The Hooks' Adventure Continues!: A Swim Meet

As you already know from Daddy's post, I had a swim meet at Napoli. I swam in the relay race, the IM and the fly. The first day, there was the open water meet and then the relays. They ran so late with the other meet that we didn't even have time for a warm up before we had to race. Let me give you a bit of set up: we had been sitting down all day- from six in the morning to about one in the afternoon- in the bus. From two onwards we were stuck in a sweltering building- and I mean sweltering building. When the swim meet actually started, at about seven, all we wanted to do was sit quietly and pant like dogs.

Of course, my team was the very last group to go, so I had to wait even longer to swim. Our team got 4th place, which was rather surprising given that we work out in a 16-meter pool (we got new shirts that were based on that little fact: they have "16 meters of passion" written across the front!) and this pool was 50 meters long. The pool was pleasant, cold enough that you could move efficiently, but not so cold that you froze. I, however, was not very pleased with my performance; even as I was swimming, I knew that I could do better.

The next day, those who were swimming neither breaststroke nor freestyle in the morning (the big kids) traipsed down to the beach. The beach itself was very trashy, but the water was nice: salty and crabby. We played on the beach for a while -- someone bought a ball -- then we walked back home for lunch. After lunch, all of the big kids headed for the swimming pool while the little kids played on the beach. The meet was long and HOT, but when we got back to the hotel, we all changed backed into swimsuits and were back on the beach in a jiffy; we were there until dinner time.

Sunday, I had both IM and fly.We all had to go to the pool in the morning this time, because it made more sense with the distance from the hotel. It was only on Sunday that I found out that despite having a good pool, the changing rooms, showers and bathrooms were in a sorry state. But at least this time we actually got to warm up.

For the IM, we had to switch strokes IN THE MIDDLE OF THE POOL. Rather a difficult task. I came in 12th out of twenty-nine (I think it was that many). Once again, I was not pleased with how it had gone. I climbed out of the pool, went back to the stand, ate a Mars bar, drank some water, rested for a few minutes and circled back to be called for the fly.

Because I was frustrated with how my other two events had gone, I felt really angry, which gave me a surprising amount of energy. When I got out of the pool I felt so good that I would have turned around and swum another 50 meters fly! I have not swum that well in years, in fact I've only swum that well once in my life before! I didn't even care about the placing. To top it off, all the little kids and parents that I've never seen before told me how "brava" I was; the little kids ambushed me as soon as I was back in the stands. And I wasn't even tired afterwards... I was exhilarated.

The result: second place, one of the two medals my team won this meet. The other was one by Alessandro Amoroso, a third place medal, although on the podium he is standing as a second-place winner for some reason.