tuesday

Today was a pretty solid day.

After our morning swim (which went pretty well ... Amanda looks great in the water) we hit up the UH bookstore and have to say all 3 of us were fairly disappointed with the selection of paraphernalia. Amanda bought her stock nalgene bottle…and then found the sonic on campus for lunch (last year with her sister Dorothy she purchased a lucky 44 ounce apple juice slushy…so this year the fact that she purchased the same slushy this year is a good sign). Speaking of lucky drinks, I think I will purchase the stock moderately over priced hotel mountain dew tomorrow morning on the way to the pool for the 50 free.

The coaches meeting was interesting to say the least … lots of items on the agenda, but it was kicked off with a bang when they announced that, pending the approval of the NCAA championship committee in April, the 2010 NCAA’s will be held in Canton Ohio and that the 2011 national championships will be held in San Antonio … (again, all pending approval meaning not quite official just yet)

PS – Lock Haven University will be the host institution of the 2010 meet in Canton … (did I mention it was pending approval in April) so it is kind of a big deal for us.

Amanda and I ventured out to the verizon store to save her phone from the fate of being pitched off of the 9th floor balcony into a million pieces … they had to re-program it, which took 30 minutesish, so we hit the grocery store in the same complex. I bought some lucky gum for Katie and lucky hot tamalales for myself.

PSS – I think I forgot to mention that rooms got messed up upon check in and we had 1 less room upon check in … long story short, (Fairmont) Coach Pat and I are roommates…and since he is one of the SID’s for FSC …. I mean FSU, he purchased the world wide web access for his computer which I am utilizing right now.

Opening Ceremonies was held at the Houston Aquarium … really cool stuff, a lot of student athletes. (Indoor Track and Field along with Wrestling are having their national championships here at the same time). We rode the bus over with some friendly wrestlers from San Francisco State University…We ate some super delish shrimp, chicken, and some steak option as well. Kate and Amanda scored some free sunglasses.

Arrived back at the hotel where I am going to hit the tredmill … and crash out.

50 free tomorrow … heat 3 of 9 … lane 6. And not that I put much stock in seed times at this meet but in Amanda’s heat the fastest time is a 24.39 … the slowest is a 24.49 (Amanda’s seed is a 24.42).

dinner = delish

Dinner at Hard Rock Café Houston was delish…Coach Pat and his swimmer, Cassie, joined us (or we joined them…depending on who you ask) It was about a 6 or 7 block walk from the hotel and we got there just in time, beating Cal PA and Grand Valley State’s large traveling party.

After dinner I drove Pat and Cassie to the pool to get in a swim before they shut it down for the night (9pm).

Tomorrow we are headed to the pool at 9am … coaches meeting at 12:30.

***

No internet in the rooms, so as I post last night's "story" I am eating breakfast...some wonderfully, overs syruped, pancakes

No Internet Monday / Internet Tuesday

NO INTERNET MONDAY

Painless flights to Philly & Houston … sat next to a high school soccer coach who doubles as an engineer of sorts who was making his way to Houston for a business trip. Nice guy who knew of The Larry Fish … small world. We found our rental car and got a pimpin’ navy blue Toyota SUV, the GPS took us the 23 minutes to the hotel.

Very nice hotel…very not cheap for anything. Wireless internet costs $9.95 for 24 hours … ugh, so I will give it my best shot in terms of getting the computer out and update our blog.

After a hottttttt shower and quick nap we set off for a wonderful, delicious burrito establishment named Freebirds. Katie and I know this place from working the UT swim camp in Austin…same hippy feel. I ordered the traditional monster burrito with chips and queso.

Pit stop to CVS to get a few supplies and then back to the hotel … going to hit the treadmill then crash out.

10am trip to the pool for a morning swim.

INTERNET TUESDAY

Good News loyal blog readers (Mom, Kim, Mr E and Mrs Rehrig) … the student-athlete lounge has the free wireless internet so, the blog will be updated …. FO FREE

Slept super good last night … woke up in time to enjoy the provided breakfast … eggs, ham bits and salsa...yup, salsa … welcome (back) to Texas!! The pool was relatively easy to find and very nice. Not quite as nice as last year at Columbia, but we aren’t complaining.

Amanda swam a long warm up finished up with some sprint 25’s … she looked sharp.

We came back to the hotel and headed out to explore Houston.

What is really cool about Houston is the “Tunnel” … 7 miles of tunnels that contain every version of food around (we ate at the closest ‘spot’ … I had BBQ, Amanda had chicken and fries, Katie had a freaking awesome looking roastbeef sandwich and salad). We explored the tunnels and eventually walked 10 blocksish back to the hotel.

Going to hit the tredmill (note: found out last night they have TV on the treadmill!!...how awesome is that?!) then come back to post this (cut and paste from word).

(Fairmont) Coach Pat and his swimmer will be here this afternoon and we will try to convince them to join us for dinner tonight.

"sheetz really let me down"

You know your day started early when you have been driving for about 53 minutes and the big starbucks sign is dark. What doesn't always help is the ever exciting spring daylight savings time. After about an hour we stopped at the sheetz in lewisburg for some gas...and here is where sheetz really let me know (sorry to report this jo-el). The gas pump #4 was slow...super slow, a molassas reference comes to mind....I watched 2 not so fuel efficent trucks stop, load up with $14 and $9 worth of gas before I even got to $21. Deep breath.....

Smooth sailing the rest of the way to the airport, parked near B5/B6 ... shuttle stop 3.
(that information is more for me then you)

Katie see's some coffee in her future, I am hoping to see some deep fried potato, hopefully in the shape of a mcdonalds hashbrown. I didn't ask Amanda, but I am sure there will be some sleep...and food.

rankings

In the final top times listings ... before entries ... Amanda ranks as follows

50 free ~ 65th
100 free ~ 35th
100 back ~ 17th
200 back ~ 16th

In the official psych sheet (posted here) ... after entries / before scratches ... Amanda ranks as follows

50 free ~ 59th
100 free ~ 34th
100 back ~ 17th
200 back ~ 15th

This is going to be a FAST meet.

we love TYR

TYR really came through for us and have proven to me again they are the tops in customer service and really care about their teams. Long story short we were able to secure a Tracer Rise for Amanda.

Awesome.

Set of the Week

I rarely do this ... in fact this is the first time in 6 years as a head coach I can remember straight up taking a full workout from a previous season and re-doing it.

For Amanda Terray's national taper, I took a look at the first workout after PSAC's from last year, liked it, and we did it yesterday.

long warm up (325 free / 175 back x 4)

Main Set
Did this 3 times through

3 x 50 free @ 1:00, #3 is for time
3 x 100 back @ 1:40 smooth
:15 rest
2 x 50 free @ :45, #2 is for time
2 x 100 back @ 1:30 smooth
:30 rest
1 x 50 free @ :35, make it
1 x 100 back for time
:45 rest

Last Year's Times...
50's @ 1:00 - 28.5, 29.3, 29.8
50's @ :45 - 30.2, 29.4, 29.7
100 back - 1:08.7, 1:10.8, 1:10.0

This Year's Times
50's @ 1:00 - 26.2, 27.0, 26.7
50's @ :45 - 26.8, 27.2, 26.9
100 back - 1:03.5, 1:03.2, 1:01.8

Pretty awesome to compare ... not sure what it all means, but I like it!

the long story short post...

We had our 2nd ever PSAC champion when Amanda Terray won the 200 backstroke. It was a fairly identical swim as prelims with the excpetion of the 3rd 50 where she ended up going about a half second faster.

Amanda Palmer had another very good race in the 200 fly, finishing just shy of her lifetime best, but still was faster then the morning swim. What an outstanding year she has had ... just HUGE time drops from the past 2 seasons. I am uber impressed with her this year. She has really set herself up for a great senior year!

Our 400 free relay had Terray leading off in a time that would have placed in the top 6 individually but just missed our school record...but was a B cut and she has qualified to swim the event at NCAA's. Sam split a 54 ... best of the season, Brittany split a faster 55 then she did in the morning, and Kasey brought it home strong with a 55 as well.

These 4 individual qualifers will all be back next year ... combined with a few more additions to the team we should really maintain, if not improve, our standings.

We did finish 9th overall (same as last year, even though Gannon joined)...2nd amoungst women's only programs.

super solid sunday morning

last day = best day...we had some top events swum today (terray - 200 back, sam - 100 free, palmer - 200 fly, kasey - 1650 free)

terray's 200 back was a super soild morning swim ... top seed going into tonight's finals. she went out in a blazing 59.3 and shut it down a little bit after that. If she goes out just as fast and put's it into cruise control she can really pop a great time...and improve her seeding going into NCAA's.

sam's 100 free was a soild swim, and poved to be a small improvement...hitting the PSAC cut time.

palmer's 200 fly was her 3rd best time ever and is the 12th seed going into tonight's final. She swam a super race and brought it home strong, even though it hurt a little bit...she will have a good race tonight and should be fun.

kasey's 1650 was a blazing start ... 5:25 @ the 500, 11:00 @ the 1000 (note: her second best 1000 ever) and finished with a 18:19.44 ... new school record by a little less than 10 full seconds.

terray led off our 400 free relay in a 52.6...just missing the school record. The rest of the relay (durham, williams & kinard ... had some good safe starts...should all swim faster tonight. Kasey will take Kinard's spot as the anchor.

subway today for lunch and some quality resting time as we have a late check out for 3pm.

awesome, awesome weekend so far, looking forward to our last session O swimming.


+++++++++++++++++++


I will not have internet until late tonight ... maybe tomorrow morning, so please check

HAVENSPORTS.COM

for an update on how the even goes for us.

