Yes, I can compete against the big swim clubs. Our little club with 25 swimmers was laughed at a year ago. Now we are actually competing against the big boys like Waukesha Express, Hutchinson and Edina from Minnesota. I qualified for Zones in some stuff, but I want to make it happen with all my events. Wouldn't it be great for a 14 year old from little Spring River to get to a national USA Swimming elite camp ? I'm pounding away at practice, but honestly other members of our team and the coaches are really pushing us - trying to make the Spring River Penguins be a power amongst these high end clubs. Now the parents - especially my Dad - well he thinks it's automatic I'm going to the Olympics in a couple years. We'll see. All I know is that at the last event, Grand Prix, I competed very well against the Aquajets - and really got to meet a bunch of them - good fun girls. My time in the 50 free went down to 25.28. Oh there is no pressure! Only to get it down to national times a couple seconds lower with every muscle in my body asking me what are you doing? At least in the Twin Cities, everyone has heard of the Spring River Penguins now.

Staying with these big girl clubs will be tough. They have the nutritionists, massage therapists, trainers, and a bevy of coaches - some who will be at the Olympics. I met and had my picture taken with Ryan Lochte, an Olympian. Not only did he have a swimmers look, he was nice and encouraging. Yes I could be an Olympic swimmer, but to make it will require tons of support from my Spring River Penguin Team, coaches, teachers, and parents.

Our team hung out after the meet at our house. We ended up watching a great movie, laughing a ton, and teasing my Mom and Dad. We looked at their times and we accused them of swimming with weights on. My Mom countered that she always started out slow, but crept up - faking the field into thinking they had it easy. Mom claims she nipped a bunch of girls at the very end. She in fact does have the trophies. Now Dad is a different story. He thinks he was fast, when in fact he was also slow. He just laughs and says when we have kids our times will also be laughable.

I love school except my math teacher. She is so unbelievably hard on us - as if we are all reaching to be an Einstein. It's sad but we are well beyond what my Mom and Dad can remember about trigonometry. Thus I asked my neighbor, who only laughed and said it had been years, and he did LONG math - whatever that is.

Off to shopping with Mom, since we don't have practice. I have to finish my homework first. School is my fallback in case I don't obtain all the endorsements after the next Olympics. I'm only kidding. I love everything about swimming - but my Uncle says you need to study swim history to really appreciate what came before all of us in USA Youth swimming. He says I need to study Mexico City 1968 ( prehistoric ) - where the famous Debbie Meyer ( 3 Gold individual events ) and many great women swimmers competed in the most heralded Olympics of all time. And yes, I will get my 200 back time down from 2:42.09.


Jenn Smithson
Spring River Penguins