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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

As the snow continues to fall here in Toledo, I can only keep wondering when the warm weather will be arriving. I have been fortunate enough to be able to workout at the EFC Training Center during the past week a few times, but I want to stop having to layer up so much before going outside to run. Brrr. I can only dream about running in a t-shirt and shorts some day soon.

This two-stage blizzard has been something else! On Friday night, I left for Canton for the Ohio JV Swimming Championships. After trekking through the blizzard conditions that left most of Ohio in Level 2 and Level 3 snow emergencies, we arrived in canton five hours later (its a two hour drive to Canton on a good weather day. The kids quickly had to shave down and get to bed so we could be up and going to the pool in the morning. The meet is a fantastic opportunity for those high school swimmers who were not selected for the Varsity lineup in the upcoming sectional and district swim meets. For several of the swimmers that I coach, it was their first ever championship meet and they were extremely nervous. I, on the other hand, was extremely pumped up for them. I had seen their progress all season and was confident that they would be dropping a lot of time due to an effective taper. A few of the girls only knew freestyle--without rotary breathing-- at the beginning of the year; so, to see them compete in a championship meet at the end of the year was so exciting.

The meet started off great with one of the first year swimmers dropping 3 seconds in her 50 free! I knew from the second that she popped up off her streamline that it was going to be a fast swim for her; her tempo was faster and her technique was better than I had ever seen her swim before. This was, however, topped a few hours later by a NINE SECOND drop in her 100 Free!!! I think I actually jumped up a little bit on deck due to the excitement. We had several athletes make the top 8 and get to stand on the podium to receive their awards. How awesome! All of the girls swam their best times of the year and came out quite decorated with many top ten performances. I could not have been happier and more proud of them as a coach.

I returned to Toledo late on Saturday night and ready for a long ride on Sunday. Time to transition into athlete mode! I don’t think I have ever done an indoor ride as long as I did on Sunday in my life (2:20), but it went by quickly with company from Rob and Kel. I am so determined to improve my bike this year and am really anxious to get out and race. I need to have that bait dangling out there in front of me for some extra motivation. I am feeling healthy and confident in the direction that my training is going in. So far, my body has held up great with my ever-evolving gluten free diet. The goal for the next week is to experiment with a few GF flours and create the most delicious GF bread the world has ever seen.