Uncategorized

I need to thank all the people in my life nice enough to hold a camcorder during my races the last few years. I just spent about 20 minutes watching some race footage and it's just a fantastic study tool. We live in such a wonderful time in technology... harnessing the ability to relive a moment in our lives. My race footage enables me to study my strong points as well as my faults. On this website, it enables me to show family and friends, some who are thousands of miles away, a race I competed in. We all take it for granted, myself included.

I had set a goal back in October 2008 to break every single lifetime best time within 12 Months. It was a lofty goal, I knew that going into it. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't achieve my goal. But at the same time, I didn't really give myself enough time to ramp up my training and attack it the way I would have liked. The actual result was that I broke 16 of 23 Lifetime Best Times in 12 months. Still not too shabby. The events which I didn't achieve Lifetime Bests in are:

50 Free SCY (0.03 off)
50 Back SCY (0.56 off)
100 Back SCY (0.99 off)

I made time to take some pictures for the EMU diving team on Tuesday and hopped in the pool with Easterns team for a brief 1 hour practice. The team had a fantastic kick set which totaled around 2,200 yards with variable intervals along with 12 minutes of vertical kicking. I enjoy my time training with a team.

Well it doesn't take much to tag a lifetime best in the 50 Breast... it was quite an ugly race for me, but I bested my 2007 time by 3 tenths and brought my 30.69 to a 30.32! The rest of my races all felt great but I had mediocre times. Videos on the way.

I'm excited to swim in a local masters meet I've never had a chance to participate in! An unfamiliar pool and a new experience. I feel a little run down from a challenging week of training but I'll do my best. I'm planning on just swimming all four 50's and maybe the 100IM for today, nothing too hard. Updates later!

I'm on day 4 of my renewed interest in swim training. I'm hurting pretty bad, I've been running a short distance each morning and swimming at least 3,000 yards along with vertical kicking. Today I'll do some more dryland and prepare for an easy day tomorrow in the pool leading up to Sunday's meet in West Bloomfield. I can't imagine I'll swim very well on Sunday since I'm a little broken down, but I'll do my best as always. I'm actually gonna try to swim the 50 Breast! It's been almost 3 years since I first swam it and I'm looking to lower my pathetic time of 30.69.

It kinda snuck up on me, but I wanted to thank 10,000 unique visitors to my site! Hits are only counted from a single computer once in a 24 hour period. Thanks for your interest in my swimming!

I woke up early again and ran 2 miles to the pool. I was cautious not to push the running too much after my ankle injury. I did some dryland once I arrived and then jumped in for a 1 hour, 3,200 yard workout. I finished up with some vertical kicking and ran back to my car. I'm off to a great start with a renewed drive for bettering myself! I've impressed myself by fitting in swimming around my always busy schedule and no other priorities have suffered!

By the way... These are some COLD mornings to run!

The last few months of my training could be described as mediocre at best. I've made it to the pool a few times a week, but I find that when I arrive, I lack motivation to work hard. There have been changes in my work and personal life which have attributed to these changes. The fact remains that I let these changes occur, and my training has suffered. It started with simply taking a week off after Masters Long Course Nationals in mid August. One week turned into two, which was followed by an ankle sprain injury which has only recently felt mostly healed.

Prior to the Coach Jones service at EMU, I had a chance to practice with a friend (and current EMU swimmer) Tim Everett. The pool staff had just switched the pool from short course to long course, so we modified the intervals accordingly. It turned out to be a much harder set than expected. The long course just tore me up.

I finished the 2200 meter main set of 100's with two "All Out" 100's on the 2:30. As expected, they were pretty ugly, I felt like I was drowning. The first was a respectable 1:07 and the second was a 1:21... ouch.