Sure... Now it Stops Raining

After risking life and limb to spend hours outside in the rain at a swim meet I wake up to a clear dry day... naturally. After going out for a late breakfast and floating around town for a bit I made my way to the SLO Kennedy to get in a bit of a recovery swim. I made sure to time it to the Super Bowl so as to not have so many people around. The gym was a ghost town and there were twice as many lanes than people in the pool.

My swim was only 2000m... I just wanted to stretch out my muscles from yesterday's meet and make sure I kept adding to my Go the Distance totals. Somebody passed me in my age group and I need to catch back up!

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

2 x 500 swim

200 IM
200 swim

2000 meters total

2010 Rose Bowl Masters Meet Wrap Up

Results for the meet are available here!


there was no shortage of water at the Rose Bowl today!

I was down in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl Masters meet and it's fair to say that there was a little bit of rain today! Oh man! The drive down from Thousand Oaks was pretty treacherous and there was a lot of standing water on the freeways. Unfortunately the mix of the rain and the roads discouraged a lot of people from showing up today. We still had a decent number of swimmers floating around considering the circumstances, but there were a lot that must have just hit snooze and slept through their morning instead.

The first order of business was finding shelter on the pool deck. The meet hosts had plenty of pop up tents out that you could hide under, there were also heaters on deck and the always popular hot tub was in full effect. There were 3 of us from CVMM today at the meet and we piled up under a pop up on the side of the pool, we had a great view of all the action and we actually stayed kinda sorta dry.

My first event of the day was the 500 free. I'm yet to have done this event as an adult so it was a bit of a learning experience. It all actually went pretty well. I didn't feel so hot in the middle but my splits were pretty consistent once you throw out that first 100. I was seeded right next to Ahelee who is one of my coaches and I held her off for the first 250 but she pulled ahead of me around the midway point. I almost caught up at the end of the race, but she beat me by a little bit. We may need to work out a rematch in the near future here :) I finished in 5:44.81 and split it roughly like this - 1:02, 1:10, 1:12, 1:12, 1:08. There's a lot of room for improvement there, but I'm glad that I can swim it under 6 minutes at least!


swimming the 1000 free

The 1000 free was a first time, possibly ever, for me- I don't think I even did it as a kid. I was a little apprehensive about the event, but I figured I needed to swim it like the 500... just a touch slower. I started out pretty good and got myself into a solid rhythm, it didn't hurt that the dude in the next lane was going the exact same pace. Part way through the rain really turned up and I even felt like the wind pushed me across the pool a bit! Just like in the 500 I was really consistent with my splits in the middle of the race. From the 2nd 100 to the 7th 100 I swam between 1:15 and 1:16, the other 3 100's on the ends were faster than that. I finished at 12:19 which I don't really know if it's good or bad, but it came in under my seed time (that I pulled out of my ass) so I'm cool with that.


Me and Ahelee after the 1000, she beat me... again

My last race of the day was the 200 free and I was smoked! The good news is I took 2 seconds off of last years time, the bad news is I gassed out... bad! I went out in :59 and finished with a 2:07, whoops. Up on the blocks I had Bob Strand, who is an all star breaststroker, feigning ignorance when it came to this whole freestyle thing... he assured me I should beat him just fine. I didn't particularly believe him, but based on my first 100 it seemed like it might happen. He was a little too far behind me which made me suspicious. About 125 yards deep the proverbial piano fell on my back. I'm pretty sure I considered an open turn at the 150 mark! Anyways, Bob caught me... then passed me... I almost caught back up in the last 25 but he got me by .2 seconds. Afterwards he made sure to make fun of me mercilessly and point out that he's 36 years my senior... he did also go ahead and give me some pro tips on how to handle the 200 so I guess it all evens out :)


me with Bob Strand after he out touched me in the 200 free

The upside to today is that every thing was a best time and they're all team records (yay brand new team)! A big thank you to Patrick and Helene who counted for me out in the pouring rain; I can hardly count up to a 200 in SCY so your services were highly appreciated! Also thanks to Becky and Ahelee who took some pictures for me today!


more of the 1000, check out that rain!


Done with the 1000

me and James from Kennedy in SLO

Becky from CVMM launching off the blocks!

best part of the meet, hot tub!

