Swimmers, take your mark...

Charlotte is the swimmer in our family. The other kids can all swim - Jay Michael does everything his big sisters do, just with floaties on - and they all love being in the water. But Charlotte, well, she is just a natural. She swims for the town's recreational team and has done really well. In her age group, she swims each stroke at 25 yards - which is one length of the Olympic size pool. Next year she will be in the 9/10 year old division, which is 50 yards, with flip turns. Her best times so far (one meet left) for this season are: freestyle 19.37, backstroke 23.95, breaststroke 27.88, butterfly 23.97.
A sidebar: in the sport of swimming, each swimmer is mostly encouraged to compete against her own best time. One way of encouraging this is the gold, silver, bronze system. Each stroke has three times to beat - a gold time (fastest), a silver time (faster), and a bronze time (fast). Last year, during Charlie's first season, she made a silver time in one stroke and didn't even make a bronze time in three strokes. This year, she has a gold time in freestyle and butterfly and a silver time in backstroke and breaststroke.
Next week is the Meet Of Champs. This is the State meet, held at the University of Arkansas, and only swimmers who qualify with gold and silver time can compete, and then only in the strokes that qualify the swimmer as gold or silver. Charlotte, at 8, will compete in all four strokes! Way to swim, Charlotte!

Still wet; and the inspirational (meet-only) artwork by Rachel (the team mascot is a Piranha; pretty fierce, huh?)


In this video, Charlotte is the middle swimmer. Go ahead and cheer. You know you want to....