My First Swim Meet

A fun video that provides your young swimmer an overview of how a summer swim meet is run.

It was the morning of my first summer swim meet.  We got up early, and piled into the minivan.  With my swim suit, cap, goggles, and towel I was ready to go.

The drive to the pool took a while, but daddy assured me that we weren’t lost.  Mommy just shook her head. When we finally got there, I rushed inside to check out the pool.  It looked pretty neat, and I couldn’t wait to get in. I bumped into my coaches.

“Get ready!  Warm-ups are about to start,” they said.

Warmups weren’t really that warm, and the pool was really crowded. My friend Erin kept making funny faces at me, so it wasn’t all bad.

After warmups, I sat under the sun shade with my parents. My Dad was looking at the heat sheet. The heat sheet is like a program that lists all the events, and tells you who is swimming what. My parents highlighted all my events. My first event was the 25 Free.

We wrote down all my events on my hand, so I wouldn’t forget. I’m in the first heat for all my events except for the relay. I’m in lane 2 for the 25 Free, lane 5 for Backstroke, lane 3 for Breaststroke, and heat 2 lane 1 for the Free Relay.

Before I knew it, it was first call for event 16. So, I headed over to the clerk of course to get my event card. Then, I sat in a chair according to my lane and waited my turn.

Soon, we headed out to the pool and stood behind our lanes.  Nervously, I watched the swimmers in front of me.  The starter blew his whistle a bunch of times to get their attention.  Then, a long blast signaled it was time to get up on the blocks.

“Take your mark… Beeeeep!”

They dove into the water. All the parents were cheering!

Now, it was my turn. Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. Tweeeeeeet!  “Take your mark… Beeeeep!” I dove into the water, and started swimming as fast as I could. I got touched out by a nose.

“Great Job!  Awesome swim!” my parents cheered

I climbed out of the pool and went to talk to my coaches.

“Nice swim Sierra! Stretch it out a little more next time. Your stroke was a little choppy, but that was a good swim,” Coach Kristina said.

Between events, I snacked on fruit and played cards with my friend Emma. My next event was backstroke. I swam hard, but I kept bumping into the lane marker.

On breaststroke, I got disqualified. I only touched with one hand.

“On Breaststroke, you have to touch with two hands at the finish,” my coaches reminded me,

The free relay at the end was a lot of fun. Then, we packed up and headed for the car.  I can’t wait to do it again next Saturday!