One of the things we've been waiting for Nate to "get" is that you have to finish a race really strong, giving it all you have at the end. Last week, half way through the meet this concept seemed to click with Nate and he finished his last two races with personal best times and won his heat. On Saturday Nate finished all of his races really hard and it showed!
The best race of the day was the 50 yard Butterfly. Nate is not a big fan of the Butterfly. It is the hardest stroke and he struggles with it. In fact on Friday night when I told him he'd been assigned to swim the 50 Fly he said "no way. I'm not doing it." I reminded him that being on a team means that you do what the coaches ask. They have their reasons for assigning certain kids certain events. You just have to do your best.
I had to give him another little pep talk on Saturday before the race but once the race started I could see he was on his game. His butterfly looked as good as I've ever seen it. He and another boy from our team were neck and neck the whole race. Nate really swam hard the last 15 yards and ended up finishing first with a 45.10. The other boy finished in 45.19.
The win was a huge victory for Nate's confidence. He swam hard, finished first, and took 13 seconds off his previous best time. Plus he's never beaten this other swimmer before so it really gave Nate a huge boost of confidence.
He still didn't qualify for the State Meet but he's about 3 seconds from it on the 50 Back and now he's about 5 seconds from it in the 50 Fly. It's also getting close in the 100 Free. His next meet is December 10 so hopefully that will be the day!
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