Competitive Sports, for us that is Swimming

The next few weeks swimming for Nora wraps up for the summer. Last weekend we were in Windsor for her regional championships. Nora had 10 races in three days. The weekend was full of personal best (9 of her races she beat her last times) great conversations and dinners with parents that share a similar goal-encouraging your child to do their best, sportsmanship with a competitive edge.

This is all new for Brian and me, as we grew up with no competitive sports, Brian played a little baseball, hockey and curling. Then I grew up in a town which at the time had a population of 1000-2000 and had parents that worked around the clock and there was not a lot of time for weekly practices. I also want to add, Brian and I can’t swim. We can float and paddle around, but you won’t find us at the pool doing laps as we would sink and need rescuing. It shocks us to see the level that Nora and her teammates are swimming at.

So, this world of competitive sports is new to Brian and me. With a daughter that is all about swimming with a bit of diving and gymnastics on the side we are constantly running back and forth. Everything lead up to this meet last weekend in Windsor, Nora was sick for the last few months and really couldn’t get the times in races she wanted or needed to so she could then go to festivals (Ontario’s).  Windsor was her last shot at Ontario’s for this year. Friday, right out the gate she was incredible as her times were so but just not enough. “No worries mom, I know I have a good shot on Sunday for the 50m freestyle” she kept telling me. Sunday races came and with her 50m freestyle just minutes away I felt sick, nerves for her set in and as a parent sitting in an arena packed, I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. It is like going on a roller coaster and it is slowly edging to the top, knowing that soon you’ll go up and over and that pit feeling in your stomach hits.

She stepped up to the blocks stretching and moving around and you could see she was getting herself mentally ready. She then got into position and the horn went to start. Her dive in was perfect, the yelling started throughout the whole arena. Nora was incredibly, at her 29 second mark I remember sitting down clutching onto the side of Brian’s shirt. I whispered, “come on baby, you can do it”. She touched the wall, and the time came up 34.21. My heart sank, she needed 33.76. She missed Ontario’s by .45 of a second. I had tears in my eyes. She got out of the pool and walked towards her coach, and I could see she felt gutted, she was crushed. She placed 4th overall missing first by just one second, but her big goal of Ontario’s will have to wait till next year.

This roller-coaster is competitive sports. Here are some things I have learned along the way:
It is true that you have no normal dinner time. During the week we are eating a meal at 3:30pm then again, a smaller meal at 8:45pm.

Sleep is critical for Nora and us. We generally let her sleep till she wakes up even if it makes us a bit late in the mornings.

Whether it is sports or clubs, a variety of options has helped Nora navigate friendships. If she had a rough day with a friend at school, she then went to swimming and was able to laugh and socialize with her friends there. Nora now as a full address book of friends she has met through sports.

The discipline of competitive sports has helped her in her school work, she understands that swimming comes after school work is done, however, I truly can see her discipline in school approve so much as her school work gets more challenging- personally I think for her and me that physical activities really help us to focus more and improves us cognitively….now I just need to get to the gym and live by the words I just wrote.

My best friend told Nora that feeling gutted after that race is telling her that she is not done with the sport. That it is when you don’t feel gutted you decide whether you still want to race.

Leave it to the coaches-since Brian and I don’t know a thing about swimming we have let it be 100 percent up to the coaches.  We also are not afraid to make inquiries of the coaches when we have questions about her development/progress – so we can know where she is, where she should be and how we can support her in that development.

We are lucky to have a former coach from her club studying for a masters in sport psychology who has offered to help those who want assistance with the mental side of the sport.  Especially after her experience at regionals we see the benefit of navigating through the emotional side of competitive sport – to take the highs and the lows from each meet, and channel them to assist in future development (and ensure the don’t hold her back in the future)

We look at the system of competitive sport like a pie chart where we are balancing the discipline, the mental health, the fun, the nutrition (we have also met with a dietician to assist Nora with how to properly prepare for the practices each week as well as how to eat before, during and after a swim meet)

Time consuming, Brian and I are both entrepreneurs, running our businesses is time consuming, then adding the daily practices for Nora between her various sports as well as some activity for Alex keeps us always on the move, and sometimes feeling like ships passing in the night.

The plus side for us is we can bring our work with us to a certain extent – so while we are at practice or a meet, we can also have a laptop along with us to try to keep a work/family balance.

Its not cheap – competitive sport often comes with a high cost (swimming is no exception).  We are blessed that with one of our businesses being a consignment store – we can keep the costs down on other things and allocate the money to competitive sport.

It would be great if the government would provide better funding for sport at this level to assist families with the cost and open these opportunities to more people (as well as providing funding to the clubs directly to assist in providing greater supports for the athletes)

New network of friends – being so involved in the sport during the week, the community of parents/friends at the pool keeps us going.  It’s a shared activity where we all understand how others are doing, support each other with encouragement, as well as ridesharing where needed.