Homeschool swimming

Last Wednesday, Mulan and Miya attended the Auckland homeschool swimming competition.  (I mentioned earlier that we were planning it.)

I also mentioned earlier that Wednesday was a busy day for us.  As well as the swimming in the morning, we did the Takapuna Athletics Club Championships in the evening.  Needless to say, it was a physically intense day for the girls.

This was the first time the girls had ever competed in a swimming competition, and they both wanted to make the most of it.  This meant they didn't want to just swim three or five events.  Rather, they both did 13 events each, during the four hours we were there!

First up, they joined in with a 25m warm-up crazy/fun relay, with balls and pool noodles and stuff.  Next, they got into the serious swim races.  They completed:

Mulan:
25m Freestyle: 19.64 sec
25m Backstroke: 22.75 sec
25m Breaststroke: 27.31 sec
25m Butterfly: 31.38 sec
50m Freestyle: 45.42 sec
4x25m IM: 2:02.87 min
50m Backstroke: 56.49 sec
50m Breaststroke:56.69 sec

100m Freestyle: 1:55.09 min
100m Backstroke: 2:18.56 min
100m Breaststroke: 2:13.66 min
200m Freestyle: 4:29.75 min

Miya:

25m Freestyle: 27.19 sec
25m Backstroke: 32.15 sec
25m Breaststroke: 36.15 sec
25m Butterfly: 1:06.18 min
50m Freestyle: 1:11.65 min
4x25m IM: 3:41.63 min
50m Backstroke: 1:40.09 min
50m Breaststroke: 1:36.91 min

100m Freestyle: 2:56.13 min
100m Backstroke: 3:55.43 min
100m Breaststroke: 3:34.38 min
200m Freestyle: 6:45.44 min (sadly, her goggles fell off at the start, and she took about 30 seconds to re-set herself)

A hugely fun day was had by all, and we're planning to make this homeschool competition a yearly event.

We've also been invited to enter a homeschool team into the North Shore Primary inter-schools competition on the 2nd of April.  (Sadly, the Intermediate and Secondary schools are still excluding us.)  Each child is allowed to compete in at most three individual events on the day.

The restriction on the number of events has made things tricky for us newbies.  Never having been involved in competition swimming, we have no idea what a decent time is, and so which events would best suit the children.

Google came to the rescue, and I found the results of last year's competition.  It has been very interesting reading.

We also went to the Takapuna Pools yesterday, timing Miya doing some 50m swims in the public lanes.  She improved significantly in both her 50m backstroke (1:21 min) and 50m breaststroke (1:29 min), but not enough to think that these events would be best for her.

Based on all this, Miya decided that she should enter the 25m freestyle, 25m backstroke and 25m breaststroke.

We've got four homeschool girls competing (including Miya), so they'll do two relays together -- the 4x25m freestyle and 4x25m medley.  It'll be hugely tough for 8-year-old Miya to compete against the best 10 and 11-year-olds, but she is happy to simply get in the pool and have a swim.

The organisers of the inter-schools have super-kindly allowed Mulan to also join the races on the day, even though she is slightly too old (the competition is for 11 years and under, and Mulan turned 12 today).  She will enter as an "exhibition swimmer," receiving a participation ribbon but not qualifying for any medals or places.  Awesome!

Choosing three events for Mulan is more difficult than for Miya.  She could possibly do 25m or 50m in any of freestyle, backstroke or breaststroke.  She chose the same as Miya -- 25m freestyle, 25m backstroke and 25m breaststroke.