NEW SCHOOL RECORD(s) & wardrobe

Apologies for no update this morning. After the morning session (details to follow) we had a team to go lunch at wegmans (=not cheapo) I had a family lunch with my mom, sister and kim (red robin - yum). On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Kohls b/c I needed some pimp new clothes ... so I can dress classy. (note: most of my classy casual stuff doesn't fit anymore)....mama waeger wanted me to look good, so I got some classy new pants, classy new $21 shoes, and a classy fancy button down shirt, but to say the least.......I looked good and classy.

I got back to the hotel in enough time for mama waeger to iron the classy new pants and take a quick shower before heading back to the pool. This is where Andy started to have a bit of a bad 45 minutes ... long story short the pool entrance wasn't opened on time...in fact it opened 30 minutes late after I tracked "the guy" down to open the door (much to the delight of the 40+ swimmers waiting for the doors to be opened). This wouldn't have been so bad if Amanda Palmer and I didn't get to the pool for a super early (empty pool) warm up. That's all I am going to say about that....

So, rewind ........

Amanda Palmer and I went to the pool at 7am for the empty pool warm up (leaving the hotel at about 6:45...apparently the hotel breakfast on the weekends doesn't start until 7am) made a quick stop at panera bread for a super awesome seasame seed bagel (losing a vast majority of the seeds when it went through the slicer...ugh).

Anyways .... we got to the pool in enough time for a really good warm up.

First swim this morning was the 200 medley relay ... great swim by all. Actually all the split as fast or faster then I thought.

Amanda Palmers 400im was a smokin' 4:43.99 ... her best before this was a 4:51.07. (previous school record was 4:48ish)...seeded 8th (at finals went a tad slower)...but got the hand shake from Graduate Assistant (and former PSAC 400im champion Katie Kuntz) for the awards presentation.

Amanda Terray had a season best time, and official A cut in the 100 back with a time of 57.57...was seeded 2nd after prelims. Finals had a rough (!!) first turn ... pretty much head butted the wall and went 57.6...stayed 2nd. Two years in a row recieving the silver.

800 free relay = suprise, suprise, suprise...kasey lead us off with a 2:00.5 (needed a 2:00.3 to get spot #5 on our all time top 5...next year!) Terray busted out a 156...at this point I was thinking great start, come on Sam ... who goes out in a 56 and then I dropped the F bomb (sorry mah) and then when she brought it back in a 2:01/2ish I was thinking hey we could get a school record...come on Palmer. At her first 100 it was a 56ish as well and I dropped a double holy F bomb (sorry mah) and Palmer brought it home in a 2:01/2ish...8:01.33 ... new school record. Awesome. Ended up 9th...with a freak dq bumping us to 8th.

best day as a team for LHU swimming in a long LONG time.

tomorrow...Terray's 200 back (looking to defend her title), Durham's 100 free (can't wait for this one!!), Palmer 200 fly (can the hott streak continue ... I think so) and Campbell's 1650...(lane 6...just close enough for me to be all up in her grill when need be)

Joel Blesh - PSAC 200 im champion ............... presentor

tonight's 200 free relay started us ... Sam had a pretty good swim, but not quite as fast as she was hoping for....but she more than made up for it in the 400 medley relay!! Terray split a 23.99 (note: not a math major and for about 15 minutes she thought her split was 24.99...it happens) Brittany and Palmer both had great swims.

Terray's 50 free went from 12th to 9th place with a great swim...the 400 medley relay was a pretty good way to finish the meet. We were 10th behind a tough bloomsburg team. Terry lead off a soild 58.2, Brittany split another 1:12, Palmer split a lifetime best 1:01 and Sam blasted home a great finish (fighting the waves at the 50 mark) with a 54. Great stuff.

Now the picture is our very own Jo-el blesh as the 200 im champion presentor....he did a great job except shaking the hands. Although the 3rd place finisher almost recieved the award b/c he was out of position ... it happens. He will be doing some hand shaking sunday for the 200 breast!

7am departure for Palmer and myself ... 8am depature for the rest of the group.

I am super excited for tomorrow's swims.

friday prelims

Glorious start to the day...our 200 free relay had a fantastic swim.

Amanda Terray lead off with a 24.46 ... getting her B cut in that event. Sam split a 24.9, and Brittany had a 25.6 and Amanda Palmer had a 25.76, totally skipping the "26's" to go super fast. The relay ended up 9th.

Kasey swam the 500...didn't have the result she was looking for but learned about her warm up. I think she is going to have a great 1650!...but has a few relays in between.

Palmer swam the 200 IM in a lifetime best swim and moved from 5th to 3rd on our all time top 5 list...

Sam and Terray had the 50 free ... Sam going first and swimming only a little bit faster. She is going to lead off our 200 free relay tonight to get another shot at a flat start time. Terray didn't have the best start and it caught up with her ... she went a little bit slower than her relay lead off and was good enough to tie for 12th...giving her another shot at it tonight.

Our 400 medley relay was specatular ... Terray lead off with a 58.10 ... a soild morning swim for her. I expect a 57 tonight. Brittney Williams swam the 100 breast in her best college time, and Palmer fought through some killer waves to go a 103 and Sam had a good swim in the anchor spot.

Today's lunch was Wegmans ... oh my delicious...moderatly expensive but totally worth it. The pork egg roll was made of real pork no question about it. (Note: I, and Jo-el, question at times the chinese food in Lock Haven especially their version of "pork")

Side note on just how wicked fast this meet is ... easily one of the most competitive in all of D2 ... we will be well represented at NCAA's!

friday morning

We have some good events coming up this morning...Kasey get's back into the pool with the 500, Amanda Palmer has the 200 im, Sam Durham and Amanda Terray have the 50 free. 2 relays as well...

update on the swims will come this afternoon...

ps-happy birthday jay

new school record

Kasey Campbell had the 1000 free tonight...her time of 10:57.12 broke our 2nd oldest school record of 11:04.40.

GREAT start to the championship weekend. Will update once we have what place she gets.

*****

18th place for Kasey. 2 places away from points, but still an amazing swim...lifetime best, school record, doesn't get much better. 500 for her tomorrow and she has the potential to do really well (as all the women do).

DINNER ... as I have been told by a very wise coach, swim meets are a series of meals with some swimming in between...so we went with Olive Garden take out. Katie took care of the orders and had them ready for us at 7:45. on the run to the car (note: the wind is blowing about 200 mph) I sprinted right past my mom and sister and didn't realize it...oops.

I am stuffed ... we have 7:20am wake up call and 8am departure.

you are NOT the father...

Our 2 hour drive was broken up by a nice lunch at applebees...delish.

After another hour drive we got to the hotel, checked in...dished out the pimp new TYR tracer light's, caps, and conference t-shirts. Giving us about 60 minutes to get ready to head to the pool. Tonight has the coaches meeting and the 1000 free.

To kill the time Jo-el and I watched a hilarous episode of Maury...so bad it's good.

Travel Day

Traveling to Cumberland Valley High School this morning with a scheduled departure at 11am. Making the traditional stop at Applebees about half way...delish. We will then check into our hotel and relax a little bit before heading to the pool for warm up, coaches meeting and Kasy's 1000 free (heat 2 lane 2).

I will update our blog as much as possible throughout the weekend.

taper warm up / relay exchanges

For the past week or so we have been doing the same warm up. As we got closer to the PSAC championship we have done parts of the warm up all in the same lane (to get used to swimming with a crowd).

800 oyo
6 x 50 @ :55 (slk/dr/sw)
3 x 100 @ 1:40 descend 1-3
3 x 75 @ 1:10
2 dive 25's
relay exchanges

Relays...we put together the fairly firm relay line up and have practiced each exchange several times. Before breaking up into individual workouts. The last few times we did the relay starts, Katie, Joel and myself assigned a grade...anything lower than a B constituted a re-do. We saw some drastic improvements.

11:00am departure tomorrow.

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)

i <3 cake!

(thank you mr & mrs samanka!)

Last Pre-Taper Set of the Week

Katie came up with a few great sets to finish up Phase 5. (Phase 6 is PSAC taper) All swims started with a dive (except Palmer's 100 free) and was to be max effort all the way through.

Amanda Palmer did...
3 x
(400 im @ 7:00
(200 im @ 4:00
(100 free @ 3:00 push

Amanda Terray did...
14 x 150 @ 3:00

Sam Durham did...
14 x 125 @ 3:00

Kasey Campbell did...
5 x 500 @ 8:00

Edinboro meet tomorrow ... word on the street is that the Samanka's are bringing some cake for the post meet celebration.

Set(s) of the Week

I am a keeper of all workouts...for every season I have been a head coach I have typed up each workout and at the end of the season I put them into a lovely Kinko's binded notebook. Every so often there is a day when I am just not feeling orginial so I flip through the pages and see something that will work for the day (with some modifications)...that is what we do.

Yesterday and this morning I re-worked some old sets...

