When I began this blog my intended goal was to preach the benefits of human potential, or the power of positive thinking. I still preach allot but not much on positive thinking. In fact, I find myself struggling to stay positive in a transformative government. You see, I don’t want the country transformed. What I see coming is something everyone will hate, even the notorious millennium generation. They are just too young and idyllic to understand now.
I received an e-mail from my young son living in Texas. He isn’t so young anymore, but he is my baby. Mike, it turns out, is a better writer and a better motivator than his dad will ever dream of being. Mike has three kids, all are gems.(This is where I preach about how great my grand kids are. I do so only because they are). Mike’s three kids are all swimmers. I mean swimmers who get up at 5:00 am to go to the pool to workout before school, and then they go to the pool after school to work out, They spend their weekends at swim meets, they live for swimming, academics, and music. I spoke to Mike last week and he told me that he was taking his daughter Abbey to a swim meet at Texas A&M. His wife Lisa was taking Danny to a swim meet closer to home.
This morning I told myself that I will have to call and get details of how they did. As I sat waiting for Peg’s foot to soak after a surgery I found his e-mail. I read it and tears of joy streamed down my face. Here is Mike’s account of Abbey’s swim meet at Texas A&M last Saturday.
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1650 meters.
5413.39 feet.
Just over 1 mile.
For swimmers, the 1650 is the ultimate endurance and conditioning race….66 laps.
Your grand daughter Abbey competed in her first 1650 meter free style event this weekend at Texas A&M University Champions Swim Meet. Her coach told her that she would experience several emotions during this race: pain, anguish, quitting, crying, asking “why am I doing this?” He also told her that she would experience physical signs, burning legs, burning arms, burning lungs, thumbing heart. He was telling her what she didn’t want to hear, the truth. I was lucky enough to be on deck timing for this event for Abbey. I know better than to interrupt per pre-swim ritual and concentration, so I sat there watching her psych herself up for the pain. Before getting on the block, she looked at me, and I told her: “You own this”. She proceeded to get on the block, and prepare for the start.
The horn sounded, and she was off. She looked very strong, and very consistent with her breathing. Every 4 strokes of her arms, I’d see her head turn and come up for air. Her split times were very consistent, almost to the tenth of a second. She looked like a finely tuned engine in the water. After 20 laps, she was still keeping her splits. Her breathing pattern was not as consistent, sometimes going four strokes, sometimes 2, sometimes 3. It’s obvious the burn had started.
After 40 laps, her splits were amazingly consistent with the start of the race. Her breathing was not as in synch, but she looked strong. After 60 laps, her pace was still on. By this point, I think I was feeling more emotions than she was. She had told me she had 2 goals for this race, the first, to finish, the second, to finish in under 20 minutes. As the last few laps were counted, down, she still maintained her initial pace.
After the 66th lap, she came in strong, touched the wall, and I hit the button on the stop watch. I looked down to see Abbey needed any help getting out of the pool. She stayed in the water for a moment, so I gazed down at the stop watch. She finished the race in 18:53:33!!! That is an AA time for this event. My mouth dropped open. I looked up and saw her drying off. She wanted to see the time, so I showed it to her. She looked at me and smiled, then went off to get her post-race talk with Coach Trent.
I asked her if she had gone through those waves of emotions like her coach mentioned, and she said “not really”. Then she told me “it wasn’t that bad”.
Here is a picture of the facility at Texas A&M, as well as her “reloading” on a nice big chocolate brownie after lunch. You can still see how red she is in the picture. This was at least 30 minutes after the event. She actually went back into the warm down pool and swam a bit to cool down after the 1650!!
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Filed under: Biography, family, Motivation, Sports, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: goals, human potential, positive thinking, Saturday, Sports, swimming, Swimming and Diving, Swimming pool, Texas, United States, Water Sports |
As usual, a great post. Much more uplifting! Grandkids are great, aren’t they? You and your granddaughter’s parents must be proud.
Yes we are, thank you.
a great post…and I love your son’s email…
( you write just as eloquent Grumpa Joe!)
it’s hard to be positive these days, and I am sure the devil wishes all those hand baskets would go somewhere else…
I usually find the positive and good, but these days I take my Grandpa’s advice, if you have nothing nice to say…..
( I spend a lot of time in silence…)
Hope you are having a wonderful season of Winter…
and getting ready for Christmas, I actually got mine pretty much done today ….
Take Care….You Matter…
)0(
maryrose
Thank you for the kind words. My son is an excellent writer he nailed that piece perfectly. I am almost ready for Christmas, the tree is up and that is as far as we will decorate this year. Christmas cards are next. Then we concentrate on getting the heck out of here to a warmer clime.
You have to be one proud Grumpa. Congrats.
I cannot tell you how proud I am of all of my grand kids, all ten of them. Thanks for the kind words.
Great post, Thanks.
Thanks for stopping by, I’m glad you enjoyed this post.