "The Junior Olympics meet is the middle level meet (above Districts and below State Meets) of the Michigan Swimming, Inc. Championship Meets. Thus, it is a "Faster than/Slower than" stated time standard swim meet." To enter this meet, Lexy needed to have "Q2" times, which are faster than an "A" time but slower than a Q1, or state, time. Confused? No worries. It was a fun day.

One of the reasons kids choose to swim the Junior Olympics (other than to say they did it!) is to try to better their Q2 times to Q1 times. Lexy is close to a Q1 on a lot of her times, and if she were able to get Q1 times in any event she swam today, she would automatically qualify to swim that event at the state meet next weekend.

Her first event, the 50 Free (two lengths), is one she has been struggling with all season. Lexy has proven herself to be a good endurance swimmer, less so a sprinter. She has been sitting at a best time of 33.53 for a few months for the 50 Free and, for this event, was seeded last out of 27 qualified swimmers. Today, by some miracle, she finally dropped half a second to finish at 33 seconds flat, in 18th place. The Q1 time was 31.69, so we didn't get there today, but this drop of half second was a huge accomplishment. Great job Lex!

Watch Lexy swim the 50 Free:

Next up, and without much rest time between events, was the 100 IM. Lexy went into this event with a 1:23.60 and needed a 1:19.99. She was seeded 13th, but we didn't think there was much chance for her to drop more than four seconds. This is another event where Lexy hasn't been able to take time off. I attribute this primarily to the fact that her transitions in and out of the backstroke aren't that strong. She finished a little slower today (not more than a second) and in 24th place. Still, a very strong finish.

Watch Lexy swim the 100 I.M.:

Now came the event where we knew Lexy could shine. She has been dropping time all season, but started plateauing about six weeks ago. A couple of times she even added a second or two. When we looked at the list of seeded swimmers, Lexy was seeded first! She was going into the event with a 2:32.13, and needed a 2.31.59 to qualify for States. She needed to drop a little more than half a second.

She pulled it out! Lexy came through and finished at 2:30.91, and third overall. We were thrilled that we were able to finish this meet on such a high note.

Here's Lexy sporting her third place medal!

Watch parts 1 & 2 of Lexy swimming the 200 Freestyle (8 lengths):

We will be back in the pool tomorrow (Sunday), to swim in the League championship meet at Dow High School. Lexy has a few more chances to get qualifying times and achieve personal bests before States next weekend!