edinboro

Today was our taper meet for all swimmers without qualifying times for the PSAC meet.

Started at 7am with small grocery (and kim’s muffin) breakfast. Our bus driver, Dave who also had the privilege of escorting us to Clarion back in October, had a little trouble with the heat and although it wasn’t Cocoa Beach Florida warm on the bus, it wasn’t North Pole cold either.

The viewing entertainment was provided by Ashley Gardner who recently acquired the USA swimming dvd containing a lot of races from the Olympics and Olympic trial meet. Nothing like a little Rowdy Gaines commentary to get you psyched up for a day of swimming.

We arrived at the pool in plenty of time to chill and stretch out. We did a team warm up for about 30 minutes, most of the group got out (a few stayed in and continued to splash around)...45 minutes or so later the women all got back in before a specific warm up. In between warm ups the elder Kinard sister arrived from Shippensburg to suprise Janel...it was a really neat moment to see.

We had some really great swims ... without the results handy I can't provide all the fine details and don't want to risk missing anybody by going from memory.

Dinner was Uncle Charlies...a delish joint offering pizza, subs, wings etc. The Samanka's brought a delish cake (see picture in below post) to celebrate Shannon's 4 year swimmer career at LHU.

As the journey back to Lock Haven started I told the team to be smart and to not forget to study. I also passed along a very public thank you to Katie and Joel for really making coaching fun...this year's team was an absolute joy to work with...they have an amazing dynamic that makes it fun to go to "work" everyday.

We are doing unofficial time trials tomorrow ... offering everyone an opportunity to swim whatever races they want to swim with our timing system. All the swims aren't reportable, but if they are legal we will keep them on our top times list.

(just thinking about 'legal' swims...in 6 years of head coaching I don't recall there ever being a DQ in a dual meet....okay just 1...but that's 'bob ross' story for another posting, but it makes me wonder if the officials even pay attention or if they are just there for the funds)