Just keep swimming…

Oh man, this month of February has just disappeared. I had a suspicion this would happen, so I guess I’m glad I had a super productive January.

I feel like my ENTIRE month of February has been dominated by the end of the swim season, even though on paper, it doesn’t look like that much. It didn’t help that none of the meets were local- all were at least ~35- 75 minutes away. Volunteering at the team breakfasts ate up the mornings, and the meets were all afternoon.

• Saturday 2/7: team breakfast + Conference meet in Middleton
• Saturday 2/14: team breakfast + Sectionals meet in Verona + after party until 11 pm
• Saturday 2/21: team breakfast + State meet in Waukesha + team dinner out (Asher)/ meet up with my parents for dinner (me + Ivan)
• Sunday 2/22: NOTHING in the morning, but Asher had to be to the Regionals meet for his club team at 12:30 and I had to be a timer from 1:30-5.

As an astute eye might notice, this is every single Saturday of the month so far. Ha. This is not a complaint- it’s been really fun! This is a great group of boys and it’s been awesome to be part of it, especially since we have some key seniors graduating this year. Asher was so honored and thrilled to be part of the State relays, too.

But it is also true that I have felt like I’ve barely had any weekends. I guess, yeah, I’ve had some Sundays, but those have been spent just either recuperating or trying to catch up on all the household stuff that didn’t get done Monday- Friday… or Saturday…

Actually, swim is not the only thing I did this month. I feel like I had a couple of “big rocks” that I accomplished and that was basically it.

I feel like this is my month, in a nut shell:

1. SWIMMING
2. Be sick with a cold
3. Deal with a majorly stressful work week in the middle of the month
4. Booked some upcoming travel stuff (this was good!! A big and important accomplishment, actually)
5. Went on 2 college visits!
6. Ivan went to Mexico
7. Saw my parents twice
8. Had a physical
9. Dealt with a non-bloggable personal/kid thing that consumed significant headspace
10. Watched a lot of Olympics

Besides that, I have not done much else. I even missed a bunch of workouts and have not touched any of my other “February goals” or my kitchen decluttering, etc…

Oh well, I guess! Only so many hours in the day, right? To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

I “thought” swimming was over now after yesterday, but Asher surprised us and snagged himself a new shiny Senior State cut (for the club team- high school season is over) in the 50 fly!

He was closest on the 50 free, and tried that again (he swam the lead off on the 200 free relay) and was still off the time he needed. He then tried sprinting the first 50 of his 100 free race for yet another chance, and still missed it. We thought that was it, no luck.

Well, then he had his 50 fly race, a race he hadn’t swam in a long time and he didn’t think he was even close on the cut on. Turns out, he was only about 0.31 seconds off the cut time! Being that close, he decided to do a “time trial” at the end of the meet (a special thing they do just at the Regionals meet where you have to pay $10 cash and you can sign up to “time trial” an event of your choice for “one last chance” to qualify for State). These are always pretty exciting/ nerve-wracking since it’s truly a “go big or go home” situation. Well, he crushed it! He dropped 0.59 seconds from earlier (a LOT on a 50!) and got the state cut with room to spare!

His high school coach had come to watch the meet and was going nuts up in the bleachers! haha.

Asher was super excited, because some of his older friends on his team are going to the Senior State Championships this upcoming weekend, and of course, he REALLY wanted to qualify too…. Well, now he did. 🙂 (The qualifying times are really tough for the 15-18 boys, so it’s not an easy feat.)

This ALSO means…. dun dun dun….. swim is suddenly NOT over, and he has yet another meet this upcoming weekend. And the club State meet is a 3 day prelims/ finals meet Friday to Sunday (compared to high school State which is just the one single afternoon). Which means Asher and I will be gone from Thursday night to Sunday night next weekend now, too, for 3 more full days of swim meets.

Here are some pics from high school State on Saturday. (I was a timer for Sunday’s meet so I took zero pics because you can’t use cell phones behind the blocks!)

Now we have the high school team banquet (tomorrow night) and then Asher and I get a 3 night getaway in Milwaukee beginning Thursday night for Senior state! 😉

And….then it’s somehow March already, and only a few more weeks until our (11 night!) spring break trip!! And after that, 2026 will be like, 25% over. 😳

Whew. Remind me to never plan on doing anything in February until Asher graduates and is done with swimming.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful Asher got his Senior State cut! It was exciting! And Ivan and I had to be back up timers for his time trial, so we were right there on the pool deck. 🙂