Sam did 200 x 25's (a al Jacksonville Training Trip)
200 x 25
20 @ :5 rest, must do at least 3 of each stroke, no kick
20 @ :40 breast pull w/ buoy, no kick
20 @ :30 slk
10 @ :40 no free 3,6,9 AO
10 @ :35 choice underwater even easy
10 @ :30 pick 4 go AO, rest oyo
10 @ :25 free #5/#10 = fly
10 @ :20 make it
4 @ :5 rest
10 @ :30 AO big kicks
20 @ :30 AO big kicks w/ Zoomers
10 @ :30 AO big kicks
6 @ :5 rest
4 x
(3 @ :20
(1 @ :40
(2 @ :15
(2 @ :40
8 oyo @ :5 rest

Kasey did the following modified set
(a la the same Jacksonville Trip)

500 T turns w/ paddles, first 4 hand touches AO, no breath
10 x 50 w/ zoomers swim @ 1:00 go FAST
400 T turns w/ paddles, first 7 hand touches AO, no breath
10 x 50 w/ zoomers kick @ 1:00 go FAST
300 T turns w/ paddles, first 10 hand touches AO, 1 breath after 5
10 x 50 w/ zoomers swim @ :45 go FAST
200 T turns w/ paddles, first 13 hand touches AO, 1 breath after 7
10 x 50 w/ zoomers slk @ :45 go FAST
100 T turns w/ paddles, first 16 hand touches AO, 1 breath after 9


This morning Amanda (Palmer) did the following modified sets...
3 x
(6 x 25 fly @ :25
(3 x 50 back @ :50
(2 x 75 breast @ 1:20
(1 x 150 free @ 2:15

4 x 25 pull @ :20 3 breaths
4 x 25 pull @ :25 2 breaths
4 x 25 pull @ :30 1 breaths
4 x 25 pull @ :35 0 breath

I actually can't take credit for Amanda's...last spring I borrowed from (evil) Ed Denny (my coach at Fairmont State) the workout book from my senior year (which was typed up and kinko's binded) and this general idea was in there.

Team @ Cal

(thanks Mrs. Campbell)

Vulcan Dual Meet Challenge

Basically … We have 3 dual meets and at the end of all the swims the are combined to come up with invitational scoring.

Here are the scores and ‘stuff’ …

Friday night meet vs Mansfield
LHU ~ 102
Mansfield ~ 25

Saturday morning meet vs Slippery Rock
LHU ~ 86
SRU ~ 42

Saturday evening meet vs California
LHU ~ 45
CAL ~ 102

Invitational Scoring
CAL ~ 729
LHU ~ 630
SRU ~ 451
Mansfield ~ 244

Overall Event Winners…
Kasey Campbell 1000 FREE
Amanda Palmer 200 IM
Amanda Terray 50 BACK (meet record)
Amanda Terray 100 BACK
Amanda Terray 200 BACK (meet/pool record)

Overall we had some really good races and it is safe to say we had some fatigue set in towards the end of the meet … not overly surprising.

We are going into full taper mode for all those who are not already qualified for the conference meet. In 2 weeks we head to Edinboro for their last chance meet … everyone will be swimming 1 or 2 events…the PSAC swimmers will swim 1 serious event and 1 maybe not so serious event. Everyone not qualified for the conference meet will have the option to pick their event or events.

With the amount of work the women have put in I think that we should really see some fast swimming in 2 weeks.

(note: this posting was more informative than amusing … Ill work on that for the next one).

vs. Millersville

Amazing night of racing. I have a million thoughts running through my head, so this post has the potential to become unreadable towards the end...but I will give it a shot.

Coming off our our super training in Florida, we had a pretty intense week of practice. Double practices on Tuesday/Wednesday & Thursday. A new weight routine. A LOT of sprinting and AO swims lead me to really wonder how the women would respond to racing.

After the first race saw Shannon Wilbur (Dubby if you will) come from behind and have a great last 25 I knew the team would be okay. The trend continued ... race after race the women turned it on in the end. Just really fun to watch...so fun that after the first few raced I told Jo-el and Katie to put the clipboards down and just enjoy watching the meet. (Kim had the timing system under control and had zero issues!)

With the type of training we have been doing I was really suprised that the team swam as fast as they did ... no way they should be swimming this fast. I am just really proud of them.

Season Best Times Tonight:
(including a few first time of the year swim)

Vagnoni - 100 breast r
Gardner - 100 fly r
Wilbur - 100 free r
Lightcap - 100 breast r
Grenier - 100 fly r
Reitz - 100 free r
Campbell - 1000 free (kinda)
Kinard - 1000 free
Terray - 200 free (PSAC)
Schaefer - 200 free
Fountaine - 200 free
Samanka - 200 IM
Grenier - 200 IM
Faulstick - 200 IM
Vagnoni - 100 free
Terray - 200 back (A CUT!)
Schaefer - 200 back
Gardner - 200 back
Samanka - 500 free
Palmer - 200 breast
Lightcap - 200 breast
Grenier - 200 breast
McCracken - 100 free r
Fountaine - 100 free r
Williams - 50 free tt

(PS - that's a lot)

"i think i saw palm trees on that one"

good set yesterday evening.

2 x 200 @ 3:00 / 3:00
1 x 75 @ 1:00
2 x 200 @ 3:00 / 2:50
2 x 75 @ 1:00
2 x 200 @ 3:00 / 2:40
3 x 75 @ 1:00
2 x 200 @ 3:00 / 2:30
4 x 75 @ 1:00

first 200 each time was moderate ... 2nd 200 was fast, getting as much rest as possible

ps - amanda palmer enjoyed that set so much she gave us the great title

MEET v. Millersville tonight ... should be a good competitive contest.

Broken 100's

In an effort to put a little more emphasis on starts/turns/finishes we did some broken 100's at last night's practice. It worked out really well and will keep them, or a version of them, in our workouts a few times a week as we get ready for some taper meets.

Broken 100.

37 1/2 AO
~break
25 AO turn
~break
25 Slo-Mo turn-perfect
~break
12 1/2 AO finish

cocoa beach award photo

travel day / weekend

Jo-el and myself made it to Baltimore without any issue. Our Southwest jet was about half filled...I watched Burn After Reading and I think the Coen Brothers did it once again ... hilarious.

A few of the women had delays, but haven't heard any catastrophic delays or cancelations ... except for Katie. Akron, Ohio canceled a bunch of flights...her's being one of them. She is stuck in O'town one more night.

Long day of traveling ... looking forward to practice on Monday. We still have a lot of work to do as we get ready for some championship caliber swimming.

travel day marathon-ish

my and Amanda Terray's morning begun shortly after 3am ... you see her orginal connecting flight from Newark to Harrisburg was canceled last night so after calling customer service she was re-booked on a 6:40amish flight. With no other option we ventured for the Orlando International Airport at 3:30am...the dew in hand.

After dropping Amanda off I went back to the hotel (+/- 55 minutes...1 way) took a quick shower, checked out of the suites and about 10 minutes later the women started making there way down to the van. 7-11 slurpee and DD coffee/doughnut purchases were made (Nicole Faulstick was absolutly heartbroken to find sprinkles made their way on to her frosted doughnut) and we were back on the road. Everyone was dropped off at the Southwest gate b/c the first team flight is a Southwest one.

Jo-el and I made our way to fill the vans with the proper amount of gas and then dropped them off at (bob) carl's van rental. Our favorite worker, Stanley, was ready to check us in. He was the same gentleman who picked us up a week and a day ago ... he is from Oklahoma (sounding every bit the part) and came to Florida to work construction. Since there isn't much building these days he is going to mechanic school at night (even on New Year's Eve .... "which sucked") so he can join up with his son who races bikes. He is living out of a motel in downtown Orlando and as much as I would like to share with you all his short stories they are most certainly R rated...sorry.

Jo-el and I are hanging out at gate 123 where we found a little over half of our team waiting to take off ... from the looks of it, Ron Jon earned a few bucks from the LHU Swim Team as they are all decked out in their new shirts.

I am going to put in Kim's Netflix movie (burn after reading) and I can see a quarter pounder with cheese in my future.

2.5 hours until our flight ...

Go Panthers.

'the only thing that would have made this trip more productive would have been a powerball victory'

The Cocoa Beach Award 2009, as voted upon by her teammates, was given to Janel Kinard. The criteria was simply the person that had a great week of training and was a good teammate throughout the trip. Janel was very deserving and I'll get a picture up here once I get it from Jo-el.

The morale of the group remained fantastic during each practice ... there were some moments of unhappiness, soreness, sickness and ihateyouandyness...but all in all the women came down here with a mission to work hard and get better. I am very VERY proud of all their efforts. This was a great trip.............mission accomplished (too corny?).

Big shout out to Katie and Jo-el for doing an outstanding job with writing practices, dryland, motivation, van driving, ideas etc. ...no way this trip goes as smooth without them.

We finished up our last practice of the Cocoa Beach training trip with an okay set.

400 @ 7:00
8 x 50 @ 1:00
4 x 100 @ 1:45

2 times through...the distance people did the 400 AO, the sprinters did the 50's AO, and the stokers did the 100's AO. When you were doing AO, you were OYO. It was a good one.

************************

For next year's trip we will be staying at the Ron Jon Resort ... check it out.

http://www.ronjonresort.com/

... rooms may actually end up being cheaper per person!!

We will continue to train at the same facility...b/c it is awesome. (in fact we already have our lanes and times reserved!)

I will miss the daily Slurpee run, the freaking awesome sun, running on the beach, the wearing of flip flops and shorts daily, waffle house breakfast (yummy!) amoung other things.... won't miss the sand though, hate the sand!

Finally, tomorrow is our travel day ... the weather back home doesn't appear to be very condusive to air travel so wish us luck as we venture back to Lock Haven.

ps-today's blog title is a great quote by a great man (even if he can't finish a 40 ounce slurpee)... jo-el

lucky suit practice

Our lucky suit practice turned into a suprise recovery workout. Back in Septemeber I told the women that when we are in Florida we are going to be wearing the lucky suit 2 times ... the first being our meet day and the second being on the 'hardest workout of your life'

A few times after workouts this week the women have asked if that should have been the lucky suit workout and to be honest, a few of our workouts probably were some of the hardest ones they have ever done ... so this morning when I told them to wear the suit for tonight's workout, the freaking out started. The only problem with today is that next year when I say we are going to have the 'lucky suit' workout they will all expect a suprise recovery day.

