Ever the roller coaster, it was the last swim meet of the Summer: City County. We headed out at an unreasonably early hour to join the controlled chaos. Not making many of the rookie mistakes of swim meets past, I remembered all vital gear including: chairs, towels (one for each event,) pen, highlighter, sharpie, water, food, money and several time killing electronic devices. I even have the lingo down, asking how much a heat sheet was as opposed to calling it "that book thing" which drew mockery from swim vets last year. But on to the actual events.
For Maggie, it was all good.
In the 25 Backstroke, she placed 6th gold garnering the team 55 points. In the 25 Free she placed 7th silver for an additional 34 points. The points awarded are higher at this meet than the weekly ones and she was (rightly) pretty pleased with herself. As the first ten places in each time category get ribbons, she'll have those waiting for her at the awards banquet too.
Morrigan had a tough day.
I have to preface that I was proud of her. She just wasn't so happy with herself. She was 13th bronze in the 25 Backstroke. Eight points, no ribbons. She is finally in silver times for freestyle but was number 38 in that category. No points, no ribbons. And it was round about when she saw her second time that she noticed her sister's performance which didn't help matters. Then the 100IM. Three seconds into the race, disqualified. One of her coaches didn't think she had been disqualified so we waited to see the results that were, in the end, heartbreaking for Morrigan.
She cried all the way home, intermittently ranting about how unfair it was that her sister got silver and gold times, ribbons and more points. Naturally I countered with the fact that it just was and she couldn't get mad at her sister for doing well. And added that every point counted and I was proud of her improved times. I might as well have been speaking Chinese.
It kind of sucked. Morrigan was inconsolable and I had to severely temper any enthusiasm towards Maggie so as not to make it worse. [Don't worry, she got big hugs and cheers when we were alone.] Tomorrow we are back at it for Butterfly and Breaststroke. After which, Morrigan announced, she is retiring from competition. I'm hoping she'll have a good last day. On the plus side, for Morrigan anyway, Maggie is only swimming butterfly and is slower at that stroke so she might not outperform her sister. I'm just hoping she can place in one event so we don't have to cry all the way home tomorrow.
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