Tom Dolan Invitational

Tom Dolan Invitational, December 8-11, University of Maryland

Steven has been training for the Tom Dolan Invitational ever since he qualified last spring.  He initially qualified in the 50 yard butterfly, then the 100 yd breast.  Over the course of this current swim season, he qualified for more events.  At Tom Dolan, he swam 7 events plus 2 relays, which was the maximum number of events he could have swum.  And really,  I wonder if that was too many events because the meet moved along quickly and he only had around 10 minutes of rest between events on most days!  He was quite exhausted by the end of the each day.

In all, it was a great experience.  Steven's coach likes to call this "The Fastest Kid Meet In America" and after watching some of the kids there, I can sort of believe it...  There are some amazing swimmers out there!  We saw some national age group records being broken, as in the kid swimming in that particular race was THE fastest kid in the age group in the USA.  So that's fun to see.

Steven was a little sick going in to the meet.  He started to get a cold with respiratory issues on Monday.  He had some asthma problems (for the first time in many years) on Wednesday, and we started him on a Z-Pack and some albuterol before at that time.  The meet started on Thursday, and he was still congested, but seemed to be getting better.  It's hard to swim when it's hard to breathe, but this is just one of those things.  I'm sure he wasn't the only kid there battling a cold!  Thankfully, his diabetes was in good control.  Sometimes when he gets sick his diabetes goes completely crazy, with huge spikes in blood sugar.  It was great that his numbers stayed around ideal throughout the entire weekend.  We have learned how to manage his diabetes during meets a little bit better than before as well, giving him extra insulin on meet days (we call it a "meet correction") as he tends to get nervous which inhibits the efficacy of regular doses of insulin.  It's a dynamic correction, based on his sugars each day...  I am finding that diabetes is really difficult to manage!  The main thing is to test often, and make adjustments sooner rather than later...  But I digress...  Back to the meet.

The weekend was long because the meet started on Thursday, but fortunately Steven didn't swim until Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  The meet was held at the University of Maryland, about 45 minutes away from our house (unless you hit traffic, which luckily we did not!).  It was a very nice venue, but a little bit intimidating for parents and kids.  They had a strict policy of keeping parents off of the pool deck.  When Steven walked in to the meet on the first day, he had to follow a path for swimmers and coaches while Josie and I followed a separate path for spectators.  Luckily a teammate of Steven's was there, so the boys were able to walk in to the pool area together.  Josie and I found our way to the stands, and from that vantage, the whole place was very impressive.  Here are some pictures from the first day of the meet:

Waiting for Warm ups

The team is waiting for warm ups to start.  Steven is the boy on the left of the picture- with gray goggles.  He was *very* nervous.

Swimmers in the water...  Steven's team is warming up in the far pool.

More warm ups, practicing starts now...

Can you spot him?  I doubt it!

How about now?  Trademark pre-race position, arms bent, elbows to his side, hands folded under his chin, black cap...  This is before the 50 breast.

There he is...  Almost up and ready to swim.  The 50 breast is one of his best events (the first event he did at the meet), so he was in one of the last heats.  There was barely any time between heats- this meet moved along very fast!

He ended up dropping almost 1 second on the 50 breast, which was really great.  He came in 22nd place.  Then he had a short rest before he went to swim the 50 fly.  He was so nervous!!  I recorded the races on our digital video recorder so that Mac could watch them at home, so I don't have any pictures from the actual races...  The fly went well.  His goal was to make finals...  Except that they didn't have finals for his age division, which we didn't realize until we got there!  Oh well...  He would have made finals, had there been any!!

Placing 15th in this meet is really great.  Just look at how close the times are, too.  They use computerized pads in the water to time the kids; human timers with old-fashioned stopwatches are just there for backups in case all the technological stuff misfires!

The fly was his last event on Friday.  He had more events on Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday, he swam a relay at the start of the meet (he did the 50 fly in the relay), then he did the 100 Breast, the 50 Back, and the 200 IM (that's a 50 of each stroke- fly, back, breast, then free).  He dropped 0.22 seconds in the 100 breast, and stayed about the same for the other events.  On Sunday he started off the meet with a relay; this time everyone swam a 50 free.  Then he swam the 100 IM (dropped 3.56 seconds which is a pretty big drop), and the 100 fly.  He didn't drop for the fly.  By Sunday he was mostly better from the cold and respiratory issues, but he was pretty exhausted from the meet!  There really wasn't much rest time between events.  He complained that he didn't even get much time to play DoodleJump on the iPod or to finish a level of Plants vs Zombies on the DS...  Priorities...

On Sunday, we all went to the meet to watch the events.  Yes, even Katie!!  After the meet was wrapping up, Mr. Tom Dolan himself was in attendance to sign autographs.  Tom Dolan is an Olympian who won a couple of golds, and is involved in running a swim school out here somewhere and obviously supports this meet.  So, the kids lined up for a bit, and were able to meet Tom Dolan.  Unfortunately he wasn't wearing his medals! 

Here he is trying to get the spelling of "Isabel" correct...  Took a lot of concentration!  Everyone wants to make her a "Belle"!!

He is a very nice guy!  Steven had a special swim cap from the meet autographed "To Steven", and Tom Dolan signed the meet program to all of the kids (Luke, Isabel, and Steven).

After the meet, we went to IKEA for dinner and finally made our way home.  It was a long weekend, we thankfully did not have any traffic issues, and Steven survived his first Big Meet.  Good times.