Ill write it here about 365 days in advance ... next year's lucky suit practice will be the hardest workout ever :-)

On the non swimming side of life, the weather has been pretty much awesome, with the exception of a few hours yesterday, when the rain came pouring down. Today was our coldest day, but somehow I think we all managed to add to our base tan (or burn depending on who you ask) ... no real complaints on our end, especially since all reports to Lock Haven being a little chilly and not like Florida chilly, but sub artic chilly...

This afternoon Jo-el (our student asst coach) and I set out on digging a hole in the sand to China for some sweet and sour chicken...after about 10 minutes I broke a sweat and decided it would be more fun just to drive down the street to purchase some from "new china". Boy was I right .... delish.

2 more workouts to go.

dinner = delish

post day off morning

after a relaxing day off we had another really great workout.

appox a 30 min warm up

we did this straight through 3 times
((note the interval difference in the 100's))

400 @ 7:00
3 x 100 @ 2:00
200 @ 3:30 (always pull easy)
3 x 100 @ 1:40
:30 rest
2 x 50 @ 1:30 (always AO kick)

round 1
400=1st & 3rd 100=AO, rest easy
3 x 100 = 3rd AO, rest oyo
easy pull
3 x 100 = 1st AO, rest oyo
hard kick

round 2
400=2nd & 4th 100 = AO, rest easy
3 x 100 - 2nd & 3rd 50 AO, rest oyo
easy pull
3 x 100 = 1st & 2nd AO, rest oyo
hard kick

round 3
400=middle 200 AO, rest easy
3 x 100 = all 3 AO
easy pull
3 x 100 = all 3 AO
hard kick

"not blog-able"

Last night's practice included an 'intense' dryalnd ... four, six minute stations. Then we swam a 15 min long warm up swim followed by a couple 50's build to get the HR (heart rate elevated) then our main set.

21 x 100 @ 2:00 in sets of 3
2 AO (all out) from the block
1 EZ (easy/recovery)

The sets of 2 AO needed to be the same stroke for both.

The team really did well with this set...it was super intense and I didn't see one person back down. In fact a lot of the women stepped up and mixed up their strokes as requested. It was awesome.

Today is our free day and a lot of the women are enjoying quality time of doing nothing...or renting a surfboard and catching waves. Team dinner tonight! Yummy.

crackberry cam

taken about 6:21am this morning...

meet morning

We had a splendid morning o' swimming. Nice long warm up swim of about 60 minutes (or an hour) and then had our mini meet with the women of Northern Michigan University. It was a pretty good/quick time for the women and they had some fun ... not sure if there was enough time spent to actually become facebook friends, but you never know.

Wal Mart run for the women this morning...hope there is a redbox :-) (movie rental 'thing' that Kim and I enjoy back in Lock Haven)

We are going again tonight at 6pm ... with an intense dryland and a practice that will be sure to produce another whitty Janel comment.

(all day off tomorrow)

Go Buckeyes!

"that even hurt just to joke about"

Today was another beautiful day in Florida. Our 10am-Noon workout was our first one in specific training groups. None of the groups got off easy … super hard! The afternoon workout was just as intense if not harder (depending on the group).

In between practices the women found out that the sun does burn the skin. I personally watched a lot of football and set up a killer itunes play list to run to. I was able to get in a run before the evening workout.

Tomorrow morning will be a combined workout/meet with Northern Michigan University…should be a good time. It is always good to meet other swimmers who are enjoying some “fun” workouts in florida.

I enjoyed a delicious pizza from a N.Y. pizza place in town ... super tasty.

PS- the title quote is fully credited to Janel Kinard

travel day + practice 1 & 2

In order to visit the world wide web at our hotel we must go to the lobby. And with all the wonderful football games and nice running weather I haven't had the chance to make it until this morning. I will give you a quick update on our progress so far ...

Travel to Florida was pretty painless...everybody arrived on time or actually early. Janel, Sam & Erin's bags didn't make it from Baltimore with their flight, but since we were still waiting on some of the team to arrive when the next flight came in in they were able to pick up their bags...just a little later then they would have liked. No harm no foul.

(bob) Carl's van rental did a great job picking up Jo-el and I getting us to their parking area, we picked up the 2 rental vans, headed to the airport to pick up the team and head to cocoa beach. It is about an hour drive from the airport to our hotel. Apparently the speed limit doesn't apply to anybody on this particular stretch of highway. I was doing the stock 5mph over and was getting passed by EVERY moving vehicle (except the super slow car pulling a trailor)....but as I alway say, safety first.

The Wakulla Suites started our trip off on a bit of a sour note ... we arrived at 3:34pmish. Check in scheduled to start at 4pm. Our first (of 5) rooms wasn't available until 4:30ish. We scheduled a 6pm Wal-Mart run and were leaving as the last room was ready. Oh well, it was worth it when it was all done.

Wal Mart run found us eating at Denny's (wonderful service...not) instead of Fazzolis (sp?) b/c they were no longer in business. (just a side note ... the double cheeseburger is freaking huge...way hug-er than the picture in the menu)

A small forture was spent at wal mart on groceries and other items...jo-el bought a gallon of mouthwash for a week long trip (to be fair the wal mart brand was way cheaper then the little bottle of the brand name).

Our first 2 practices were meant to be ease our way into swimming long course meters ... but apparently they were "hard". I thought they were moderate to easy. I can't wait to hear what the team calls a practice that I think is "hard"

On our way to practice 3 ... our first practice by training groups.

PS - it is super sunny and super warm down here...it's okay to be jealous!

"the gps lady sounds like a chain smoker"

Happy New Year.

Jo-el, Kim (my girlfriend) and I traveled to Baltimore Maryland today. We all fly from BWI tomorrow morning. (Kim is traveling to Florida for a soccer coaching clinic)

Deb, my sister, is going to drive us to the airport in the morning and car sit (aka avoid paying parking) during the trip.

We stopped at Wendy's in Lock Haven (ending the boycott...but only for a day) and got on the road. The traffic was light and there weren't any major delays ... quick pit stop at a McDonalds about an hour away from Deb's place. The bags were unloaded and we headed to Damons (the place for ribs) to watch the Rose Bowl game...(leaving at halftime).

Early to bed tonight, longer travel day tomorrow.

Florida on Friday.

Pre-Florida Training

It has been quite a busy month. Not only did we have the Christmas break (and all the cookies that go along with it) I purchased and moved into my first house. It has monopolized a majority of my time and I feel as though I have neglected my loyal blog readers (Mr. E). Don't worry ... I will make it up to you.

We arrived back on campus on the 28th and our pool was a bit chilly and remained not super warm until our last practice this morning. It inspired the rallying cry "Florida on Friday". (as we are taking our training trip to Cocoa Beach from the 2nd - 10th ... more on that in future posts).

I was fairly pleased with the overall conditioning of the team ... a few could be in better shape, but the majority showed up ready to go. We finished out the mini-training camp with the not so famous set ... "Swim until you die"

Here is how you do it ... swim a distance (for us it was 100's) at a starting interval (for us it was 2:00) and subtract :01 from the interval after each one until failure.

Here are the intervals / send offs for all my coaching homeslices (mike laubacher) Hope the spacing is okay.

(X:XX) <:YY>
X = interval
Y = send off

2:00<:00>
1:59<:59>
1:58<:57>
1:57<:54>
1:56<:50>
1:55<:45>
1:54<:39>
1:53<:32>
1:52<:24>
1:51<:15>
1:50<:05>
1:49<:54>
1:48<:42>
1:47<:29>
1:46<:15>
1:45<:00>
1:44<:44>
1:43<:27>
1:42<:09>
1:41<:50>
1:40<:30>
1:39<:09>
1:38<:47>
1:37<:24>
1:36<:00>
1:35<:35>
1:34<:09>
1:33<:42>
1:32<:14>
1:31<:45>
1:30<:15>
1:29<:44>
1:28<:12>
1:27<:39>
1:26<:05>
1:25<:30>
1:24<:54>
1:23<:17>
1:22<:38>
1:21<:59>
1:20<:19>
1:19<:38>
1:18<:56>
1:17<:13>
1:16<:29>
1:15<:44>
1:14<:58>
1:13<:11>
1:12<:23>
1:11<:34>
1:10<:44>
1:09<:53>
1:08<:01>
1:07<:08>
1:06<:14>
1:05<:19>
1:04<:23>
1:03<:26>
1:02<:28>
1:01<:29>
1:00<:29>
:59<:30>

GCC recap

The snow and ice made for a long drive back (hence the non-update lasts night).

Ahsley had a very good showing swimming back to back in the 400IM and 100fly. A good way to finish up the first semester.

Amanda didn't come away with an 'A' cut ... but did secure season best times in all 3 events. The 100 back was a soild 'B' cut, as well as a meet & pool record. The 200 back was good for the first 100, but the lack of being able to train caught up with her.

Both Ashley and Amanda agree that this would be a good meet for the team, so if the academic calendar works out in our favor (with an extra week before finals...not like this year) we will see if we can bring everyboday.

friday-night

Long drive today with a pit stop to eat a good lunch at the RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Roadhouse in Clarion. I enjoyed way too much food while Ashley got some chunks of chicken (no really, they were literally chunks) and Amanda got her traditional rib meal (see NCAA trip posts)

We arrived early enough to check in and relax for a short spell before going to the pool. Even with just 2 swimmers GCC gave us a seating section. not the best seats in the house, but i was expecting to cram in somewhere so no complants. We had to wach some diving finish up (oh the fun that was) before the pool opened up. Once it did both Ashley and Amanda were in there ready to go.

