Broadcasting Life

zones madness!

this weekend was one of excitement, fun, long, water filled days. my old team hosted the central zones swimming championships this last weekend in gf. zones is a big, big meet. it's the next step above state and our zone is so big, that we usually have 2 zone meets going on. so we held one, and ann arbour, mich. held one. indiana, illinois, south dakota, midwestern, arkansaw, wisconsin, oklahoma and north dakota were at our meet. friday through sunday, i was up at 6, at the pool at 7 and stayed there until 9 each night. but i didn't complain (except at night when i was tired and my feet hurt)!

zerek made the team in the 50 and i knew half the team anyways, so it was exciting. at 7, warm ups started, i got my heat sheet ready and my cameras. i was in charge of getting record breakers up on the board (their picture). so i would sit through warm-up, cheering and prelims in the morning, get some free food, go through 12 and under timed finals in the afternoon and then get some more food while the finals warmed up and then for finals, i was in charge of the ready room, where the final heat would come and sit and when the signal was given we would walk them out to some music and they would be announced. it wa s fun because if we had someone from north dakota swimming in the final heat, we would make a tunnel with the team and walk the heat through the tunnel and slap our swimmer on the back. i was pretty proud of myself because i suggested it to zerek and then they did it for every swimmer. we also put together a slide show for the last day of all the pictures i had taken around the deck.

i really love zones though because it brings out the best in swimming. the crazy swimmers who dress up in halloween like costumes on deck, it also brought out cow humor (ok shirts had something about cow tipping which was targeted at wisconsin...who had a big inflatable cow). there was also a big inflatable monkey running around, lots of cheering, cool shirts, swim cap trading between the teams (i liked midwesterns the best...and south dakotas), shirt trading ( i bought an indiana shirt and scored a midwestern one, and i have my meet staff shirt), big swimming store where i bought an autographed janet evans shirt and a couple of discounted caps and people EVERYWHERE. i have to tell you, too, because of this last weekend and seeing everyone is fastskin II, i want to try one on, to see what i would look like in one, to see what it would feel like. but i can't try on zerek's, he's just got the legs, not the full body. o well.

i also enjoyed the cheering. i got to experience the 'you don't brush your teeth' cheer, which goes like this:

(leaders, who point out a team): YOU!
rest of team: YOU!
leaders: YOU DON'T!
team: YOU DON'T!
leaders: YOU DON'T BRUSH!
team: YOU DON'T BRUSH!
leaders, who come jumping back to team, have the team join in, with jumping and clapping: YOU DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH, HEY! YOU DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH, HEY! YOU DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH, HEY!
and that leaves the team the leaders picked out looking baffled and confused as they wonder what the heck just went on and if they just really accuse them of not brushing their teeth.

they also did the who rocks the house cheer, where they cheered, in a big circle:

'who rocks the house? the girls rocked the house and when the girls rock the house they rock it all the way down!' and the girls would gather in the middle and get down and dance. then they would do the boys (where i got a great pic of zerek getting down...it's good) and then the coaches (which was great because it's fun to see the coaches, these 20 something guys, get down and dance) and then they did north dakota rocks the house, and they would all get in.

so yeah, all in all, it was a good tiring weekend. fire drill and all...we had to evacuate the facility for a good half and hour. a couple records were broken, lots of best times for kids and a lot of craziness. i love swimming. i post some pics later.