Gold medal– enough as a good excuse?

 

My kids and I were actually back from the weekend competition last Monday and I was too tired to even take a peek on blogosphere. I miss you guys! All of you….

I mentioned that my daughter was advised by the doctor not to swim and we’re pretty obedient with the order not until the day of the competition. The coach found out that there were very few participants in her age category and wanted to take the risk and go for it. Yeah! That’s the fighting spirit! He asked Water(the name of my daughter, if you all can remember) if she wanted to compete. My little girl said yes but was doubtful since she was feeling intimidated and somewhat scared of the 50meter swimming pool. Heck! We are training on a tiny pool of about 10-12 meters only and recently moved to a longer one of about 20 meters-not even close to a 25meter pool for novice competitions. With a  bit of encouragement and a little push, my daughter and her 5-year old friend and team mate, Heidi finally agreed on competing. They were  the last minute registrants for the 6-under Girls category. The coach signed her up on four events and she competed them all, sans weeks of training absences, sans warm-up, sans SUIMSUIT!!! – Yeah, right! We really thought she won’t be competing at all and I didn’t bring her stuff. Well, I sort of packed and was ready, but I brought rash guards and bikini bottoms for her so she can take a deep and play at the warm-up pool if she feels like it. We borrowed an extra swimsuit from Heidi’s big sister, Hazel and I am so thankful for them and their assistance.

Water took home 2 Gold medals for 50m Back Stroke and 50m Freestyle , 2 Silver Medals for 50m Butterfly and 50m Breast Stroke

Water and Heidi

Another GOLD for Most Be-Medalled Award for 6-under Girls Category

The team brought home a total of 3-Golds, 2-Silver and 6-Bronze medals

The team had fun and the experience was exceptional! My son, like some swimmers of the team didn’t get any medal but he had a good time and his races are also good. He did his best and he enjoyed the game. The young swimmers had proven a thing or two to themselves. Win or lose, being a participant of competitions is always an honor. Nevertheless, I am a proud mom of two good swimmers.

Water will turn seven soon and her next competition will be on a new age bracket. The Most Be-Medalled Award has given her a good exit of the 6-under category. She was actually worried because we disobeyed her doctor. I am a medical professional, Me of all people supposed to know better about following doctor’s orders but….. is a gold medal enough for a good excuse?

more of our swimming stories:

- TAKE YOUR MARK

- beginnings

- Raising Future Olympic Swimmers

 

Take Your Mark

In about three hours, I will be leaving with my kids and into a four-hour drive to the venue of their next swimming competition. I can already feel the goose bumps creeping all over me  every time I see my children at the end of every pool lane and when I hear the voice saying “Take your Mark….!”

Yes, the Tagum City Stingrays Swimming Team will be competing again. My daughter will make a pass with this competition this time though. She was disappointed, she had a cough that progress into a pneumonia that requires her to undergo a medication for one week with a strict doctor’s order of no swimming. My son has been looking forward to it and I can tell he is excited. As for me, I can’t tell what I feel. All I know of is, I will forever be proud for not all children in their ages competes like them. Win or lose, a participation to every competition is an achievement on my end.

Get well soon Water baby!

Good luck dear Wine…. I’ll be cheering by the grandstand!

begginings

 

I am MIA(missing in action) once again from the blog community for nearly a month and I know I am expected to come up with a good excuse, hence I reserved this come back post for beginnings.

As a mom-blogger or mologger(my made-up word) in reference to a fellow blogger, Hobble’s very helpful post “Blogging Made Easy” which you all have probably visited, this post of mine is in dedication to new beginnings of my children’s overwhelming passion for swimming or should I rather say- SWIMMING CAREER. Barely two months ago, I wrote about Raising Future Olympic Swimmers, and talked on how they looked like when they were in the water.

Last June 2nd of this year, the months of swimming lessons, trainings and drills has come to a test. I never knew this until recently but swimming experts from all over the country who happens to be organizers and officials to swimming events always come-up with swimming meets for beginners which they call NOVICE COMPETITIONS. The Philippine Swimming League in cooperation with Evangelista Aquatics and Sports Management Inc of Davao City held the LANGOY PILIPINAS 10th Mindanao Novice Swimming Meet.

My children’s team, the TAGUM CITY STINGRAY SWIMMING TEAM just then received its first invitation to compete. Our young swimmers were excited and nervous since they don’t have any idea how stuff like this goes but as young athletes by heart the determination and courage to test their strength and ability gave them the spirit to succeed. The parents in the team, myself specially can’t describe the ambivalent feelings as we watched our children prepare for the big day and at the same time we’re clueless of how to prepare ourselves as if we are the ones competing. Before we knew it, we had T-shirt uniforms ordered and printed, we had our banners hanged, specific swim suits chosen and picked specially for the day and we were standing, waving and zooming our digital cameras to their limit taking pictures as we cheer for our children during the presentation parade as the competition day began.

The competition was categorized by age bracket for both boys and girls respectively. There were eight teams and around 200 novice swimmers all over the region. My son has four events and my daughter has five. In each or their every race, I yelled, clapped, hollered, shouted in every possible cheering way that one can create or imagined. I shared the same dilemma of stage mothers in the crowd that fail to get videos as they turn excited and started to jump up and down forgetting the fact that they are supposed to be still  to be able to record videos resulting to video clips of more screaming in the audio background and scenes of pairs of jumping feet, or camera lenses banging the palms when the one holding the camera started to clap, or trees, ceilings, and people’s backs and heads who were watching the race but never the swimmer swimming in the pool which in the first place should be the main capture of the said video. Fortunately, I was able to control myself and got few good clips of my children competing–  only few because , I might have stood still recording but the excitement in me committed the mistake of forgetting to press the record button and only realized it when my daughter reached the end of the pool during her 25-meter butterfly race. Lesson learned, ask somebody to do the video recording for you or somebody to capture pictures when your children are competing. You’ll never know how the race turns out and expect yourself to let go of your calm state and will start to cheer ecstatically.

The results of the competition is good, great to be exact. Considering that our team swimmers had just started learning and training barely five months ago. My son won 2 bronze medals for 50-meter freestyle and 25-meter backstroke. My daughter on the other hand claimed her silver medal rank on all of her five events which were 25-meter freestyle,backstroke,breast stroke, butterfly and 50-meter freestyle on the 6 and under age category. The team took home a total of six Gold, nine Silver and six bronze medals. At the same time they bagged the trophy for being the 2nd Runnner-Up  Most Outstanding Swimming Team.

My children were so proud and happy but who could have been happier and more proud than me. The novice competition marks the beginning of their lives as swimmers. By competing the novice race they get to feel what is it like to be out there and race heads-to heads with other swimmers like themselves. They get to meet their possible competitors for the competitions over the years to come. They get to assess their strength and see for themselves how much they want to improve. They got to taste victory and embrace sportsmanship, accepts defeat and most importantly to have fun and enjoyed themselves.

For my children and for their fellow swimmers in the team, there is no turning back. Discipline and training properly is the way to beat their personal seed time. For a mother like me, as long as the dream, the desire, the determination and hunger for achievement comes from my children personally, I will as ever be supportive. I congratulate and thank the team in general, the swimmers  the coaches and the parents. We will be together in this journey , we will dream together and win together!