Meet started on time and for the swim dorks (like myself) out there we witnessed a really soild swim by the GCC men's 200 free relay. Breaking their school record from 2006 (which was the national title swim - i think)...the anchor split a 19.56.

Ashley was first up in the 200 im (after some rather lenghty 500's) and had a pretty good swim. A tad slower than the IUP swim, but everything (except breaststroke) looked really sharp. She should swim pretty well tomorrow in the 400 im and 100 fly (doing the tough gal back to back!)

Amanda had the 50 free and her dive/streamline/head position was pretty not good...but still managed a soild 24.9 ... missing the 'b' cut, but for with it being her first race in awhile I am okay with it. I am confident she can do well in the backstrokes tomorrow.

The 'a' cut in the 100 is 58.09 and she will have to be a 28.19 or faster to make it happen tomorrow ... the 200 is a 2:05.99 ... she will have to not die like a champ to make it happen. Should be fun to watch.

DINNER ... yesssss, was at "my brother's place" ... and speaking of my brother, this restaurant was one of my favorites when I was in Grad School & coaching SRU ... and I have a great story involving my brother at my brothers place. problem is it is PG-13 so I wont be able to share it. If you MUST know...email me.

bed time.

Will update y'all tomorrow night when we return to Lock Haven

~don't forget to check the results tomorrow on GCCinvitational.com

( I will also fix whatever spelling mistakes/typos tomorrow night)

GCC Invite

We are headed to Grove City College this weekend. Amanda Terray had an academic commitment during the IUP invite and couldn't attend, so this will be her 'mini-rest' meet. Ashley Gardner is looking to take advantage of the extra opportunity to get some racing in.

We (when I say we I really mean them) will be swimming at 6:00pm friday / 10am saturday & again at 6pmish on Saturday. I won't get to blog saturday's events until we return to Lock Haven.

For results (including LIVE TIMING) go to:

http://www.gccinvitational.com/

54 minute practice

After a long Thanksgiving break we have been back in the pool training hard. The women wanted to support the men's basketball team at this evenings game. In an effort to have 100% participation I told the team that if they all go we will have a 54 minute practice. I am sure most were expecting to do 54 minutes in the deep end, I opted for a little different approach.

Here it was...

All @ 1:00

5 x 50 warm up
2 x 75 fast
4 x 50 im order
3 x 75 fast
3 x 50 5 / 3 / 1 breath
1 x 25 easy
3 x 75 fast
1 x 25 easy
6 x 50 kick
1 x 25 easy
2 x 50 AO dive
1 x 50 easy
2 x 50 AO dive
1 x 25 easy
4 x 75 fast
2 x 25 easy
5 x 50 kick
1 x 25 easy
3 x 50 AO dive
2 x 50 WD
1 x 25 WD
1 x 50 choice

2800

Day 3

I only have about 3 minutes as I have high jacked (IUP) Coach Villa's computer to report to our loyal readers that Kasey Campbel just broke the 1650 freestyle team record with a time of 18:29.01.

This breaks Virginia's future teacher of the year, Katie Grieneisen's, record of 18:34.06.

She was 11:14.33 to her feet in the 1000 which is good enough for 3rd on our all time top performers list in that event.

More to come...

UPDATE

We are back in Lock Haven ... after what seemed to be a longer than normal drive back. Our cars met us with a wonderful coating of snow.

The fun didn't stop after Kasey's 1650 ...Our backstrokers all swam respectable 2nd swims. Sam Durham just missed her first qualfying mark in the 100 free by .03 seconds...ugh. (more on this later) Brittany Williams dropped a good .7 from her morning swim! Rachel Vagnoni swam a fairly identical race in the 200 breaststroke. Amanda Palmer had another soild swim in the 200 fly.

Janel Kinard also learned a lot from her first ever 200 fly swim ... in finals she went out about 2 seconds slower only to come back about 7 seconds faster in the 2nd 100. Great swim.

We then time trialed the 200 free relay to give Sam another chance at PSAC's in the 50. This time she left no doubt by going a 25.44 (the cut time is 25.60).

We finished up with the 400 free relays giving everyone (except our 2 flyers, time trialers & Bailey :-) ) one last swim to finish out the weekend.

Time to go get caught up on a lot of TiVo and a small ton of emails.

Still Day 2

Day 2 Headline type news ..

PSAC Qualifier
Amanda Palmer – 400 im
4:551.07
Amanda Palmer – 100 butterfly
1:02.62

New All Time Top 5
Amanda Palmer – 400 im (2nd)
(actually ties her previous time)

PRELIMS (3 of 6)
We had 18 races this morning and 15 of them were season best times. Pretty awesome statistic. Amanda Palmer qualifyied for PSAC’s in the 400 im.

LUNCH
Coach Pat volunteered his volunteer assistant to go back to the Super 8 to pick up 18 fire mountain coupons (along with 17 for his team) that saved us $3ish a person. Nothing beats that Fire Mountain Buffet (minus the dessert bar that is off limits). GREAT DEAL today.

FINALS (4 or 6)
200 MEDLEY RELAY
was a great way to start the evening … some really fast swims by everyone not swimming the 400im.

400 IM
The 400 im kicked off the night of individual swims… Meghan Grenier swam in a heat with some dude (who qualified 7th) she held her own dropping 2 seconds from her morning swim. Ashley Gardner, added a few seconds and Amanda Palmer dropped a few tenths for a 4:52.07 … which ties her time from PSAC’s last year.

100 FLY
Amanda Palmer popped a 1:02.62 (a PSAC cut) and just missed taking the world famous Gerda off of the All Time Top 5 list. Sam, & Janel both dropped time from their prelim swims.

200 FREE
Kasey Campbell gets the most improved morning to night swim in the 200…dropping about 4 seconds and looking a lot less tired while doing so. Amazing what a good warm up does for her. Erin & Ali both had soild swims that saw them dropping about 2 seconds. Not bad.

100 BREAST
In the prelims there was a break after the 200 free … after asking a mis-infofmed official of there was a break (he said yes). I then told our girls not to worry there would be some time to get ready to swim. Turns out there was no break and the 3 breaststrokers had to rush up to the blocks. It was a bit of a stinker b/c none of them improved from the morning swim.

100 BACK
Nicole & Ashley had good swims staying about the same or going up just a hair. Turns looked a little weak tonight … we will have to work on that.

50 FREE TIME TRIAL
Sam Durham time trialed the 50 free along with Rachel Vagnoni & Brittany Williams. Sam just missed the PSAC qualifying time, but all 3 women had smoking fast season best times … better then yesterday!

800 FREE RELAY
We didn’t enter this relay for the same reasons we didn’t swim the 400 medley relay.

DINNER
Ruby Tuesdy to go … complete with some chips and queso (no comparison to texas queso). Pack time … earlier wake up call tomorrow.

No internet access tomorrow until we are back in Lock Haven … SO, I will provided a report tomorrow (Sunday afternoon at the latest).

"When you hear a whistle go faster"

Day 1 Headline type news ..

PSAC Qualifier
Kasey Campbell – 500 freestyle
5:22.37

New All Time Top 5
Kasey Campbell – 500 free (3rd)
Amanda Palmer – 200 im (5th)

Prelims (1 of 6)
There is a lot report on this session … of the 17 swims we had this morning 14 were season best time. We qualified swimmer or swimmers for finals in each event. I was extremely pleased with the first session ... we talked a lot about the importance of warming up and warming down.

Lunch was Subway … one of the more efficient trips with a large group I have ever been too. However, the speed of service came a the great sacrifice of the quality of the sub. Oh well, it happens.

Finals (2 of 6)
Our 200 free relay kicked off the evening (the relays are timed finals only)…Bailey Reitz shined through with a great lead of leg dropping about 7 tenths of a second from the prelim … our A relay of Sam Durham, Brittany Williams, Amanda Palmer & Kasey Campbell placed 3rd.

In the 500 freestyle, Freshman Kasey Campbell placed 2nd with a PSAC qualifying time of 5:22.37 (also places her 3rd on our All Time Top 5 performers list. Erin McCracken and Shannon Samanka swam consols, finishing in about the same times as the morning. Becky Fountaine dropped 5 seconds from her morning swim in the bonus heat.

Amanda Palmer placed 6th in the 200 IM with a time that places her 5th on our All Time Top 5 Performers list. She was a little over 3 seconds faster than her morning swim, just missing her lifetime best.

The 50 freestyle had a LHU swimmer in each of the 3 heats. Sam Durham, Brittany Williams & Rachel Vagnoni were all with in 3 tenths of there morning time. Sam is just 2 tenths off of the PSAC cut time and is inching closer. We will probably shoot for a time trial tomorrow or Saturday to give it another shot … depends on how the rest of the meet goes for her.

The 400 medley relay concluded the evening…the coaching staff decided at lunch that we would benefit from a little more rest, therefore we scratched all 3 of our relays and the points that went with them.

If I have said it once, I have said it a million times … I am always more concerned with performance over points ... in the long run good performances will take care of the points.

After a delicious dinner at Eat n Park (don’t worry Mr E … NO smiley face cookies!) we headed back to the hotel and although we missed the first 6 minutes of Grey’s it was a very good evening.

Made a quick run (or freezing walk in the snow) to wal mart to pick up some juice, bananas, bagels and skittles (those were for me). Spending the rest of the evening watching the Steelers game and season finale of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Coach Pat is a good way to finish day 1.

IUP Invite ~ Travel Day

We made it to IUP rather uneventfully ... no major traffic, no major weather. Knock on wood we get the same luck driving home on Saturday (go buckeyes).

