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Half way (or so) to Omaha, I'm waiting for my connecting flight at Minneapolis - St. Paul International. Looks like the 100 Back is Saturday and 50 free is Sunday. The 50 free is almost always before the 100 Back, I normally use it as a warmup for the 100. Oh well, glad I'm getting there two days early to get used to everything.

Today I'm running around getting things taken care of before I go out of town. From what I've been reading online there seems to be a lot of excitement about the meet this weekend. I'm really excited to see this facility. It still amazes me they can build an Olympic size pool filled with a million gallons of water in 2 weeks. I'll be sending pictures and video to the site while I'm out of town (as usual). I did weights this morning and I'll swim one practice before I leave in the morning.

A good article was written on USA swimming yesterday about the Swimvitational and the Ultraswim meet:

http://usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?TabId=80&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&ItemId=2030&mid=1707

Here are the highlights via www.usaswimming.com:

I just officially registered for the Olympic Trials. It's actually happening. I set a goal 28 months ago to swim at the 2008 Olympic Trials and I've achieved it. I will have a great meet because I've already reached my goal. Everything beyond this point is a bonus.

I am proud of myself

Due to the meet at EMU this weekend, I ended up swimming with A2aqua at Fuller Pool this morning. I was pleasantly surprised with their workout group. The coach was both helpful and courteous yet firm. Everybody I spoke to was very nice and welcoming. There are some very hard workers in this group. We did a solid 4,000 LCM with some fast 100's and 200's in there. It was a nice change of pace to swim outdoors although the air and water were very cold at 9:30am. I'm looking into a membership there to bolster the times the Jones Pool is occupied.

It's going to be a tough weekend to practice, there's a CW meet at EMU all weekend with no other available open swim hours. These are the types of difficulties I'll be living with till I finish building my own olympic size pool.

A revised Psych Sheet for the Swimvitational came out today, I got bumped to 16th in the 100 back from 15th (out of 74) when Matt Wike did a late entry. I'm excited, it'll be as fast as Santa Clara most likely. I moved from 59th to 64th in the 50 free after some other late entries (out of 115).

Revised Psych Sheet for Swimvitational

Athlete Roster

I want to thank my friend JB who offered to let me stay with his family in Omaha for a few days during the Swimvitational. I have the nicest friends! I leave in a week for Nebraska. I'm too tired to write! Morning practice is in a few hours! Goodnight :)

I've been absolutely slammed with work, which forced me to take the day off yesterday from swimming. As it turns out, it was just what I needed. I was feeling really run down in practice for the last week or so. The day off let me recover and I felt incredible in the water today. I'm not kidding at all, I had this big dumb smile on my face as I was doing some descending 100's backstroke... I was hauling. It's a good reminder that although I'm trying to cram a lot of training in before trials, it's still beneficial to take a day off here and there to do a few practices in a semi rested state.

It's been nearly impossible to swim the past day or so. I've been working almost constantly. I have however gotten quite a bit of dryland training done in hopes it will keep my training intact. Hopefully I can find some time this evening to swim.