As a parent, you learn not to spend too much time doing cost-benefit analyses or considering the “ROI”—return on investment—for some of the crazier demands on your time. Like spending two hours in the car so your kid can swim one race that takes a little over 2 minutes, for example.

But we’re a swimming family. And the pandemic has been absolutely brutal for indoor sports. The truncated baseball season our sons experienced last spring and summer seems miraculous compared with what we had to go through to experience club swimming and even rec basketball the last few months. So when you finally get a three-day championship meet, against other teams, and the schedule works out that you have a day with only one race, you hop in the car. 

It’s been almost exactly a year since our youngest qualified for the age group state championship meet, only to have it get canceled the day before it was supposed to start. It was crushing. But what’s been worse is spending the  months since practicing and practicing with no real competition. Our club has done its best, but it’s been rough.