We checked into the hotel and after about 15 minutes headed out to for a warm up swim. We didn't get to swim in the competition pool b/c of some 'minor' repairs being done (have no fear we will be okay for tomorrow ... knock on wood). We swam for about 60 minutes then ate a wonderful meal at the Fire Mountain Buffet. Yummy & Delish!

Quick team meeting then a quick run to Wally World to get some supplemental breakfast items with Coach Pat of Fairmont State (my alma mater).

More on Coach Pat later ... if I get some time I will share the story of when/how we managed to get 2 school vans stuck together...oh yes, stuck together.

8:15am wake up call tomorrow.

More LHU Cowbell...

"This is a sounding device event" ... famous last words of the officials during our home dual meets. There is a long an interesting story to how I came into possession of our "sounding device" but to protect the innocent (and/or guilty) I will keep the story confidential...at least for the time being.

to be continued...

TRAVEL DAY TO IUP ...

CHECK BACK FOR EVENING UPDATES

Set of (Last) Week

Here is a 'fun' set we did about 10 days ago.

3 x 25 @ :25
3 x 50 @ :50
3 x 75 @ 1:15
3 x 100 @ 1:40
3 x 125 @ 2:05
3 x 150 @ 2:30
3 x 175 @ 2:55
3 x 200 @ 3:20

Descending each set of 3.
(1=ez/mod
(2=85/95%
(3=AO Max effort

IUP & KU

Yesterday’s competition was an out of the ordinary meet for us. We had Kutztown & Indiana University of PA, 2 strong co-ed PSAC schools, come to Lock Haven to swim a women’s double dual meet and a traditional dual meet for their men’s programs.

We started our day with the traditional 9am wake up swim…and the re-issuance of bright white caps. Those white caps never seem to last too long before fading…so for each swim meet we provide a new one … with the old ones making there way to the practice cap pile. (our meet suit is solid maroon and it would be near impossible to match a maroon cap with that suit … so we don’t have a choice, but it is all good).

The order of events was the ‘long’ version that offers a 200 & 100 of each stroke…with 2 heats of women ( allowing 4 racers per team, rather than 2). The meet lasted about 45 minutes longer than I had anticipated, but that is okay.

Throughout the meet, KU broke 3 pool records in the meet and LHU’s Amanda Terray re-set her 100 backstroke pool record (also a B cut). After looking through the meet results (during home meets I rely on Katie and Joel to do the split taking … they did an awesome job) I was particularly impressed how consistent the women raced. I am confident that with a few more days of rest leading up to the IUP invite they will all swim lights out!

East Stroudsburg

Our home opening dual meet started at 9am with a wake up swim…everybody loves the wake up swim (only a slight hint of sarcasm there). We did a 2,000ish warm up which ended with a few sprints from the block. The women headed out to return at 11:45amish.

Katie, Joel & myself spent the down time running various errands and watching some high quality YouTube clips. (thank goodness for wireless internet in Zimm).

We got the team back in the water around noon…swam a more specific type warm up and got out of the water about 40 minutes later.

We talked a lot about how this meet was going to be won with the 3rd, 4th & 5th place points. It was a fair prediction…we started with the 200 medley relay, a great race seeing Kasey Campbell coming back from about 3.5 seconds to out touch the ESU swimmer and securing 2nd place. (ESU 13 / LHU 4)

Shannon Samanka, Erin McCracken & Becky Fountaine cruised to a 1-2-3 finish in the 1000. (ESU 16 / LHU 20)

The 200 free saw a great back and forth race with Kasey Campbell just getting out touched for a 2nd place. Ali Schaefer & Shannon Wilbur picked up the valuable 4th & 5th place points. (ESU 28 / LHU 27)

The 50 free was another fantastic race with Sam Durham, Brittany Williams, & Rachel Vagnoni taking 2nd, 3rd, & 4th. All with great times … (ESU 38 / LHU 36)

The 400 IM saw the ESU swimmer break the LHU pool record and the LHU swimmers race really well. Amanda Palmer, Janel Kinard & Meghan Grenier took the 2nd, 3rd & 4th place … with Meghan having a really gutsy race to finish strong. (ESU 48 / LHU 45)

After a short break the 100 fly was swum by Amanda Palmer, Rachel Vagnoni & Janel Kinard … with Palmer & Kinard swimming the tough back to back. It was another 2-3-4 finish. (ESU 58 / LHU 54)

The 100 freestyle was another awesome race with freshman Sam Durham coming from behind to out touch the ESU swimmer by .03 seconds. Brittany Williams and Erin McCracken swam great races to put us in the lead. (ESU 65 / LHU 66)

The 100 backstroke had 3 really big time drops with Ashley Gardner, Nicole Faulstick and Ali Schaefer placing 2nd, 4th and 6th. (ESU 78 / LHU 72)

The 500 was another 1-2-3 LHU finish. Kasey Campbell, Shannon Samanka & Becky Fountaine scoring big points. (ESU 81 / LHU 88)

The 100 breaststroke had 2nd, 4th and 5th place finish. This was a great race by Rachel Vagnoni, Amanda Palmer & Brittany Williams … all had awesome last 25’s! (ESU 93 / LHU 95)

The 400 free relay was another close finish with LHU placing 2nd & 3rd.

Final Score (ESU 104 / LHU 101).

Although we lost by 3 points I can honestly say the atmosphere in the bleachers was electric … our men’s basketball team was out in full force leading the way. Also in attendance was LHU swimming legend...the former Tatiana Patakyova.

The team was a little bummed by not winning, but it sure wasn’t for lack of effort. Even with the hard/intense workouts we had this week…EVERY SINGLE swim we had was a season best time. Not to bad.

Set of the Week

Here is a good set we recently did ...

4 rounds
100
2 x 50
100
2 x 25

round 1
@ 1:40
@ :40 AO
@ 1:40
@ :20 AO

round 2
@ 1:20 AO
@ :45
@ 1:20 AO
@ :30

round 3
@ 1:20 AO
@ :40 AO
@ 1:40
@ :30

round 4
@ 1:40
@ :45
@ 1:20 AO
@ :20 AO

Mansfield

Our first dual meet of the year was a Saturday morning trip to Mansfield. (only about 75 minutes up the road)

Donny the bus driver was there right on time and after a dunkin doughnuts breakfast (no doughnuts) we were on the way. The DVD of choice (brought by me) was The Legend of Bagger Vance … after it started, the ipods came out and the eyes shut. I have never been much of a sleeper on the bus…but some how some way the women always seem to crash out.

We arrived in plenty of time for a solid warm up...all decked out in our new logo’d swim camps. The women looked really sharp. Mansfield is in rebuilding mode with a new coach and only had a few women to race. We ended up exhibitioning the last 4 events to win the meet by a score of 90 to 59.

Highlight of the meet would have to be Amanda Palmer qualifying for the PSAC meet in the 200 fly…the earliest she has ever qualifed.

Swimmers who raced the same event last week in Clarion who dropped some time are:
Alison Schaefer in the 200 free going 3 seconds faster and 2 seconds faster in the 200 back.

Samantha Durham in the 50 free going .9 faster.

Shannon Samanka in the 200 im going 3 seconds faster and 10 seconds faster in the 500 free.

Janel Kinard in the 200 im going .1 faster (hey it counts)

Amanda Palmer was 2 seconds faster in the 200 fly.

Shannon Wilbur .04 faster in the 100 free (still counts)

Nicole Faulstick 2 seconds faster in the 200 back.

Ashley Gardner 1 second faster in the 200 back.

Halloween Practice

The traditional Halloween practice was a success … how could it not be? New practice caps (this year … new meet caps too) and a small ton of candy. (I dropped $50 bucks on some high quality sugar and 14 wonderful apples).

Before going too much further I need to give credit where credit is due … the halloween practice comes from my year as the Graduate Assistant coach at Slippery Rock University where the coach, Bob Ogoreuc, had been doing this practice for years. After I took over the Head Coaching position at SRU I invited Bob back as the guest coach and he gladly participated. After 2 years at SRU as the head coach I took the job at LHU and brought the tradition with me.

This is how it works … There is a water jug full of candy (aka the pumpkin) and before the practice begins each of the women receive a new orange or black practice cap (aka the pillow case). The coaches have a slip of paper for each one of the women on the team…saying one of three things. (1) CANDY (2) a mini set (TRICK) (3) or a game (TREAT) … when a slip of paper is drawn from the bag the women either get Candy, play a game or do the mini set.

Examples of what the slips of paper say (in addition to CANDY)
4 x 75 @ 1:00, 300 im, 10 x 25 @ :20
3 minute drag jump

a few of my favorites are…(inspired by watching Survivor)
“pick 2 people to swim a 100 fly with and the rest eat candy”
&
“pick 3 people to eat candy with you and the rest do a 100 fly”

Some of the games we do are sharks & minnows, duck duck goose, and the famous bob for apples (this year’s epic battle for the last apples came down to Nicole & Rachel). The picture a the top of the post shows Sam Durham with her apple.

(Sorry Mr E … I realize this is too much sugar for the team, but I assure you that with how hard they have been working they earned it)

Clarion Fall Classic

Our first ‘real’ swim meet of the season for the 4th year in a row was the Clarion Fall Classic. This is a really good meet to kick off the season because it offers every event that we compete in throughout the season except the 1000 & 800 free relay (but lucky for us the 1650 is offered … more on that event shortly).

The women had to sign up for a total of 6 events … the 1650 counted as 2 events. I was nice enough to surprise everyone by entering 4, 200 freestyle relays (the last event of the meet) … giving everyone an additional 50 freestyle.

