WCSN Blogs

Since trials I’ve been having some fun. I’ve been playing video games with friends, playing tennis, bike riding, and reading. It’s nice to be able to stay up late and sleep in for a change. I haven’t once woken up in time for morning practice. I wouldn’t have gone to practice if I had been up though. I have been thinking about swimming but I haven’t felt like I really needed to get in the pool yet.

One thing has happened with some stress. There was a terrible thunderstorm last week and my friend Matt Owen’s apartment building was struck by lightning. The building caught on fire and the fire spread quickly through the attic of the building. He lives on the first floor of the two-story building so that saved him from burning. There was plenty of smoke in his place though. He also had some damage from the power surge. His computer had a couple parts fry and his TV stopped working. He wound up having to stay with me for a couple days before they got running water back and the smoke smell went away.

This weekend we are going to have some excitement. Beth and I are going up to North Carolina to do some white water rafting. It has been a few years since Beth has done any and it has been at least 10 years since the last time I did. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will have a fun ride down the river.

Our first full day in Omaha was exciting to say the least.  There was a terrible storm and a fire in our hotel.  We also saw a car accident and a woman hit by a car.  We also saw a new movie, WALL-E.

In the afternoon, right before I jumped in the pool, there was an announcement at the pool about a tornado warning and everyone had to get off the pool deck.  There was a really strong storm headed our way with 80-90 mile-per-hour winds.  The storm was so strong that it ripped large parts of the Qwest Center building right off.  We actually were wondering if they were going to be able to have a meet if the damage was too severe.  It turns out that the building will be fine though and the meet will go on as planned.

After the storm passed and we left the pool we were supposed to go to dinner on the other side of Omaha.  On the way we had to pass right through the path of the storm.  Power was out to most areas on the way out and the streetlights weren’t working.  This is probably what caused the car accident that we drove by.  Then a little later on there was a pedestrian in the middle of the road who was hit by a car.  We passed dozens of downed trees and several of them blocked roads, altering our route.  We finally got to a point where the police blocked off the road we were on and we couldn’t find a road that headed in the right direction that was clear.  At that point we figure that we just weren’t meant to head out that way.  So we headed back to downtown where out hotel is to eat.

After eating we walked back to our hotel to find fire trucks outside and everyone loitering outside the hotel.  It turned out that some water had gotten into the basement of the hotel and run into the circuit breaker causing it to smoke.  It was probably 45 minutes before we were allowed to return to the hotel.  In the meantime we watched as the bride and groom from the wedding party that was at to hotel at the time took pictures with the fire trucks.

What a crazy day.  Hopefully we have all our hiccups out of the way at this point and everything will go smoothly from here on out.  I’m getting ready to have my first race of the meet tomorrow morning, the 400 IM.  It is the event that I have been most looking forward to and I’m feeling pretty good.

Lately taper hasn’t been that much fun.  I have been in a little bit of a funk while my body tries to figure out what is going on and rebuilds itself.  It has been going on for a couple weeks and while I know that I’ve done the work and will be fine, it is frustrating to swim slower when getting rest.

That was until yesterday night and this morning.  I am finally starting to feel stronger and on top of the water again.  It makes swimming so much more fun when you feel decent and swim fast.  Swimming fast is the reason we do this sport in the first place.  So it is still another week of resting and feeling better before it’s really time to throw down.  The more practices I have feeling like today, the more I know that I will be in good shape when Trials start next weekend.

It is nice to finally start taper. I’m still doing some good work in the pool and I’m still pretty tired, but the difference in the amount of time spent at the pool is noticeable. Just having more time during the day is one of the great things about taper. While full yardage training is in swing it can feel like there’s never any time in the day. It seems like I get home from morning practice and its almost time to get ready to head back. It is also nice to swim faster on a regular basis. That is the reason most of us swim anyway…to go fast. That is the fun part. Even in the beginning of taper when I am still a little tired it’s cool to start swimming faster.

Other than that there isn’t really too much going on around here. I went to see Kung Fu Panda with Beth the other day and thought it was pretty good. There were only about 6 total people in the theater since it was a matinee in the middle of the week and that made it even more enjoyable. It was easy to spread about and get comfortable. There is just something about Jack Black that makes us laugh whether in human or panda form.

I am on my way to Omaha for the Swimvitational Grand Prix meet this weekend. I’m looking forward to the meet and seeing the Olympic Trials venue. I’m only doing a few events since it is only a few weeks until Trials. I never do a full order of events within a month from a shave meet. I just want to get a little racing done. I will be doing the 200 Free, 200 Fly, and 1500 Free. The 1500 is plenty of racing by itself, but I haven’t done one long course in a few months so I want to get one done before I taper.

I will also be closely watching the Charlotte Grand Prix meet this weekend while I am up in Nebraska. My teammates from Georgia will be there as well as my club team from Florida including my little sister, Melanie. I’m hoping that everyone does well enough to be confidant leading into the next few weeks.

