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I took Monday off to reward myself for such an awesome race on Sunday. I was back in the pool today and created a well rounded practice that fit into 1.5 hours.

500 Warmup Choice
10 Backstroke Starts (with a nice Daktronics pad)
10 Freestyle Starts
16x25's with 15m fast underwater
500 free/back (50 fast 50 easy)
5x100's pull no equip
400 Free/back
4x100's Back fast on 1:30
300 Free/back
3x100's Free fast on 1:30
200 Free/back 50's
2x100's kick on back on 1:30
4 x (30 sec vertical kicking + 30 sec rest)
200 Easy

I had a fantastic meet! I achieved lifetime best times in 3 out of 4 events!

100 Back:
I used this event as a warmup, It was still a decent swim at 56.43 SCM which converts to a 50.56 SCY. A solid swim for my first performance. This was the fastest 100 Backstroke I've ever swam on my Bday.

50 Free:

I woke up early and I'm headed to Brighton for the masters meet starting at 10:15am. From the sounds of it, the first SCM meet of the year will draw a decent group of swimmers. My friend John made the drive from Chicago last night for this thing! The plan is to stick to my 100 back, 50 free, 200 back, 100 fly lineup. I'm hoping to run into Alec Mull or Patrick Sussido for some great butterfly competition! Jason Mallory attended the meet last year and shattered the 200 backstroke record. It would be great to get pushed in that event today.

Due to a busy day, I had to practice before EMU was open today. I contacted my high school coach Sean Hickman who was chosen to coach the new Mens Team at Ann Arbor Skyline High School. He was nice enough to allow me to join his new team for a Saturday Morning Practice. The new school is transitioning one class of students in per year, so this year is 9th graders only.

I'm feeling the effects of all the weights and dryland and increasing from 3k to 4k per day. I had a hard time feeling motivated to do more than 3k today but I threw in the extra 100 yards to overachieve. I've had two days of really good results doing my daily 16x25's underwater kicking directly after warmup... I'm gonna make it a tradition.

Today I swam 4,700 yards all alone and it was a great workout! I chose to do my 16x25's that I've added to my EVERY SINGLE DAY routine directly after my warmup. I found it prepared me for some great underwaters for the rest of practice.

I decided to swim in the Brighton Masters Meet this weekend because it's both on my birthday and it's in my home town. I really enjoy racing on my birthday for some reason. I've swam a 100 Backstroke for the last 4 years on the bday. I'm still working on my event list, here it is so far:

100 Back
50 Free
200 Back

Tonight I practiced with the Ann Arbor Masters Team at the Mack Pool! This was my first practice with the group. Rodolfo Palma was our coach for the night. He planned a well balanced sprint/mid-distance main set of backstroke/freestyle which kept me on my toes. The main set were 200's, 150's, 100's and 50's twice through. Overall I was pretty worn down due to my 3+ hour practice the night before. I wasn't very impressed with my times at all but it was a good workout.

I had a great evening training! My workout was over 3 hours total. I did a full weight routine and set a personal best of 144 lbs x 8 reps of lat pull downs. I don't consider this an impressive number, but it represents a fantastic improvement for me from one year ago when I was just over 100 lbs. It was the first weight set in my life when I noticed I had to focus on staying on the seat! It was enough weight that it would pull my body up off the seat into the air unless I used my legs to keep me stationary! I had to chuckle to myself as I'm sure I looked silly... Ah...

It was just one of those days, I barely squeaked 3 grand in the pool. I've been targeting at least 4k per day but it just wasn't in me today. I made a judgment call and sent myself home after a good 1 hour workout. Throughout the rest of the day I fit in my EVERY SINGLE DAY workouts plus some extras.

Since I've been asked so many times today about the Phelps drama I figured I would touch on it. For those who hadn't heard, there was a photo released of Michael Phelps apparently posing, or using drug paraphernalia.

The boring updates are that I've been doing really well on training. I've been swimming 3k-5k daily along with occasional weights and dryland training. As always, I want to be making more progress than I am, but I've been adding small amounts of yardage to move my weekly average higher.