Coaching

Coaching has become one of things I really enjoy spending my time doing.  It is a way to give back to the sport that has really been such an important part of my life.  I love sharing my love of swimming and fitness with the kids.  I love seeing them develop the skills to get them across the pool and seeing them set goals and improve.  They all have different little personalities and I enjoy trying to find ways to motivate them and help them learn the strokes.  They make me smile even when I'm losing my voice.  I have confused people by saying "my kids have a swim meet"...
It is also very special to me to be coaching for the team I grew up swimming for.  It's a long standing club with a history of excellent swimmers and coaches.  And I feel great pride and responsibility being at the ground level, work with the future so to speak.  And this year I've just got a great feeling about the future for the club.  The novice families are great and enthusiastic, case in point, today I held an early morning special practice, just to get in some extra dive practice off blocks.  With just a few days notice, I asked families it they would be interested in heading to the University pool on a Saturday morning for a 1/2 hour of diving, this would be over 1 hour before the regular novice Saturday am swim in another pool in the other end of town so they would be getting out of one pool and then heading to another.  I didn't know that families would think it worth the while, so said I needed 5 kids to say they were interest in order to make it a go... well I was overwhelmed with "we're in" responses.  I ended up with 20 kids and feeling like an 1/2 hour was not nearly long enough.   And just to make it a classic special practice, I was emphasizing throwing oneself off the blocks and found myself off balance and in the pool, much to the kids laughter!
I've also had the excitement of having my first novice swimmer making a Regional time.  It is quite an awesome achievement!  I can't take any credit, this 10 year old is in my once a week swim program, so just has some natural talent.
Anyways to sum it up, the future for HAC looks bright and I'm thrilled to be involved.

HAPPY EARTH DAY

It spans mountains and oceans, surpasses borders, it unites us because it makes no judgement about one way of life over another, it is powerful yet delicate and giving, it is harmonious, natural and beautiful, it is EARTH!

Respect, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

!

Boston marathon bombings

I wasn't there, but many of my friends were.  Thankfully none of them were hurt physically.  Emotionally, that may be a different story, but it is this which makes us stronger.
The emotions I felt as I learned of events and as I had an opportunity to reflect are difficult to put into words, there was fear and then relief for my friends, there was anger, exasperation and sadness, there was concern about the future of events like this, which in my opinion are important to humanity.  As I learned of the death of a child (a spectator), it rattled me to think of my own children who have been supporters in similar events; I never specifically worried about something like that before, but I know you can't live in a bubble (or put one around your children) and something bad could happen anywhere. We can't let evil win, we can't give up doing things we love because of fear. 
For a little over a year, I've been quietly thinking about attempting to qualify for this race, this tragic event will not stop me, and it may even inspire me to get er done.  
Peace!

some friends in Boston

1st swim meet in awhile = fun times (but not very fast times lol)

Good Friday, an unusual day to participate in your 1st swim meet in awhile, but that's where I found myself and a great group of team mates!

It was Masters Provincial Championships and my first meet in 2 years.  I was slightly nervous about this,,, people seemed a little shocked when I told them this, but it's true; I've had some swimming 'ups and downs' in the last 2 year and sprinting in a pool felt oddly unusual and intimidating.  But this is where the power of team can come in and help out even in an individual sport.  It was really my friends/team mates who drew me in, to giving it a go.

But my fears, unfortunately didn't inspire me to train harder or more often in the pool.  The meet remained a secondary "goal" as I was focusing more on my running; with about 60% of my workouts being running, 30% swimming and 10% spinning.  And Around the Bay 30k road race was just 5 days before the swim meet.  I had high hopes for ATB; but due mainly to some leg issues leading up to the run, I was mildly disappointed with my run of 2:53 ~ well off (15 minutes) my best ATB time, which I had hoped was going to be beat this year.  My leg was still causing me some pain on swim competition day.

So you might think my fears, my lack of swim focus/training, and the short recovery time after the 30k run, would mean I'd enter just a couple events, but I maxed out my events on the 1 day (of the 3 day meet) that I attended.  6 individual events and 2 relays.

orange cap (me)

It started with 50 Breast, I managed to do it in 40.5 seconds and came 3rd.
Then 50 Back, a very unusual event for me (I normally never do it, but I was picking 6 on this day and the 6th event was either 50 back, 200 back or 200 fly, so you may understand), officially the results say 38 seconds, but I'm pretty sure this is wrong.  Our coach and the lane timer got me at 41 which seems much more likely.  38 is going to be a very hard time for me to ever beat as a PB, I'll put a star beside that one LOL.  38 got me 4th, but so would 41, as 5 came in at 45 seconds, so I don't feel too badly about this time I don't really believe is right.
Then 100 IM, it felt okay until the free leg (key word leg ~ OMG I was feeling my legs, and not in the way that means they were working for me) 1:24.11 ouch! for 6th (sadly though 1:23 (still a few seconds slower then my typical 100IM) would have got me 3rd...)
The next event of the morning was the relay, and this is the fun part!  The team portion really adds something to my regular "individual" events.  This relay was the medley, Caroline was in for back, Sandra breast, Denyse fly and I brought it home with free and a fairly reasonable time of 31.4 and 3rd place.  BMSC's other relay team of Petra, Sarah, Colleen and Lynn took 1st.  Yeah team!
Then I had my own individual 50 Free with a 32.08, oh how I wanted under 32. (4th)
The rest was going to get conceivably harder, my events were getting longer and I was getting worn out:
200 Breast 3:24 (5th) and 400 free 6:13 (11th) ~ definitely tired!
And one more relay, mixed free, with Wade, me, Denyse and Remi, I only managed a 32.2 on this one and we only managed 6th.

TEAM

I was spent, but the shower felt wonderful.  In fact getting out of my swimsuit felt wonderful (squeezing into Cadence's racing suit for a whole day is not comfy ~ and I will never wear it for anything 400m or more again)

Well BMSC (our team) came 2nd overall, we had significantly less swimmers then 1st (the host team) and we even had fewer swimmers then the 3rd place team.  Someone did the math and points per swimmer we were in fact first.  So we all went out for a celebratory team dinner and fun!  And when we are tired and a wee bit waterlogged, we get kind of silly!  But that's another story that is probably best left unwritten :)