This week was the last week at full yardage before taper. It seemed to take forever. It didn’t really help that I had recurring knots in my shoulder. But I swam through it and did some good swimming. Probably the highlight of the week was Saturday morning. Our distance group challenged the main group to a 400 medley relay. I was the flier on the relay and went 55.9, which is the same time I went at the Santa Clara meet the other week. So not only was I happy that I swam fast, but I was really glad that we beat the main group relay. There was a lot of trash talking for a couple days leading up to the race so everyone really went for it and we wound up just barely beating them. The really hard part was that we had to race 10 x 50 off the blocks after that. Needless to say, there was a ton of lactic acid build-up that day.

This coming week should be fun. We are just barely starting to taper a little and I’m going to the Omaha Swimvitational. I’m looking forward to the last tune-up meet before Trials. It will also be a good opportunity to see the Trials venue ahead of time. The only part that isn’t great is that my team won’t be there with me. They will be in Charlotte at that Grand Prix meet. So I’m pretty much the scout for Omaha come this weekend.

This week a new game came out for the Nintendo Wii. I was really interested in it so I went out and bought it. It’s called Wii Fit. The whole point of the game is to get a workout. While I don’t need to work out more while I’m on my down time, there is some pretty fun stuff included. The game comes with a balance board that is capable of weighing you and sensing balance forward and backward and side-to-side. The main workouts are divided into: yoga, strength training and aerobics. The main reason I got the game though is the balance games that are part of it. There are several games where you completely rely on shifting your weight on the board to play. For instance, there is a game where your character is a skier going down a slalom course and when you shift your weight, he goes left or right and he goes faster the more you put your weight on your toes. So far I have had a pretty good time with the games.

Other than that I have been having a decent week of training. I got some knots in my back from flying across the country in those uncomfortable airline seats. Thankfully between getting a massage, icing and swimming the knots have loosened a bit and I feel better in the water. Probably the only downer of practice in the week was that we had to do a short course practice. I am not a fan of yards training and we haven’t done any in weeks so it was pretty much torture for me. I can feel my stroke so much better long course. Well, hopefully I won’t get any more short course at least the rest of this week.

This weekend I am at the Santa Clara Grand Prix meet in California. It’s a great meet that I have been to several times. The announcer basically called me old while introducing the finalists tonight. He told the crowd that I was 26 and that when I was here in 2000 I got a silver medal in the 400 IM. As it turned out I wound up getting second this year as well. But as the announcer pointed out, I went eight seconds faster this time.

I was really happy with my swim. My previous best in season time was 4:17 from the Texas American Long Course Championships in March. It was pretty sweet to look at the clock after my race and see 4:15. I lost the race by a second and a half to Michael Phelps. I would rather have won, but I’m really happy with a best in-season time.

There are two days left in the meet and I’m looking forward to doing some more good swimming. Hopefully I can go a couple more best in season times.

This weekend my sister, Stephanie graduated from South Carolina’s Grad School. My parents and other sister went up so Beth and I made the drive as well. Stephanie’s graduation was actually at 3 in the afternoon on Friday so we couldn’t make it to the ceremony because Beth had to work on Friday. But we went to dinner afterwards together at the restaurant where Stephanie worked in college. It has been awhile since I’ve seen my family so it was good for everyone to get together.

Just because I was visiting my family I didn’t get Saturday morning’s practice off. Harvey sent a practice with me. I didn’t expect much after traveling a few hours the previous day but I had a hard set and I really wanted to do well. I had 30 x 100 on 1:40 with some fly mixed in. My teammate, Billy Cregar was in town also because his sister was also graduating from South Carolina. My other sister Melanie couldn’t skip practice Saturday either, so we adjusted our practice and gave her a version of it. Everyone did well. I have never done the set with about a third of it fly before but the freestyle portion of it was as faster than I have ever gone. It was a great entire week of training. We did lots of IM training and butterfly. Every day ended with the feeling that you had done something to make yourself better.

Between getting to see my family and having a really good practice, it was a good couple days in South Carolina. Now it’s time to relax until Monday morning practice. I know that Harv will have something tough planned. We are also going to the Santa Clara Grand Prix meet this coming weekend so I will get ready for that throughout the week. It should be another good week.

It seems that my coach, Harvey, is constantly coming back from somewhere - or leaving for somewhere - and practice always seems harder. This makes no sense. Every time he leaves practices for another coach to give us, it feels like the practice is much harder than if Harv were there giving it to us. Sometimes we assume this is because he writes the practice and when he gives it out, he adjusts based on how we are doing.

It also seems like practice is harder when Harvey gets back. I figure that he’s just excited to see us again and wants to see what’s been up since he’s been gone. He wants to see that we are still getting better even though he’s been gone. This week was an example of that. Harv has recently been to Women’s and Men’s NCAA Championships, and South African and French Olympic Trials. There are two of us, Matt Owen and myself, that didn’t go to any of those meets and it seems like we haven’t seen Harv in a month and a half. Well this week with Harv back has been tough = I am in a lot of pain.

I am starting to realize that it doesn’t really matter if Harv is here or not. He just writes hard practices. I’m sure that’s the reason why the swimmers that he coaches from France and South Africa recently made their respective Olympic teams.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I dislike the hard practices; I’m not complaining by any means. Practices that challenge me are what I thrive on. It makes it fun for me to do things that I haven’t done before in practice and Harv likes to give me opportunities to do just that. I guess I’m just in pain right now so hard practices are on my mind.