This past weekend, which was postponed from last weekend because of the freezing weather, was spent in Lubbock, Texas, home of the Region 1, Regional Championship Swim Meets for the past ? years.
Michelle and I arrived Thursday, she on a charter bus with her school team mates and Franklin H.S.'s team, and I on a plane. Friday was prelims and Michelle finaled in the 50 free, 200 free relay and 400 free relay. She was in the consolation finals for her 100 free.
She was disappointed with her swimming on Friday, but she wasn't the only sluggish one from El Paso. They didn't have much water time due to the below freezing weather, rolling brown-out days, and emergency water shortages which combined to close all the area pools for about a week.
Saturday, with a better night's sleep, Michelle was in better form. She came in fourth in the 50 free, first in her consolation heat and 2nd in the 200 free relay. That was a heartbreaker as their team was ahead for 175 yards and in the last 25 yards the fourth swimmer on the San Angelo team caught up and just barely out-touched our fourth swimmer. There was 3 tenths of a second difference in their time. It was a killer.
Finally they swam the 400 free relay. It is the last event of the meet and we were running late. I was a little worried about making my flight home, but determined not to miss this race. Each swimmer on the relay swims 100 yards. Michelle was the lead-off swimmer as she has the best flat start of the four. She came in first but just barely. The second swimmers were also incredibly close. Our third swimmer managed to pull out ahead and the fourth swimmer gave us a even bigger lead and the girls swam a best time of 1:39:48.
The El Paso Coronado girls' team even won Regionals! That's quite an accomplishment with such heavy duty competition.
Here's a slide show of the meet at the Pete Ragus Aquatic Center in Lubbock: (Michelle is the swimmer in the black and hot pink Fastskin (swimsuit). There's a couple of her on the block or getting out of the water and one parading into the event.
