250m @ 5:35

this is a proud mama post today.

did i mention that abby tried out for and made the local swim team? she learned to swim a few weeks before her fourth birthday and has been a wonderful swimmer ever since including diving at age 5 and learning to do a back dive last year. she's never had lessons, just lots of practice time in her grandparent's pool.

since she's been rather athletically inclined like her mom (not so coordinated) except for the fact that she swims wonderfully (unlike me) i kind of thought that high school swimming might be her thing someday. then we learned from another child at school about this local swimming program.

abby tried out for, and made the team the end of December. since we were out of town, we waited for her to start sessions until after we got back. so she's just been swimming with the team for a couple of weeks. and although she's a good swimmer, she has no technique. she's been learning then the proper strokes for the freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly along with kicking techniques and flip turns. and she's been adjusting to not just breathing whenever but exhaling underwater and just turning her head up for one inhale in order to swim most efficiently. we have a ways to go with these things.

but, i'm particularly proud today because last night they had timed heats. they had to swim 250 meters, which is 5 laps or 10 lengths of the pool. abby was in lane 1 (the beginners lane) and swam 4th. the first 3 swimmers had times like 6 and a half minutes, over 7 minutes and over 8 minutes. and most of these kids are older than abby, bigger and have been on the team much longer. the coach had abby swim last so she could see how it was done.

abby did hers in 5 minutes 38 seconds! WOW! i'm just so impressed because that was a long swim, and you could see other swimmers stopping to rest, but she just kept going. it's a good self-esteem builder too for her to see results when she really tries hard at something. yay, abby! and, her coach was impressed too that on her first time out she made the 5 minute club!