For more pictures check out the Rob Aquatics Facebook Page

Friday Night in the Rain with CVMM

Got out of work a little bit early today to get to Thousand Oaks in time to get in a quick workout before my meet tomorrow. I was still a bit sore from that workout in Santa Maria yesterday so I needed to get wet and stretch it out today. I decided to do the majority of the workout but I did skip about half of the 50's towards the end, I didn't want to over do it.

200 swim
200 kick/swim
200 drill

4 x 50 @:50 descending

32 x 25 IM order @ :30

8 x 50 @ 1:15 alternating slow/fast by 50 (16 for eveyone else... I have a meet tomorrow)

8 x 25 warm down

2200 yards total

If you want to see parts of the Rose Bowl meet tomorrow check out the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center's web cam, it updates every minute. Not exactly live streaming but it'll do! There's also a site to follow along with splits and things like that as they happen over here. Bear in mind that this is in beta and may not be perfect just yet!

Here's a couple of pictures from tonight! I have some video too but you'll have to wait for that... I'm crashing at my coach's place tonight and I didn't bring my laptop to edit it.

SPMA is on Twitter!

If you're into Twitter and have an interest in Masters Swimming in the Southern half of California plus a little piece of Nevada go follow @SPMAupdates.



The majority of the updates will come from me and our SPMA Webmaster Chris. We'll keep it up to date with Southern Pacific Masters meet info, results, pictures, and anything else important to SPMA. I use twitter, probably a little too much... you can follow me at @smsrob. USMS tweets as well, you can follow them at MastersSwimming.

As Usual... My Shortest Workout Turns Out to be the Hardest!

Today hurt! I swam in Santa Maria and we hit it hard this afternoon! When asked what I wanted to do today I made the mistake of mentioning I had some longer distance races this weekend. Turns out that was the wrong answer and I was punished accordingly :) Once we got past a fairly long warm up we moved into 4 repeats of a set of 5 100's on a roller coaster type interval. That first pass wasn't too bad, but the cumulative effect of the whole thing was pretty substantial! There were 4 of us swimming today, 2 of us did the intervals below:

400 swim
300 kick
400 pull

Repeat x 4
100 @ 1:35
100 @ 1:20
100 @ 1:30
100 @ 1:15
100 @ 1:25

3100 yards

That was the shortest workout of my week and by far the most intense. Tomorrow I'm hoping to swim in Thousand Oaks with CVMM for a little bit just to keep my feel for the water, and then Saturday morning I'm racing at the Rose Bowl Masters Meet in Pasadena.

In looking at my Go the Distance numbers, I should hit my first milestone of 50 miles either tomorrow or during the meet on Saturday. I'm pretty stoked about this seeing as it took me until somewhere in the later part of April to get this far in 2009!

Do I Count as a Marine Mammal?

So it's official... I'm completely ridiculous. I was messing around with my camera tonight at the pool and decided to have some fun with it. Consider this my audition for Steve Zissou's marine research team :)



So here's today's workout

400 swim
300 kick
300 pull

100/200/300/400/500/400/300/200/100 free

100 easy

3600m total

I had a good swim tonight. I had the pool completely to myself for like 30 minutes, fantastical. Tomorrow I should be back in Santa Maria for a lunchtime swim... I need a group swim and some sunshine... as the video above has proved, I've obviously lost my mind.


a shot underwater in the dark with a flash, not too bad

2012 USMS Nationals in the Same Pool as Olympic Trials? What Do You Think?

As you might have noticed with my interview with USMS Executive Director Rob Butcher earlier in the week, he mentioned the idea of running USMS Nationals in conjunction with US Olympic Trials in Omaha. Today USMS sent out an online survey to swimmers that have participated in National events to see if they're into the idea. Sounds like it something that's in danger of actually happening!

Personally I think it's a cool concept and I'd love to make a trip out of watching the Olympic Trials and then doing my own swimming in the same pool. What do you guys think? Vote in the little poll below and feel free to argue it out in the comments :)

Late Night Long Course

Work got in the way of my usual Tuesday lunchtime swim in Santa Maria so I had to go do my own thing tonight instead. It sort of feels like the old days when I did all my swims solo late at night. I've gotten a lot better at going longer distances by myself and it's cool to swim solo sometimes, but I still really like working out with at least one other person when possible. Also... sunshine... I like sunshine. In theory I should be back to normal on Thursday and get my vitamin D fix.

