Today, a group of children went to the Eastern Zones for swimming at Jellie Park. We arrived in our cars and met together inside the facility. Then we had to wait for the aqua aerobics to finish before we can go to the space we use for our Zones swimming. We got bored of waiting on the other side, and we thought dancing with them was a good idea. My classmate Reid who went to Zones with me, started it off. Then Lucas, another classmate who went to Zones, joined Reid. Then I joined them, and so on until we, as in everyone who went to Zones with me from my school, were dancing along the front with the aqua aerobics instructor. The elderlies who were doing the aqua aerobics seemed to smile and enjoyed us dancing with them. This was our warm up exercise before the races start. It was really fun rather than being bored.
The aqua aerobics finished and so did our warm up. Other zones qualifiers schools started coming in, and I found a lot of my friends among them. Finally, the races started, initially only the year 5 and 6 races. So the intermediates had to wait a lot longer. Our first race, as in the intermediates, was the Butterfly open, which I came first and qualified for Canterburys. Straight after was the IM (Individual Medley) without a breath. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise there was no break at all, and just as I got out of the pool, people already dived into the water, doing the IM. I was looking forward to do it, but I missed it because it was impossible for me to do it straight after the butterfly. Luckily, Reid came first in IM, so qualified for Canterburys. Another lucky thing was my school took over butterfly for Canterburys in the eastern zone because my classmate, Stella, who supposed to come first, came second and qualified for Canterburys with me. She wasn’t very happy because she probably misheard about NOT to touch the wall with only one hand instead of two because that would be a DQ (Disqualify). Sadly, she did the opposite so she came second.
I came fourth in the next two races, freestyle, or front crawl, and backstroke. Top three in these two styles and breaststroke could go to Canterburys, so I didn’t get in for freestyle and backstroke. Next, I got in for breaststroke, coming second just an arm touch away from my friend, from another school, who came first. It was a close race and very fun competing with my old, kindy friend. At the end, we said goodbye to each other, and people who went to zones from my school were treated with an ice cream or like something cold for our hard work. Thank you to the parents who came and supported us, and thank you to Joh who treated us to celebrate us representing our school. We went back to school and had some chilling time in class. Below are photos of our school team and the butterfly crew.
Picture 1, School team. Picture 2, School team. Picture 3, Swimmer from another school, Stella, and me.
What kind of warm up would you like to do before a race?