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Once again, I caused myself harm by doing something dumb. I was stretching my forearms last night before my dryland workout and was pushing too hard against my joint. I heard something POP in my elbow and I collapsed in pain. It seems like a minor injury as usual, but hurt the rest of the night. I skipped my dryland workout hoping it would feel better this morning. Unfortunately it was worse when I woke up. My entire forearm hurts when I extend it and it's tender even while sitting still. I really don't want to have to lose any training with something this ridiculous.

Look at how happy (and adorable) I am! Taken in December 1999 (AKA the good ol days). My first College Florida Training Trip with the Eastern Michigan University team...

It's hard to believe it's only been 3 days in the pool this week. The combination of some good swim practices and some P90X chest and back workouts, my arms and shoulder muscles are fairly ruined. As I sat up in bed this morning and it felt like gravity was winning more than usual. I feel great, but I can't imagine the rest of the week in the pool will be very pretty. Last night was Plyometrics which was a challenge after all that rollerblading. Tonight is "Shoulders, Arms and Abs". That should pretty much finish me off!

Finally, they're banning some suits! A recent ruling at FINA (The Governing body of Swimming) has determined 10 popular suits are banned because of either thickness, buoyancy and water resistance. The LZR, which has been worn for 108 (and counting) world records is NOT banned. I haven't seen the entire banned list, but here is what I can find:

• BlueSeventy suit, which was worn for a number of short course world records was banned.
  
• The Jaked 01 model which Frederick Bousquet wore as he broke the Men's 50 Free WR at 20.94 was banned.
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One of my favorite outdoor pastimes is rollerblading. After a short break from practice I headed over to a nice bike path in the area and rollerbladed a quick 8 miles. It was a mix of easy and fast skating. I was really feeling it at the end. Tonight I have Plyometrics (Jump Training) as part of the P90X workout system. My legs are gonna be GONE tomorrow!

It just struck me as to how much exercise that is in one day... 2 hours of swimming, 1 hour of rollerblading, and 1.5 hours of Jump Training. Maybe it will help me sleep.

I'm really enjoying practicing with a team. I'm pushed on every single set. A feeling I haven't experienced since college swimming ended in 2003 for me. I have a few thank you's today!

I've got a sharp pain in the right side of my lower back. It hurts while stretching and breathing deeply. I'm certain it happened while lifting weights last night. I'm going to try to swim today and see how it goes. This is a very minor injury, however, very annoying to train with.

I'm going to get to practice early, stretch it out and hope for the best. I'm lucky that I rarely injure myself, and even when I do, it's something silly like this. This is yet another testament to how important stretching is. I doubt this would have happened if I made ample time to stretch daily.

I'll take pictures when it's complete. I've created a simple mount for my underwater digital camera to attach it to the cart at EMU easily. This will streamline the process of taking poolside underwater video! I'm usually very limited on when I can get underwater video because I need to borrow the proprietary EMU hardware.

The addition of the Womens U of M team, a few of the U of M guys, as well as some EMU and Wayne State swimmers, has made practice much more interesting! Lanes are a little crowded, but not too full. Four swimmers per lane (up from 1 swimmer per lane!) in a 10 lane long course pool has increased the pace of some of the race sets. It's been challenging and exciting to pseudo-compete in practice.

After talking to the coaching staff about my summer training, it looks like I need to decide what meet to taper for. I have two main choices:

1. World Champ Trials in early July
2. Masters Long Course Nationals in early August

I want to do really well at both, but I will still be doing the P90X through July and I would like to finish the program as intended. That would put me at August 3rd when I finish the program, just in time for Masters Nationals.