Tonights workout was simple but effective:

repeat x 3
500 free
200 kick
200 pull
200 kick

3300 meters total

As you may have noticed I'm still messing with my new waterproof camera and today I tried it out in the dark. The pictures are screen captures from some video I took. The video is ok, but it's really grainy. Still not bad for an extremely low light situation.




In other news... there's a new cool feature in Go The Distance. You can enter your goal time for the year and it will let you know how you're doing in relation to that goal each time you add a new workout! I'm aiming for 365 miles and I'm all ready up to about 45, hopefully I can keep this pace up!

Rob Aquatics is Going Back to Wisconsin in April!

The Wisconsin Masters are having their state meet on the 10th and 11th of April and I've decided that it's a perfect excuse to go visit the family and do some swimming! I'm going to make a 4 day weekend out of it. The big plan is to drink beer, eat fatty foods and swim fast!

I signed myself up for the 50 free/fly/breast, 100 fly, and the 200 fly. I'm excited to swim in Wisconsin, especially at Schroeder... it's a fast pool! I swam a couple of state meets there as a kid and I did a workout there last year on my Midwest World Tour.

Seeing as I'm the first person to register for the meet I am the Wisconsin State Champion in everything! At least that's what I'm telling myself :) I have a feeling that's going to change shortly, but at least I was the fastest register... that's gotta count for something right? So far I have 2 other Californians who are planning to come out which is pretty awesome! Who else wants to swim in the land of beer and cheese with me? You can register here.


Schroeder Aquatic Center

Tonight I went out and made sure to get a good start to February's GTD numbers. I swam 4000 meters tonight at Kennedy.

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

10 x 100 swim

7 x 200 kick/swim/pull by 200

2 x 500 swim

4000 meters total

Swimmer Profile - USMS Executive Director Rob Butcher

Rob at last year's Charlotte Ultraswim

Name: Rob Butcher
City and State: Sarasota, Florida
Age Group: 37 years old; 35-39 age group
Team Affiliation: Sarasota YMCA Sharks Masters

I know you're a pretty fast guy, what kind of swimming background do you have?

I found swimming when I was in high school. It was an escape for me. My step dad was an alcoholic. He was very negative and physically intimidating. I just couldn't stand being around him so I needed an outlet. Swimming happened to be what I found. I walked on my high school team just hoping to find some fun, and something that maybe was more peaceful than home life. I swam my junior year and instantly connected with my teammates. Many of them swam year round so I stayed with it just so I wouldn't have to be home.

I knew upon graduation that I was going to move and wanted to go to college. My high school coach swam at Georgia Southern University (GSU) so he made a phone call. Quite honestly, I wasn't fast enough to swim for GSU but they gave me a chance. I swam all four years for GSU, graduating in 1994 with a BBA in Marketing. I stayed one more year for grad school getting my MS in 1995. I then got an internship with Auburn University working in their athletic department. It was at Auburn that I met David Marsh and Rowdy Gaines, and that opened my eyes to the swimming world. It was also at Auburn that I joined Auburn Masters. After my year long internship at Auburn, I moved to Washington DC to work in the University of Maryland Athletic Department.

While in Maryland, I swam a couple of Masters meet and went times faster than I had when in college. In the summer of 1997, I swam my first USMS Nationals in Orlando. They were the fastest times of my life and got me thinking about the Olympic Trials. I moved back to Florida, to Daytona Beach, and started training under Steve Lochte. Steve was brand new to Daytona and was out to change the mediocre culture of the Daytona team. We were a perfect compliment in that way.

The journey was a wild run and fraught with disappointment but never giving up. My times actually got slower through the rest of 1997, through 1998 and into 1999... until we had a breakout meet in spring of 1999 to quality for the Olympic Trials in the 100 breastroke. The Trials experience was very memorable. There were 84 guys in the 100 breastroke and I was seeded 81st. I ended up I think 50th and went a lifetime best. I turned 28 during the Trials week and knew it was time for me to move on with my professional life.

In January of 2001, I started with NASCAR and worked in the racing industry till coming to USMS. I traveled a lot while with NASCAR and would use Places to Swim of usms.org to find the nearest pool in just about every city.


photo source USMS.org

When did you take over as executive director?

Chuck Wielgus (Executive Director of USA Swimming) and Rowdy were the ones that recommended the USMS ED position for me. I was hired in June of 2008 and at the time was considering opportunities with the NBA, NFL and MLB. In sports, if you have a record of being able to generate revenue there will always be interest. I was involved in some pretty big deals while in racing so that attracted interest. But my hope all along was to follow my passion and be part of USMS.