We boarded a bus driven by Dave. After 2 uneventful hours we arrived at the Super 8 in Clarion. Not the classiest joint to stay at in Clarion but for the total amount of time spent there (+/- 12 hours) the price was right. (one room even came with a refrigerator that doubled as an air ‘freshener’ … the scent of a 3 week old salad is probably not a top selling scent). We unloaded bags and headed to the pool.

After a longer warm up than usual we settled in for the evening swimming. I told the women to focus more on effort rather than actual time. With how we trained all week I wasn’t expecting overly fast times … (a later comparison found that only 1 repeat swim from the year before, out of 14, was faster than the previous season … something I expected and am completely okay with)

Dinner was Vinny’s delivery … 4th year in a row and they didn’t disappoint. As we got started with dinner we were graced with the HBO showing of “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” … the Kevin James & Adam Sandler duo is quite hilarious.

Saturday morning had our 4 brave 1650 swimmers waking up earlier than everyone else, grabbing some breakfast and heading to the pool with myself. The remainder of the team got an extra 45 minutes of sleep and road over to the pool with Katie, arriving in time to watch the 1650.

After the day of swimming we boarded the bus and parked at the Clarion Wendys giving the team the choice of Wendys or Subway. For dessert we had multiple goody bags full of cookies and sugary snacks provided by several different swim team parents and supporters. All delicious stuff!!!

Finishing in the top 6 this weekend were…

~Amanda Terray (200 backstroke) 1st – 2:09.87
(PSAC cut time)
~Rachel Vagnoni (200 breaststroke) 4th – 2:46.83
~Amanda Terray (50 freestyle) 5th – 25.93
~Kasey Campbell (500 freestyle) 6th – 5:41.72
~Amanda Palmer (200 butterfly) 2nd – 2:201.30
~Kasey Campbell (1650 freestyle) 4th – 19:40.44
(all time top 5 performance ~ 5th)
~Amanda Terray (100 backstroke) 2nd – 1:00.94
(PSAC cut time)
~Amanda Palmer (400im) 3rd – 5:05.37
~Vagnoni, Durham, Campbell, Terray (200 fr rel) 4th

Next up is our Saturday morning trip to Mansfield.

Kick ‘til You Die

We do this swim set once or twice a year that is a 100 swim starting at 2:00…subtracting 1 second after each one…making # 2 on 1:59, #3 on 1:58 etc. going until the swimmer can’t make the interval anymore.

This morning we did all out kicking across the width of the pool starting on 1:00. I was really pleased with how the set went … started a little slow so next time we will be doing this with shoes and potentially adding something after the first 20 or so when the women are getting over :30 rest.

(note: we did this set morning after our hour of power … adding to the leg fatigue)

Dirty Dozen Minus 1 (with shoes)

We did the world (not so) famous hour of power / dirty dozen (minus 1) with shoes today…basically the women are in the deep end of the pool treading water. In small groups (we ended up with 4 groups) doing the dirty dozen.

Dirty Dozen consists of 1 press out, 1 push up, 1 full sit up for every width of the pool swum. The first time you do 1 of each, second time you do 2 of each, third time you do 3 of each … continuing on until you reach 12. (doing the dirty dozen minus 1, the final number is 11 … dirty bakers dozen is 13).

For today’s practice, when the women weren’t doing the dirty dozen they were in the water. Arms out of the water whenever anyone in the small group was out of the water. (which happens quite a bit in small groups)

All with shoes on … not an easy hour!

Crimson v. White

Saturday, October 11 was our 3rd annual Crimson v. White meet and it was glorious. Leading up to the meet we had a really great/hard week of practice.

While at the meet, I really enjoy seeing the women show some spirit and get up and cheer for each other. This year’s squad is a young one and I am hoping that the “team” we had this weekend continues to be the “team” we have throughout the season!! It will sure be fun to watch.

Before the meet I told the women to keep the focus on racing rather than the times. The best thing about the sport of swimming, in my humble opinion, is the racing aspect of it…there isn’t anything better.

We had 3 meet records broken...

Amanda Palmer broke 2 of them the first being the 100 fly with a time of 1:04.57 besting Ashley Lightcap’s previous time of 1:07.42 and the 200 im with a time of 2:26.70 besting Stephanie Kudrick’s previous time of 2:29.01.

Amanda Terray in the 100 free with a time of 58.23 besting Kelly Grieneisen’s previous time of 59.00. (note: Freshman Samantha Durham was also under the old record with her time of 58.89)

Coach Katie and Joel were in charge of dividing the teams and the returning swimmers were in charge of putting together the line up. Everybody did such a good job that the final score ended up being Crimson 44 / White 43. Good stuff!!

We have 2 really hard weeks of practice coming up leading up to our first ‘official’ meet @ Clarion.

Bulletin Board Contest

Katie, our graduate assistant, and I tried to “do the bulletin boards” last week…our efforts were met with disaster. After about 10 minutes and 2 attempts to put the paper on 1 of the 3 boards it became quite apparent that if we continued on the boards were going to look quite dreadful.

Then light bulb: lets make this a team building opportunity. That afternoon at practice we announced to the team that the next afternoons practice would consist of dryland and a bulletin board contest. The team was divided into not so even teams of 3 and each team picked a board and topic to cover. The topics were … records, quotes/motivation and information.

The prize is an exempt status from lane lines and first dibs on the dunkin doughnuts I provided after that morning’s workout.

The winning board (as selected by myself, Katie and Joel … our student assistant), by split decision, was the information board.

I have no shame going on record to say I couldn’t even come close to putting together the ‘masterpieces’ that were the team boards. Great work!!

(note: the crackberry cam doesn't do the boards justice!)

Set of the Week

Our first week of practice is all done! Most of the water workouts have revolved around some drilling and some easy swimming...nothing too fun to report in terms of actual sets. Outside of the pool we are trying to increase our fitness level. This year we are going to be doing a lot of jumping rope to help us with this.

SO...our first set of the week is the dryland workout we did Friday morning.

(conducted in a gym)

Jumping Rope
3 min steady jumping warm up

:15 AO jump
Sprint down/back
10 pushups

:30 AO jump
Sprint down/back
10 pushups

:45 AO jump
Sprint down/back
10 pushups

1:00 AO jump
Sprint down/back
10 pushups

3 min steady jumping warm down

Team Activity #1

We recently had our first team building activity. As previously mentioned our team is full of super new faces and we (as a team & coaches) are putting an emphasis on some early team building so the women will get to know each other before the “fun” begins. (fun being practice).

The afternoon started with some free time then we proceeded to have a “cook out” complete with Kentucky Fried Chicken. After the meal we did some name game type of activities. Which included the women writing some an interesting fact about themselves on an index card, which was then collected and read allowed and the team had to guess who’s fact it was. Some of the highlights include a standing back flip, freakishly double jointed shoulders, a whitewater rafting trip and almost being arrested.

The evening concluded with an old fashion egg toss…good stuff.

Week 1

Our first week of classes has come and gone. We ‘enjoyed’ our first team meeting (a shade over 90 minutes…I am a bit of a talker) followed by the next evenings NCAA meeting with the administration.

This was my 4th ‘welcome back’ team meeting and afterwards I couldn’t help but to think about the first one. There weren’t even enough people to fill up the seating at the picnic tables outside of Zimmerili. Last year we were able to sit on the benches in the hallway outside of the spectator seating in the pool. I naively thought we could go there again this year…I was wrong. We had to move to one of the gyms…(note: we should have moved to a classroom)

With a roster of 15 freshman, 4 sophomores, 4 juniors and 1 senior…(for the non-math majors that's a total of 24).

This year’s freshman class outnumbers any of the previous year’s entire roster!!

T-Minus 1 Week...

Greetings! It has been a super long time since our last season ended!!

I am awfully excited for the 2008-2009 season to get underway. We had a great building season last year and with a HUGE freshman class this year we should continue to see our program grow by leaps and bounds.

We have 1 week until our first team meeting.

Be sure to check back for more regular updates!

PSAC Rookie of the Year

The PSAC conference office has just announced their annual post season awards. Every year a male and female are named as Swimmer of the Year and Rookie of the Year. These awards are voted upon by the conference coaches.

Amanda Terray was named the 2008 PSAC Rookie of the Year after a great season and post season. In continuing with the season of firsts, this is our first ever conference post season award.

I also want to point out that Dave Rider who is retiring from coaching after “many” years of at the helm of the Bloomsburg women was named the Women’s Coach of the Year. Congratulations to Coach Rider.

The Monday After

First things first. Traveling back from Columbia couldn’t have gone smoother. Our flights were all on time or if you can believe it EARLY. We arrived in Cincinnati with about 45 minutes to spare and actually that flight left about 10 minutes late, giving our luggage a little extra time to make it to the plane.

We made it back to Lock Haven at decent hour...I unpacked, and promptly fell right asleep.

Finally ... after looking through our one HUGE posting for NCAA's I have decided to re-organize and re-post each day. Nothing new will be posted (eventually I may add a picture or 2) but it will be easier to go through and relive the week if it is better organized.

Day 8 ~ Travel Day

Our schedule (subject to change!) is as follows...
8:25am depart Columbia, MO
9:15am arrive Kansas City, MO
11:45am depart Kansas City, MO
2:30pm arrive Cincinnati, OH
3:00pm depart Cincinnati, OH
4:24pm arrive Harrisburg, PA

note: the 30 minute connection in Cincy...cross your fingers for us that we make it!!

Day 7 ~ 200 Backstroke

I knew today was going to be a good day when I bought a slightly overpriced mountain dew from the hotel pepsi machine and on the other side of the cap was a “buy 1 get 1 free” coupon.

