A great experience in Atlanta

Atlanta was a very relaxing meet for me.  Ironically it was one of the biggest meets of my life with some of the fastest swimming I've personally seen.  With my knee injury both mentally and physically affecting my race, I had no expectations at all for my performance.  The benefit was that I wasn't stressed about my races at all, it was quite refreshing really.  I caught up with quite a few other swimmers I knew at the meet.  While in town I got to see a great friend and also enjoy my time with my teammates.  I took more of a service roll by driving everybody around to warmup and restaurants.  Naturally I took as many pictures and video as I could as well.  It was nice to offer that to swimmers with more important races than mine.  It was a great trip overall.  The warmer weather was a nice change as well.

My 100 back was really as fast as I could have expected it to be.  My knee was in pain for every day leading up to race.  It affected how I prepared for the meet most of all.  The morning of my race (7 days after I injured it), it actually felt quite normal and therefore probably had little to do with my overall time.  I think it mostly just negatively affected the week leading up to the meet.  I basically wrote the meet off as a mini vacation rather than a competition.

I'm back in Ann Arbor and ready to train.  Unfortunatley nobody in my training group swam well, it's alarming to almost everybody.  It's clear something needs to change about our training.  If it's not obvious, I haven't been entirely happy with the things we've been doing in practice lately.  I know I need different training than the other guys.  I don't know what changes the coaching staff has in store for us but I will be taking a more central role in my day to day training.  It will be an interesting hybrid combining the best of what CW has taught me along with some sets I know work well for me.  I'm excited to take my training in a different direction!  The next few days will be interesting from a coach/swimmer point of view since changes for the entire group are obviously needed.

It's good to be home