MSC Swimming Conference // Day One

 Marissa's regular swimming season came to a close this past weekend at the Mid South Conference Championships at Centre College in Danville, KY.  

Last month I had started looking at the calendar to see if Noel and I could possibly drive over to stay for the entire three day session.  The two younger kids didn't really have anything on their schedule that they couldn't get themselves to and at that point, I didn't see anything listed on Noel's calendar either.  So I marked our calendar for the meet from Thursday through Saturday and started looking for places in the area that we could stay.  Thankfully, I was able to find an adorable little downstairs apartment on Airbnb that was about six miles from the pool.

Isn't it just the cutest?

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Marissa and the team headed down to Danville on Tuesday night.  Even though the meet didn't start until Thursday morning, they would take the extra time to get settled into their hotel and then have a "shake out" practice at the college pool on Wednesday.  I think they also took a little time to eat a good dinner at Red Robin, visit a couple of coffee shops, and have some time to just relax or do homework.

Unfortunately for us, despite the fact that we didn't have anything on the calendar at the time that I looked, within days, we realized that the Coaches Clinic for cross country and track coaches fell on the same weekend.  Ugh!  Well, we talked about it and decided that I would still head down on Thursday and watch her session and then Noel would try to find a way to join me after his clinic ended on Friday afternoon.  So with all of our "new" plans in place, I woke up at 4:30 on Thursday morning and was headed out the door by 5:00 a.m.  If everything went well on my trip down (and thankfully it did), I would arrive at Centre College around 10:30 and in time to watch the team finish their warm-ups.  

I was heading into Louisville just before 9:00 in the morning and although it had been light outside for a couple of hours, I was thankful to finally see the sun breaking through the fog and clouds.  Maps took me on a different route than we would normally take around Louisville so this was a brand new bridge for me.  I liked the design so I tried to catch a couple of pictures while I was driving.

And then arriving at the pool around 10:25.  

Centre College is a beautiful collage campus with a lot of green space and many brick buildings.  This clock tower stands just outside the athletic facilities and marks the southern part of the campus.

And then the view from inside the natatorium.

I know that it takes the girls a really long time to get their tech suits on (up to 20 minutes if they are extra tight) and they usually need assistance from their closest teammates in getting them all of the way on.  That's why you normally see them going in and out of the locker rooms in groups of two or three.  I was so excited when I saw Marissa coming out and getting ready to practice a few starts before the morning session began.

Group prayer and team cheers...

And then the morning session began with preliminary swims.  The morning session would decide who would come back to swim in the finals later on in the evening.

LET'S GO!!

One thing that Marissa often struggles with is the temperature of the various pools and trying to stay warm and loose.  Because they had practiced at this pool the day before, she knew that they kept it cooler than most pools so she texted me the night before to ask if I could bring her an older winter coat so she could wear it to stay warm but it wouldn't matter if the chlorine ruined it.  

I noticed that the coat got a LOT of wear for all three days of this meet, so I was thankful that I was able to bring that down for her.  You can see her in these pictures as she was the one wearing the black winter coat and trying to stay warm and relaxed before her preliminary heat in the 50 individual freestyle.

And then the heavier coat came off right before her event started.

And then at 12:02, she was behind the blocks and finally getting ready to swim.  There would be three heats of the 50 freestyle and I think that she would swim in the third heat.  Top eight overall finishes would swim in the "A" championship race and places 9-16 would swim in the "B" finals in the evening session.

Marissa swam a really good race and would finish with a new Season's Best (SB) time of 24.97 and fourth overall in her heat.  It's not her fastest lifetime swim, but it was close... and it was definitely the first time that she was back down into the 24's this season, so we were both really happy about that.  Unfortunately, that time wasn't quite fast enough to get her into the championship heat during the finals and she would swim in the "B" finals in the 9th seed later on that night.  

This picture is blurry because its a screenshot of a video I took but you can see Marissa up in lane 3 wearing the white and red cap.

Here is the video of her morning swim.  Marissa is down in lane 3 at the top of the screen.  She is wearing a white swim cap and she definitely had a late start from the blocks.  Thankfully she made up for it by the first turn and finished well.  And let me also add that I love watching these videos later and hearing other parents cheering for the team and the individual swimmers.  I usually try to contain my own excitement when I know that I'm making a video that Marissa will use to critique her race, but I can hear others mom yelling in the background and that always makes me smile.

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I was able to catch up with Marissa after the session ended and it was so nice that we were able to see each other and were able to talk for a few minutes before the team loaded up on their bus and headed back to their hotel to rest and to study.  I had originally planned to follow the bus to the hotel (with a couple of other parents), but Marissa asked if it would be okay if I didn't on that first day because she had a lot of homework to catch up on and wanted to take a quick nap.  I was totally fine with that, so I also headed back to my place and I just may have taken a nice nap of my own.

The evening session wasn't slated to start until 7:00, but I decided that I wanted to get there a little early since parking is always a problem and I didn't have a reason to drive around town, so I headed back over to the college around 5:30 and found a good seat where I could settle back in for the evening finals.  As it turns out, the officials were just letting the teams back in to get ready so I was able to say hello to Marissa before she headed off to get suited up and ready for the evening session.

The first event of the evening session was the 200 Freestyle Relay where Marissa would swim the second leg.  A few minutes before 7:00, the relay teams headed over to the starting blocks and took their place.  They are wearing the red jackets and standing back by the wall.

When our lead-off swimmer was heading back towards the wall, the race was pretty tight and we were in fourth place but closing in on the third place swimmer.   Marissa dove in and quickly got her team securely into third place.  Then at the flip turn, she caught up to the second place swimmer so by the time that our third swimmer entered the pool, she was almost even with second place swimmer and could start the race for the lead.  

I didn't take any pictures once Marissa dove into the water as I was just cheering for them, but I love the picture that the SID took and posted to the school website later.  I love the fact that the rest of the team was going crazy over on the side as they cheered the girls home to a first place finish.

What a great way to kick off the meet!

2026 Conference Champions / 200 Freestyle Relay

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With the relay out of the way, Marissa would now turn her focus to the finals of the 50 individual freestyle.  She would swim in the first heat in lane 6th and was seeded 9th out of 16 swimmers.  

After another hard fought race and super close finish, Marissa would hang on to her 9th place and would get just a slightly slower time than the morning with a time of 25.02.    

You can see from her body language that she was disappointed and hoping for a faster time.  

A few minutes later, her best friend and college roommate would compete in the championship heat and when Marta won the entire event, it was neat to see Marissa have the opportunity to be the first one to congratulate her as she came out of the water.

All in all though, IWU lady Wildcats had a really good day and Marissa's best events were yet to come.

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Here is the video from her 50 finals.  As the fastest seed in the race, she is swimming in lane #5.

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After the meet, I went back down to the lobby where I could wait for Marissa to cool down and come out of the locker rooms and then we had about 20 minutes to talk and spend time together before the bus arrived.  Once again, the team got on the bus and headed back to the hotel to grab dinner and finish a little more homework before lights out.