Friday, August 15, 2008

Swimming

All this swimming coverage on the Olympic channels has me in a mind of reminicinse.  There was a time ages and ages ago when I was a pretty good swimmer.  Swimming was a fun sport for me to do for many reasons, one of them of course was the fact that the boys and the girls were together practicing as well as competing co-ed at different meets all over the South Bay.  It was also an adventure completely shaving my legs once every four years, that was fun...but the most fun I ever had was during a race in Long Beach...we were in the Finals and I swam the Butterfly leg of our medley relay...that meant I was going first, and it was a big race..the biggest I ever swam.  I was swimming in a Varsity finals match and all of the best swimmers were in the relay..we had me, Jason Chung, Karl Haushalter, and Greg Wagner.  It was a big deal for all of us and I was ready.  I remember concentrating on flying of the starting block the second the gun sounded.  Once I hit the water I let my adrenaline take over and concentrated on swimming the Butterfly as fast as I could for 2 laps. (one hundred yards)   It was great, I don't think we won first but we came in 2nd or third and it was fun being on a team.  Leaning over into the lane and screaming as loud as you could for your teammates.  I thought of that when the Americans edged out the French by .08 seconds in the 4x100 Free.  It was a great feeling!

2 comments:

Grandma Dee said...

I remember being at that meet with your Dad and Joe Hohm. It was very exciting. What a great Butterfly swimmer you were/are. You made it look easy. I competed in that too but I still looked/look like I am close to drowning. I am all inspired to start back on swimming after watching Phelps. It is a great workout. So glad that Tasha and the boys are such good swimmers.
Have fun at Mike's "going off to college" party. We are down at Namie's if you want to stop by! Hugs and love, Densie

Paula said...

You are a GREAT swimmer, Garrett! I loved watching your meets. You have always been a water baby.)

Thanks for being such a great, supportive brother to Mike..it was wonderful having you all at the party.
Love you, Mom xo