Now that USMS has moved its headquarters to Sarasota, where do you swim and how often?

I'm a member of the Sarasota YMCA Sharks Masters (SYSM) program. SYSM has terrific team spirit and is supported by the age group program. SYSM has programs to fit all levels and abilities, from the beginner to the triathlete to the competitive Masters swimmers. Rick Walker is the head coach. He's got the gift of leadership and knows how to motivate.

What are your favorite events to swim? When's your next race?

There is a running joke in USMS that we only hire breastrokers. Well, most of the staff does enjoy breastroke but we also have Tracy, Mark and Mel who tease us about the safety stroke. My favorite races though are the relays. I think I traveled probably 25 weekends in 2009 visiting USMS programs. Most of the time, I'll arrange my travel around a meet so I can meet as many coaches and Masters swimmers as possible.


Rob in Indy for USMS LCM Nationals

What do you feel was the biggest achievement for USMS in 2009?

2009 was a milestone year for USMS. We introduced a new logo and brand; we selected Sarasota as our home and opened our first ever headquarters; we went over 50,000 members; and we added critical staff so we can grow and better serve our members. But I would say our biggest achievement was electing Jeff Moxie as board President. Jeff has set lofty yet attainable goals for USMS; we will continue to embrace the volunteer spirit of USMS, we will grow to 100,000 members, and we will define our USMS endowment program and grow it to $10MM.

What's your vision for 2010? What programs and problems is the USMS staff going to spend the majority of its time on?

Our objective is to implement our Action Plan to meet the objectives Jeff has set out. In 2010, we will continue to invest time and energy into our communication, infrastructure, club outreach and marketing so we can better serve.

Can we look forward to any new member benefits launching in 2010?

We improved the insurance members receive by adding in disability and expanding what is covered. We will be seeking more insurance benefits too for members. SWIMMER magazine is being revamped with more letters from members and content to fit the general interests. Our Streamlines for members, Streamlines for Coaches and Streamlines for Volunteers are wildly popular reads. SwimFest, our annual Masters Coaches clinic experience, will be in San Diego and is generating tons of interest.

USMS is acting as host for the 2010 USMS LCM Nationals in Puerto Rico and I've heard talk of USMS hosting other events. Anything currently planned or are you guys looking to get Puerto Rico handled before you move on to other big events?

USMS has incubated the H2Open series. The idea is to support existing open water events with national marketing, national promotion, and national media. 2010 is a learning year for us with H2Open. Looking forward, we are working with the City of Omaha and USA Swimming about hosting our 2012 LCN immediately following the Trials. There are still obstacles but if we can pull this together, I think it would be a signature opportunity for USMS.

Squeaked Past 40 Miles for January!

I was a man on a mission today. I finished yesterday with about 37 miles for the month and I really wanted to break 40 for January. So I did the math last night and figured out that I needed about 4400 meters to make it happen. I ended up doing 5000 just to make sure I really made it in case I was mathematically deficient.

Repeat x 5
800 swim
200 kick

5000 meters total

I'm ending the month with 40.37 miles swam! That translates into just shy of 65,000 meters or a little more than 71,000 yards if you prefer your measurements in a more imperial fashion. It's my best month ever in Go the Distance, I'm hoping I can push it a little further in February!

Lap Swim Nirvana

As far as swimming a solo workout goes, today was about the best possible situation! I had my own 50m lane all to myself for 4000 meters on a sunny Saturday afternoon! How great is that? The only bummer about today was I forgot to charge my SwiMP3 before hitting the pool so I had to swim to my own internal soundtrack.

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

Repeat x 3
500 swim
200 kick

800 swim
200 kick

300 cool down

4000 meters total

In the middle of my workout I met a guy 2 lanes over who reads the blog and follows me on Twitter. It always catches me off guard when people know who I am, but I'm always glad when people say hi! If you see me out at the pool or a meet drop by and say hi, I'm all about meeting new people!

I'm still playing with my new camera, here's a little video and some pictures... the video has a very retro video vibe, I think it's from little streams of water running over the lens while I was kicking.

Here Comes the Sun!

The view from my kickboard... I'm squinting in the sunshine

65 and sunny is way more my kind of January afternoon! Looks like we're done with the rain for at least a little while and it felt great to get out in the sunshine and swim at lunch today. We were 3 guys deep today, the 3 of us seem to be getting pretty regular with the Tuesday/Thursday workout which is good because I think we're all about the right speed to push each other.

