North Carolina… Lots of fun
My visit to North Carolina has been really awesome so far. I’ve gotten in some great training with MAC and also had a fun time at practices. The team likes to play games a lot. I’ve been involved in Knock-out, Underwater Ultimate (with fins and a toypedo), and Sharks and Minnows. Unfortunately, the only game I was somewhat decent at was Sharks and Minnows. We’ve also done some other odd things – like diving off of blocks set back a full bulkhead from the water and trying to egg-beater against someone pulling a stretch cord. It’s been fun and interesting.
The one thing that I really struggled with was Runners – where you run from way back on the pool deck and take a huge leap as you dive in. You would think that I would be good at that, with all of my gymnastics experience. But every time that I set up for it I am pretty much convinced that I am going to slip and fall flat on my face (let’s just say it’s happened before). So then it ends up being a pretty lame leap. Whatever, at least I don’t have to do that for a race.
I’ve also had a great time with Greg’s family. Greg and I have been staying with his cousin, her husband, and their three kids. It has been a blast. This weekend we all trekked up to Raleigh to stay with his Aunt and Uncle. We had a great Easter breakfast and then Greg and I got to go to the Georgetown/Davidson game and the UNC/Arkansas game in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The first game was really exciting and Davidson came back from 17 points down to pull off the upset over Georgetown (10 seed over 2 seed). Then in the next game UNC just destroyed Arkansas, which was good because one of Greg’s other cousins is married to an assistant UNC basketball coach and so we were cheering for them. Besides, that’s how we ended up with club level seats and we thought that we would get into the spirit of things.
That leads into my explanation as to why you see us in Carolina Blue in this picture. Apparently, wearing team colors was a requirement for the tickets. We didn’t feel like we were betraying Stanford though since they had just won in their own part of the bracket.
One last thing, women’s NCAAs was this weekend. I didn’t get to go and watch but I was really proud of the Stanford team. They recovered really well from some unfortunate relay problems early in the meet and really showed a lot of character.