First REAL swim meet!

Who knew how exciting a swim meet could be?!!

Fuelled her up on an Amish cinnamon bagel with butter and a gallon of milk and we set off for the Witherspoon pool in Princeton. Not the Princeton Y pool where I accidentally drove us on Friday night (I'd rather just forget about that navigational snafu...). Once again Maike ended up with a secret code written up and down on her arm, the code that tells her when she's up to swim in an event. The 100 meter free-style event was totally cool, just like watching the Olympics but without commercials. 100 meters is 4 lengths of the pool. (This is exactly 3 lengths longer than I can swim.) The start is picture perfect technique, but the 14-year-old boy has her beat for the lead. The fact that he has a better beard than I have, has nothing to do with it I am sure. By the third lap Maike is just barely in third place, and then at the turn cranks it up, pulls ahead half-way down the pool, and finishes just in second place. This scores a point for her team as well! The best part was that she gave it her all, and shaved eight and a half seconds off her last time!

In the 100 meter back stroke she swam strongly as well, and cut five and a half seconds of her previous time!!!

Yeah, okay, I was very proud of her!!!!

The official times:

1:27.71Y F 100 Free 10/11/2008 Princeton Mock Meet
1:19.43Y F (-8.28) 100 Free 10/25/2008 Meadowlands

1:43.75Y F 100 Back 10/11/2008 Princeton Mock Meet
1:38.21Y F (-5.54) 100 Back 10/25/2008 Meadowlands