There wasn't a planned workout today so we made one up at the wall. I got in 400 yards before the other guys got in, and then did about 2000 yards with them.

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

6 x 50 kick @ 1:15

12 x 100 alt. IM & Free @ 1:40

12 x 25 sprint @ :40

2400 yards total - I got in 45 minutes on the elliptical machine tonight too

In other news... I got a blog comment tonight pointing me towards the blog of someone else that was at the Las Vegas Masters meet last weekend. Check out Jinxi's recap of the meet over here, this was her first meet in 20 years! Congrats on the comeback!

Since I'm still playing with my new waterproof camera, here are some shots from the pool today!


random artsy looking shot

kicking during warm up

have I mentioned I love having a waterproof camera?

the bottom of the Paul Nelson Pool

I Must Be Doing Something Right Because I'm Sore All Over!

I think my increased yardage mixed with starting to go back to doing some time in the gym on the elliptical is starting to pay off. I'm feeling a little skinnier and about 3/4 of my muscles are sore at any given moment! Today was just a swim day because I started to run out of time and I have a bunch of stuff to get done tonight.

For tonight's swim I did the stock warm up and then switched up to some 100's at a fairly quick pace and 200's at a medium pace. I was swimming solo tonight so I broke out the SwiMP3 and kind of retreated into my own little world.

I spent a lot of time contemplating what events to enter for the Rose Bowl meet coming up soon. I'm really not sure what to do with myself since as a general rule I avoid pool events ≥ 200 yards and that's the only kind of stuff they have available. I'm thinking maybe the 500 free which I haven't done since high school and possibly the 200 fly? Or since I have a lot of open water to prep for do all the freestyle races (500/1000/200)? I don't know... I'm going to keep agonizing over it in my spare time :)

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

4 x 100 @ :15 rest

4 x 200 @ :15 rest

200 kick

100 easy

2100 meters total

I've got a bunch of writing and thinking and buying of stuff to do tonight! I should have a new product review and my plans for short course yards season online in the next couple days...

Online Registration Now Available for February's Rose Bowl Masters SCY Meet!

Rose Bowl Masters are having a meet on the 6th of February and it's time to go get registered online for it! The meet is all 200 yard events and above, it's a good chance to get in a lot of these longer events that aren't offered at every meet.

I really like the Rose Bowl Masters and I've spent a lot of time with their team at swim meets. This was the only SPMA SCY meet that I missed last year and I'm excited to finally get down there and swim at their pool!

Click Here to Register!

Waterproof Cameras, Monofins, and Another Swim in the Rain

semi submersed digital self portraiture

After a short break from the rain it came back again today. It's not storming like it was last week, now it's just raining... a lot. I figured a rainy Tuesday was the perfect opportunity to bring my monofin since I shouldn't have to share a lane, and it was as good a day as any to try out my new waterproof camera that I got back in December.


up on the pool deck... beautiful day huh?

On deck it was pretty miserable, but the pool felt great. It was nice and warm and there was a little layer of steam on the water. I got in the water right away and waited for eveyone else to get in. I dunked my camera to make sure it was really waterproof and proceeded to mess around with buttons and take some pictures.




Our main set had a big chunk of kicking in it and I decided to use my monofin for most of it. I love how fast you can go with these things! I will say though that you get gassed out pretty fast because you're moving so much water. I'm going to have to start bringing this to Santa Maria more often while the weather is bad and not as many people are swimming.

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull

4 x 100 @ 1:30
10 x 50 kick (did 8 w/ monofin)
4 x 75 swim @ 1:15
18 x 25 pull @ :25
4 x 50 @ :40

2450 yards total

I capped off my day with a trip to the gym for some dryland action yet again. I did 45 minutes on an elliptical machine and was drenched in sweat by the end of it so I guess it worked :)

I took some random video in the pool to check out that feature... here's the view from my kick board and a little bit of me swimming!



Once I've had my camera for a little longer and used it more I'll do a review of it.

Talking USMS Suit Rules on The Morning Swim Show

USMS Executive Director, Rob Butcher, is on the Tuesday installment of Swimming World Magazine's Morning Swim Show. In the segment Rob talks about how the suit decision came to be and a little bit about his feelings on the matter.



