Pre-Race (Carolyn MIA because she helped organize the event) |
My master's coach from the YMCA, Carolyn, organized two teams. The team I was on included our coach Carolyn, Courtney and myself and was named The Naughty Narwhals (our team at the Y is called the Narwhals) and the second team had Brian, Mitch and Christy called Sparkle Motion. Apparently, Sparkle Motion is from the movie Donnie Darko and when I searched the name on google, it came up in the Urban Dictionary defined as, "Phrase that can be used to describe something awesome," and "Originally from the movie Donnie Darko, where Sparkle Motion was the name of a dance group composed of little girls." I would say the first definition is more appropriate because Sparkle Motion at the tournament kicked some booty!
Courtney, Carolyn & Me |
Brian, Christy & Mitch |
In our first 'game', Carolyn warned us that we were swimming against some pretty tough competition and we may end up 'bagging' the races to conserve our energy. Sure enough, one of the team members of our first opposing teams was apparently named one of the 10 fittest people in Austin. Yes, you read that correctly. In a city that has Lance Armstrong as one of the other top 10 people on that list, one of our first competitors is in his league. Needless to say, we didn't win any of those games in that heat. I came pretty close to winning the 50 free because I said to my competitor that it wasn't fair that they win all of them, but I still didn't win that race.
***UPDATE: I looked up our competition and sure enough, Kristen Turner was mentioned as half of one of the fittest couples in Austin in the Austin Fit Magazine's February 2011 issue.
We didn't have a chance....
Our second 'game' was not until the fourth heat which gave us a little bit of rest time. We swam against a set of tween girls and when I looked at them I decided it was probably a better bet that we could with this game. I swam the same events as the first time and we actually won. About half way through the game, I realized this meant we were going to have to swim again and we had no idea if we would get a break because of the nature of the tournament. I was a little bit worried that I had pushed a little too hard against our opponents AND it had really started to rain pretty hard. I know that we were wet already from the water, but it was pretty chilly and there was a breeze. We found it was better to stay in the water as long as we could before each race to keep our muscles warm.
Pre-Race and no rain. |
Rain during tournament. |
The tournament was a blast and I plan to do it again next year. I am also hoping to recruit Nicole and some of her teammates for a group of younger Narwhals. Other than the sore that I developed on teh bottom of my left big tow from having to start so many times on some rough starting blocks, I did get to bring home a prize from our 'win' set of games.
3 on 3 Booty |
We didn't win much, but we sure had a blast trying!