I rocked our conference championship T-shirt this morning. After all, last time I wore it Amanda won the 200 back at PSAC’s…

We were the first team to arrive, something Amanda was very happy about (only a slight hint of sarcasm there). She eventually got into the pool and did a really solid warm up. Some build ups working the turns.

The first event was the 100 freestyle and the PSAC will be well represented by both men and women in tonight’s finals. The second event was the 200 backstroke. There were 4 total heats, and Amanda, seeded 8th, was in the 3rd heat, lane 3.

She swum a very smooth race. Going out slightly slower than she did at PSAC’s. Her 3rd 50 was too slow and hopefully she won’t let up on the gas as much tonight. She brought it home very well and finished with a time of 2:03.81 (another lifetime best!). Puts her in 4th position for tonight’s final.

After giving the announcer a slight dig in last night’s posting based on his messing up some of the bio’s, I need to give him some props today. He offered me a congratulations on the night before and during the race when Amanda was leading her heat (before the 3rd 50) he reminded the crowd that Amanda was the only LHU and first LHU swimmer at nationals. Maybe he does better without a script?

Going into tonight she is in a little better position than yesterday. There isn’t much to lose, she swam a lifetime best this morning and after taking another quick look at the top 8, I can’t help but to notice she is the only freshman in the championship final, (1 sophomore, 2 juniors, and 4 seniors).

Tonight is all about what Amanda does best…racing. Win, lose or draw she still gets another trip to the podium, a sweet trophy and All American status. Not a bad day.

We attempted to do lunch at IHOP again, but found the doors to be overflowing and so we decided to give Cracker Barrel a shot. We had a wait of about 30 minutes…time was spent playing a game of checkers. (I got my butt kicked!) We had a hearty, filling meal and headed back to the hotel.

Again, nap time and tredmill time await…4:30pm departure for the pool.

(just a quick note about the overall team race … we are 29th, not bad…but there is a tie between perennial swimming powerhouses Drury and Truman State and it is going to be really fun to watch the teams go at it. On the Men’s side, West Chester is currently in 2nd place and is probably not going to win it, but will be fighting to hold on to the silver medal)

~finals~

For those who didn’t get a chance to look at the live results, I will spare you the suspense. Amanda was third with a smoking fast time of 2:01.95.

We talked about a few things that needed to happen to make the final swim faster then her preliminary swim. The first being out in the mid 59 range (Amanda went 59.60), the next was not letting up on the 3rd 50, I was thinking to not go any slower than 31.99 (Amanda went 31.61) and finally kick in and out of the turns (I have no clue if this happened b/c I was a too excited to make mental notes of the turns).

We ended up arriving at the pool a little later than usual, which turned out to still be plenty of time before her race. There were 2 heats of the 1650 and then all the heats of the 100 free, awards and finally the 200 back.

By virtue of finishing in the top 8 twice, Amanda ends her freshman campaign a 2 time All-American.

Amanda swam 5 events this weekend, 50 free prelims, 100 back prelims & finals, and 200 back prelims & finals, each performance was a lifetime best. Awesome.

This season was very much a roller coaster for Amanda and I am so proud of the fact that she ended up on top! I think we can make some adjustments to how we train next season to build upon this year’s successes to continue doing some great things. Next years national meet will be in Houston, Texas…but we are going to take some time to savor this season before thinking about the next one.

Here is how all the PSAC institutions finished at the NCAA meet.
Women…
West Chester, 7th with 202 points
Clarion, 8th, with 190 points
Edinboro 18th, with 54 points
Lock Haven 26th, with 29 points
California 27th, with 27 points
Bloomsburg 30th, with 15 points

On the Men’s side:
West Chester 3rd, with 316.5 points
Clarion 18th, with 68 points
IUP 26th, with 15 points

Finally, thank you to all those who texted, emailed, called and facebooked us. Sorry if replies didn’t come fast and furious and most weren’t nearly as long or detailed as I would have liked (I was uncharacteristically short winded most of the time). Your support did (and still does) mean a great deal to us. Thank you.

Day 6 ~ 100 Backstroke

Let’s just get to the important part of this morning’s events because I know our loyal readers want to know…I rocked the pink lady eagle swimming t-shirt, jeans and white nike kicks.

Oh yeah, we had the 100 backstroke today. Here is how the morning unfolded...

I made my way over to the opposite side of the pool so I could write the times off everyone in an effort to find out what place she was going to end up a few minutes before it would be announced. Shortly before the backstrokes Chris Rhoades, the Edinboro coach, joined me offering his support and cheered just as loud for Amanda as I did.

As previously mentioned we were seeded 10th going into prelims. I was pretty close on what it would take to get into the top 8. I was guessing 57.2 or 3…turns out it was a 57.17. Amanda’s time this morning … 57.17 (a lifetime best). YESSS! Mission accomplished…she made the top 8. Awesome!

For the non-swimming crowd out there…by virtue of being in the top 8, she is guaranteed no lower than 8th place. This is great b/c we literally have nothing to lose we can only stay the same or (hopefully) move up. Also, the top 8 get to march out to some music and have a short bio read about them AND perhaps more importantly get some on the awards podium to receive some “hardware” as well being awarded the distinction of ALL AMERICAN. It's a pretty big deal...

Taking you through the race a little bit. Amanda was the only swimmer in her heat to not grab the starting block at the start (she grabs the wall). Not sure why I noticed that little factoid, but I did. The start was respectable, not her best, but defiantly not her worst. She spun her wheels a little bit so for tonight’s warm ups we are going to add a few more starts to the routine.

We had been working on getting into the walls really strong (backstroke turns permit you to do a full freestyle stroke before you flip in every practice for the past month we have done something to practice a fast turn). I give the first turn a B minus, the second turn was brilliant, an A plus, flipping early enough to get a full stroke in AND furiously kicked her legs to accelerate the process, it was great. The last turn doesn’t get a grade b/c I don’t remember it.

Amanda is a great finisher and this morning was no different. Ended up 3rd in her heat and 8th overall. After the race, I could tell there was a sense of relief and a great deal of excitment with Amanda. So far 2 swims at NCAA's, 2 lifetime bests!!

Lunch was consumed at Ruby Tuesday. There was a decent lunch crowd joining us that included the University of Wisconsin Softball and Toledo University Baseball teams. We enjoyed a rather satisfying meal with just one exception. Dorthoy, Amanda’s sister, discovered the hard way that the redskin potato salad is actually an apple salad. To put it nicely, she wasn’t overly thrilled about her discovery.

Traditional nap and tredmill time this afternoon with a 4pm departure.

BTW, “live timing” can be found @

http://www.mizzourec.com/

(look under “recent news”)

~finals
Departure time for the pool was 4pm. Much to the sha-grin of Amanda, and pretty much 90% of all the swimmers I have ever coached, I strongly encourage an nice long early warm up, stretch, then have a more race specific warm up closer to the start time. It’s just my style I guess…which is why we are usually one of the first teams at the pool and hopefully one of the first to hit the water. To her credit Amanda hasn’t whined too much about this…

We did get to the pool in plenty of time to swim before they became saturated with swimmers. Our race specific warm up consisted of 4, 25’s … the first 2 where all out, the next 2 where just good breakouts. I felt good about them, but does it really matter how I felt?

With the help of Amanda’s monster towel, which she laid out upon our arrival, her mom and sister scored some front row seats. They arrived and disappeared one at a time only to reappear a short time later proudly sporting matching T-shirts. They were airbrushed shirts of an oversized duck with some supportive wording and Amanda’s nickname. I think Amanda loved it.

The start of the meet finally had a real American Flag, the ROTC color guard placed themselves atop the 10 meter diving platform, for the national anthem. It’s a nice step up from the “cartoon” on the mini-jumbo-tron (is it possible to have a mini-jumbo tron?)

The meet started with the 500’s … seeing the oldest record in all of D2 swimming (1987) get broken by an amazing swimmer from Southern Connecticut State. The men’s 500 saw 3 swimmers from PSAC powerhouse, West Chester, in the championship finals. The next event was the 100 backstroke.

Before each championship final the swimmers have to report to the “ready room” where they are lined up (lane 1 is first, lane 2 is second etc) and marched to the starting block to a song selected by the top seed.

Amanda walked to lane 8 looking a bit nervous, but very confident at the same time. The announcer stumbled through a bio sheet for each swimmer, he usually screws up more then he gets right, and announced to the crowd that Amanda was Lock Haven’s first ever NCAA qualifier and the PSAC runner up in this event.

Amanda’s preliminary swim was much more technically sound (I don’t think I would give any of her turns a grade above a B minus), but tonight she managed to have the exact same time at the halfway point which is a testament to the racing mentality that Amanda possesses. Her feet hit the wall last at the 50 yard mark, but in typical Terray fashion she picked up the pace to finish up the race a shade faster than her morning swim…57.11. A new lifetime best and was good enough for 6th place, improving 2 spots.

So far she’s had 3 total swims and achieved 3 lifetime bests…

Dinner was a small feast at Applebees where a majority of the time was spent calling and texting various people with all the highlights. The Wisconsin Softball team made another appearance only to walk back out the door when they realized there were only 2 empty tables available. After eating out for this entire week it is going to be a LONG time before I go anywhere but home to eat again.

Let’s look ahead to tomorrow’s race…
Key’s for Amanda to have a successful 200 backstroke are get out quick (I am hoping for a 59 at the 100 mark), great turns (utilize the freestyle stroke, and kick, to get into the walls quick), not letting up on the 3rd 50 (sometimes Amanda lets up on the 3rd 50). Of course all this will go in one ear and out the other b/c once the race begins it is exactly that … a race, and I can’t wait to watch!