All I'm saying is bring your A Game to Atlanta for SCY Nationals in May! I have a feeling that we're going to see some unreasonably fast swimming and maybe even some elite people that normally wouldn't swim masters that want to get back in the water with a tech suit!

Suprisingly Motivated

I was extra motivated today for whatever reason and did a swim and dryland workout tonight! I started with a swim at Kennedy in SLO. I did about 1600 meters by myself and then joined up with another one of the guys for the rest of the workout. We were joined by a third a little bit later. I wasn't feeling super fast in the water, but it felt really good to get in the water to work out all the stiffness and soreness from a couple of flights and a swim meet.

1000 swim
300 kick w/ fins
300 pull

4 x 200 free

100 IM
300 Free
100 IM
200 Free
100 IM
100 Free

3300 meters total

After my swim I went home for a little bit to put on my shoes and turn around to go to another branch of my gym to do some dryland action. I spent about 40 minutes grinding out an elliptical machine workout. I hate the elliptical but I have a feeling it's good for me. What I really need to do is get back out on my bike... hmmm... maybe I should get it tuned up this week and start riding again, it's been a while!

Have Video of Your Stroke Evaluated by Experts at Go Swim!

Go Swim has been launching a bunch of cool stuff recently (don't forget to go get their free iPhone app!), and I think their most recent project is very cool and very useful for swimmers without coaches or those that want a second opinion. For $15 you can upload video of you swimming and they'll deconstruct your stroke and give you their analysis of your swimming. Check out the video below for tips on how to take video of a swimmer in motion.



For more details on the program and a tutorial on how to upload your video for evaluation go here!

I have a new waterproof camera that has yet to go on its maiden voyage... I think this may be the perfect motivation to get it wet and figure out how it works!

While I'm talking about GoSwim... go check out the interview that Gold Medal Mel did with GoSwim cofounder Glenn Mills, if you want to read more about Glenn check out the interview I did with him here on RobAquatics back in August!

2010 Las Vegas Masters SCY Meet Wrap Up

UPDATE 29JAN10: Results have been posted here


2 flights and a quick drive later I finally got to the pool!

Today was the first SPMA meet of the SCY season and it was hosted in Las Vegas! Not a bad place to start the year! Both of my flights were on time this morning and I actually got to the pool early which turned out to be a really good deal. I ran into Rowdy Gaines as I got into the pool area and got a chance to talk with him for a while. Rowdy is such a nice guy and it's always cool when I get a chance to talk to him a little bit in person! He's in town for something with the local age group team... I tried to talk him into deck entering but unfortunately he was a little busy. He did swim a little bit though during warm up, I got to swim beside him for about 1000 yards which was very cool for me!

Once warm up was over I had a good chunk of time to hang out before I actually raced. This meet starts with the 500 free and that tends to take a while to work through. I hung out with the Rose Bowl Masters today since this wasn't a team meet for CVMM.

I started out with the 50 fly today and my race went pretty well. I swam a 26.8 which is a pretty decent showing for the first meet of the season. I haven't done much short course speed work recently and I didn't dolphin kick as far as I usually do so all that being said I think I might be able swim a low 25 this year.

Up next was the 50 breaststroke which is typically a "palate cleanser" for me. I'm not a b-stroker. I had a pretty decent swim, good pull down with a dolphin kick (that's new for me) and besides an awkward extra stroke at the 25 I had no major mistakes. My timer was having a stopwatch meltdown during my heat so I didn't get a time at the end of my race. Amazingly when I checked the results on the wall later I found out that I won my age group! I swam a 33.15 which isn't a best time but really good for me.

In theory my 3rd event was the 100 fly but I missed it. The acoustics in the pool were really bad and I didn't hear the event announced. All the heat and event announcements were very Charlie Brown's Teacher-esque. Wahh wah wah wahh wah wah... On the one hand I'm bummed I missed the 100 fly, on the other my body was starting to cramp up.

I finished up with a 50 free and it wasn't exactly my best work. My calf cramped up on the blocks and I just wasn't all there for it. I swam a low 26 and I have a little video for you below... as usual I'm the handsome bald man in the bodysuit :)



I got a few pictures throughout the day... here's some of them!


apparently we had some Elvis' in attendance

That's Rowdy Gaines doing a flip turn

... that's me swimming next to him!

the Desert Breeze Park Pool

I present you snow on a mountain :)

Now I'm at New York New York about to go run all over Vegas and have some fun! I'm flying back tomorrow!