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Today I'm giving up seeing some family to make sure I stay on track with my training schedule. I really wish I could do both but conflicts in pool scheduling and departure time to Grand Rapids made it impossible. Special thanks to my extended family for their understanding.

Today I'll be trying out some lactate sets I've created with help from Sean Hickman and Peter Linn, my two former coaches. I look forward to reporting back to them on how I thought it helped. Thank you again Coach Hickman and Coach Linn.

And of course Happy Mothers Day to a great fan of mine!

Ok, I've got another awesome backstroke picture taken by Alex Shultz:

He took some amazing pictures, I'm lucky to be friends with such a talented photographer!

I'd like to thank my friend Alex Shultz for taking some great pictures of my swimming! They all turned out great, I'll post them soon. I had a nice talk with my former coach, Peter Linn of EMU. This discussion was prompted by a helpful email from a fellow swimmer Sean Joyce regarding training. Coach Linn had some great training advice (as he always does) that should help me prepare for the trials and beyond. I enjoyed discussing his theories on lactic acid and how it affects training, and preparing for competitions by putting your body through the same physical state as a race.

I really like this picture taken of my start a few days ago at Eastern! Thank you Sarah for a great pic!

I rarely do it, but I'm gonna go ahead and toot my own horn here... (begin toot) I've analyzed a lot of backstroke starts, and not many have a perfect arch and entry into the water (end toot). I believe a perfect entry and reduced splash probably helps my speed, I really enjoy studying it and making it better.

My former coach Sean Hickman from Brighton emailed me a great set to work on my 2nd 50m endurance, I look forward to trying it out. Which reminds me... I've received a lot of great tips from the swimming community, thank you all!

Today I had a brief photo shoot for the newspaper article complements of my friend Sarah. We got some great pictures of my backstroke start as well as some good motion shots of freestyle and backstroke. I'll post them on the picture page after I go through them (there's over 200 shots). I also took care of my passport today. All Olympic Trial competitors are required to have a valid passport to be able to travel outside the US to the Olympics and other international meets... Pretty exciting stuff :)

I just wanted to thank all my friends and family for their interest and support. I'm having a lot of fun during this time, it's something I've always wanted to do. I feel support from everyone I care about and that cares about me, which is really helpful. I get lots of "congratulations" and "I knew you could do it" type comments, and it means a lot to me. I'm staying very busy with training and work, here is my typical day (rarely do I have a regular schedule due to work)

Looking over the National Masters Meet results from this past weekend, there were some incredibly fast times! I've got some competition in the 50 Back yet again. My 50 Back National record (which I regained 2 weeks ago) was broken by William Liscinsky with a 22.89 (my time was a 23.01). I feel good about it though, records are meant to be broken. My 23.01 was swam tired and with a poor start. I'm confident that I'm a mid to low 22 with a little preparation, I look forward to proving it.

Woohoo, 300 hits since April 20th, a hit is only counted once per computer per 24 hours. Videos of this weekend are posted, indulge yourself. I added a countdown timer to the "calendar" page.

I just finished up with day 2 of the Bulldog Aquatic Meet at EMU. Overall I swam as expected for how worn out I feel. I didn't have much left to give today and it certainly showed. I'm proud of how I did because I know I'll swim much better with some rest. This was good Long Course practice, and finally swim at the Jones Natatorium in Long Course format. Special thanks to Krista, Barb, Kristen, Alex, Sarah, Dave, Judy, Scott, Derik, Karen and Cici who where there to support me.

Videos are encoding now, posted soon