cmc's blog

Wow... that's the first time in a long time that I can actually say I thought I had a really good meet. With the exception of one event, I swam faster than I have in 6-10 years. Not bad, considering I didn't really taper (of course, when you're averaging less than 2000/day, there's not much to taper from if you're swimming 200s). Anyway, here's how it went down:

Saturday

• 200 back: 2:14.23 (5th, and best time since 1994)... and yes, I finally got you, Grant ;-)
• 200 Mixed Medley Relay (fly): 25.71 (first time under 26 in at least 8 years)
• 200 free: 1:57.39 (4th, and first time under 2:00 since 1997)
• 50 back: 28.10 (4th; this was the only event that didn't really feel great this weekend... probably because I was concentrating on 200s)
• 200 Free Relay (leadoff): 23.64 (this was my fastest flat 50 in at least 8 years, maybe longer)

So, Saturday kicked butt... but that was the easy day...

Sunday

• 200 fly: 2:12.24 (2nd, and my best masters time; the last 25 still hurt quite a bit... gotta work on that before nationals)
• 200 IM: 2:11.68 (2nd, and my best time since 1993)... my heat turned into en epic battle between me and Ron Kurza, and he just touched me out... good thing he's not in my age group. Next year, Ron... just you wait :-)
• Mixed 200 Free Relay (anchor): 23.46 (not bad, and my best relay split in a long time)
• 200 breast: 2:28.88 (good enough for 3rd, and my best time in 6 years)
• 200 Medley Relay (back): 28.09 (at least it was faster than Saturday, and that was a miracle in itself, considering I was pretty much dead after the 200 breast)

So Sunday was even better than Saturday. Folks were actually talking about how well I was swimming... I'm not exactly used to that, but it was a nice feeling. Kinda adds a little credibility to the coaching I've been doing :-)

To follow that up, I'm taking a day off, and then getting back to preparing for nationals in a little less than 3 weeks.

Sometimes an extended entry deadline is all I need to get up the gumption to do something... in this case, that something is going to USMS short course nationals. So... not only am I going, but we're making it a family outing. Meg's gonna be spending a lot of time on planes in the next month or two.

mmmm.... Florida... warm... yay!

Wow... I've never gotten food poisoning this bad before. I was up pretty much all night Monday, and slept as much as I could on Tuesday... but I still feel like dog poo. At least I can stand up now without feeling like I'm going to pass out at a moment's notice. Something tells me a half-day of work is in order so I can go back home and crash on the couch. Mmmmm... couch... nap... but we'll see.

I can remember when I was in college watching Big Sammer barrel into the pool some afternoons... he'd have this hurried look on his face, but he'd look me in the eye and say "I'm runnin' around like a commanche," crack a big smile, and keep on doing what he was focused on.

The older I get, the more I notice what that feels like some days (like later today is going to be)... and when I watch others get that feeling, it definitely brings back that memory...

Anyway, here's to the commanches, running around, doing the work, and getting things done. Hope we all get some rest sometime soon.

Found a theme that I actually like that only took minimal tweaking to get just the way I like it (the page navigation on the blogs could stand to be cleaned up a bit, but for now, things look pretty decent).

If anyone's wondering, the theme's a slightly tweaked version of the reflection theme that's floating around the Drupal sites. I did some playing with the style sheets to make almost all the fonts match (see above), and I took the header graphic and gave it the 234west touch (which means I made GIMP do the few things I can figure out, and out came what you see).

I may try to brighten up the colors at some point, but for now, this will do.

Back to work for me...