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I just finished the 50 Free. The meet has been going very fast. Literally its been 10 minutes between my races. I had a great 100 IM at a 52.6 which was about a 0.70 second drop! My 50 Fly was a 23.30 which was decent but slower than my best at 22.64. I got a mouth full of water off the start and was choking the whole race. My 50 Free was a 21.47. I'm very tired, luckly there is a 15 minute break right now so I can recover before my 50 Back and 100 Back.

Overall I'm very proud of my 100 IM, it was a great time drop and proves that I'm improving!

I had a chance to do about 1200 yards today after the big meet at EMU. Since the meet at EMU was a high school meet, I got to see a lot of my former teammates who now coach. It was nice to catch up and exert a little peer pressure to get them to swim masters! I might have actually recruited a few to swim tomorrow morning. I can't say I feel great, but I'm gonna give it my all tomorrow morning in Milan.

I got a chance to pick up a new race suit today! I got a FS-Pro Jammer. It looks almost identical to my previous race suits but its made out of a different fabric and its all black. It was $178.00... Ouch. Better than a LZR at $550.00 though! A new suit is great for psychological confidence if nothing else.

I'll reference this next part for myself someday since I always remove the tags:

Due to a high school meet I only had time for a 1500 yard practice, I fit in some fast 15m underwaters for good measure. I didn't want to rest for this meet but its looking like I'll be at least a little rested. I feel pretty good in the water. I really wish I could get in on saturday but it probably won't work due to the high school meet. Sunday is the Milan Masters Meet! Should be a good one! I spent some time this evening reviewing my 2008 state meet 100 yard back performance. It was my best 100 back swim since college. I have a feeling I'll beat it on Sunday.

Today was the first day in my entire life that I did 6 kicks underwater off of EVERY wall! I'm feeling more and more confident each day. I had a chance to do some starts in preparation for my meet sunday morning. I did a few freestyle starts as well as some 9-10 second 25 yard butterfly sprints (that's hauling for me!). My backstroke starts feel a little shakey since I haven't done any in a few months but I'm sure I'll be fine for this weekend.

I registered for the meet earlier today and I'm swimming:

100 IM
50 Back
50 Fly
50 Free

After a nice 3000 yard practice I took 2 minutes rest and tried my benchmark 100 yard kick again. It was a little ugly since I was worn out but I dropped 2 seconds from a 1:06 earlier this week to a 1:04! I have a long way to go to get my sub 1:00 however it is within reach. Four seconds is nothing! I have an even more ridiculous goal in store for myself once I go under 1 minute.

I did half my practice butterfly kick again today. I did 5 kicks off each wall during warmup and 6-10 kicks off EVERY wall afterwards. I think its a great drill.

It just keeps getting better! This was day 3 of the "1/2 practice kick routine" I created with inspiration from former teammate John Bartlet.

I finished my 3000 yard workout just in time to ask Assistant Coach Sarah Volpe to grab a watch and get my time in a 100 yard back from a push. I wanted to go all out but it just wasn't there, I was exhausted and only took about 2 minutes rest before the time trial. I busted out a 52.40, well under my fastest practice time ever! I'm really getting pumped up for the fall season of meets!

Let me preface this with the fact that I put very little faith in time conversion. For those wondering, time conversion is used to determine what a swimmer's time would be if they swam an event in Long Course (50 Meter long pool) and converts it into a Short Course (25 Yard long pool) time. It's NEVER an exact science and in my opinion should only be used to "ballpark" a swimmers time. Most swimmers are much better in either long course or short course so the conversions are usually wrong.

I had a great swim practice today. I did my typical 3k practice and once again did half of it butterfly kick on my back. I think it will really help my walls (underwater kicking off the wall after a flipturn). I can tell that I'm really breaking down my muscles lately, I'm not used to so much kicking. My abs are destroyed but I know I'm getting better! Just yesterday I started counting my kicks off each wall again. I pledged to take 5 kicks off each wall or I would send myself home. Today I stepped it up a little and took 6 on most walls.

I have four main groups of exercises:

1. Swimming
2. Running
3. Dryland (bodyweight exercises)
4. Weights

Due to a very busy work week, I might actually do all four today. I normally split up workouts into groups per day and do weights and running and the next day do dryland and swimming. Its never quite that structured but you get the picture.