Wednesday, July 7, 2010

My First Nike Swim Camp

This summer I was going to a swim camp. It was a stay away camp. We were going to be away for five days. I was very excited and nervous for swim camp. I knew my friends could help me if something went wrong, and I had my cell phone. But I didn’t like to stay away from my mom for too long. I started to get worried too. What if I forgot to bring something? It was too late. All I should think about is swimming better though. Thinking about swimming made me excited!
We arrived on Sunday. I changed and got ready to swim. I was nervous and excited for our first swim! When we got there, Jared, the coach, told us we were swimming freestyle. I learned a few things that I did not know before. For example, your streamline is the fastest part of swimming. Everyone can get better on streamline. After practice, Josh, the director, told us a bit more about the rules and what we were going to do the rest of camp. We were going to keep journals and someone was going to win a prize for the best journal. On Thursday, the last day, we were going to have ceremony. On Thursday, the last day, we were going to have ceremony. Also, we were going to watch videos on each stroke. Later we found out that our counselors were Keli and Whitney. Keli was on our floor and she seemed nice. She was right across our dorm so we were
very lucky. When it was time to sleep, I was already very tired. I squeezed Eeyore hard and fell asleep. It had been great for the first day.
On the second day I woke up pretty early in the morning, still a little bit tired, but ready to swim again. We swam two times and watched videos. We kept journals too. We started to do dry land. I thought we were going to play games, but we did a lot of stretching. I really didn’t like stretching. We had a contest at who could do the most sit-ups and push-ups. I could only do about five seconds. When I found out that we were doing it every day, I groaned. Nobody wanted to do it again. I bet I would be very tired when it was bed time. Swim two hours a day and do stretching for an hour. Who wouldn’t be tired? I was very tired. This time when it was time to go to bed, I had to drag myself onto the bed. My legs were killing me! I fell asleep happily and quickly that night.
Wednesday was very fun after all the dry land. On Wednesday we got to do night swimming. Josh dimmed all the lights and we got really cool glow sticks. Mine was purplish blue. It was very cool. All you could see was glowing glow sticks. I swam around for a long time. In fact, it was a very long time. We started swimming at 7:00 and got back at 10:00. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t even have time to take a shower after swimming THREE times a day and doing a lot of sweat included stretching. I didn’t have time to shower but it was fun swimming at night. I couldn’t wait for the ceremony tomorrow!
On the very last day, we were having a mini meet in the morning. I was swimming 50 breast and 50 fly. I didn’t like backstroke and a TON of people were good at freestyle so I didn’t want to lose badly. I was very surprised because my fly time was 42! It was eight seconds faster than my best time. My breast time was 49. It wasn’t too bad. It was one second faster than my usual. The mini meet was fun because you didn’t really have to try your best, even though I did. The bad news is your time isn’t official. That means it doesn’t count if you qualify for the districts. WAAAA! But now I knew I improved so I was happy. Soon, I would be as happy as happiest person in the world! (Or maybe I would be even happier than the happiest person in the world).
Later we had a ceremony. They would announce the best journal winner. I really didn’t think I would get that prize. I was just excited to see who was going to win. First they called up an Asian girl named Ally. Then they called up her brother. Last Josh said, “Christine Lai”. He even pronounced my last name right. At first I was wondering, huh? Who did he call up? Is that my name? He was looking straight at me so I walked over to him. He reached out his hand so I shook it. He said, “You look surprised, are you surprised at winning your first time here?” I nodded, still unable to speak. I walked back to Brie saying that they might have made a mistake. But inside I was very happy. I am still surprised now. I was very proud of myself!!
The swim camp was helpful and fun. I was glad that we kept journals so that I could remember what we learned. I was excited for next year, hoping that I would learn even more. The only thing that could be better is if my mom could come. I still learned a lot though. I hoped that next year more people from our swim team could go. And I wished that I might be able to make new friends, and see old friends. I couldn’t wait until next swim camp!

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