The Carthage Red Men Swimming Team had a successful day one of the first ever NCAA Division III Long Course championships! 500 Free, 200 IM, 50 Free, 200 Medely Relay, We swept it all, getting first, second and third (as well as all other places) in all of the events. We were even able to swim the relays with one person instead of four!Okay, I am only kidding. This was our warm up bright (or dark) and early this morning. After a wonderful afternoon off for a kayak adventure, we hit the pool again this morning, and boy was this practice a doozie... We began with the meet warm up, then the distance/mid-distance swimmers got hit with a pretty difficult main set (it began with 6x 350's mixed free and IM, then 8x 250's pull, and eventually concluded with 6 or 8x 150's fast free) then split off into our seperate groups for some specialty work. Pat and I did some sprint 75's and 50's, but others did some distance work, and some finished with some lifting in the workout room. Now, I do have to say something serious. As a freshman on the team, I am always impressed with the way this team handles a difficult practice, and today was a perfect example. No one ever resents anyone else's success, and everyone supports each other when the going gets tough. I cannot count the number of times I saw someone cheering someone else on, or got urged on myself. There were so many high fives in the pool this morning that I think even Borat would be impressed. This morning, our team was incredibly supportive, and I think our performance in the pool was a result of that.
Anyways, back to the events of the day. Since we were lucky enough to wake up at 5:30 this morning, we were able to come back to the hotel and grab a quick breakfast as the rest of the hotel was just waking up. Some of us then set off to Venice Beach for some fun in the sun.
After I(Pat) got a quick bite to eat, I glanced at the clock and noticed that I could snag a quick hour of sleep before, as Alex put it, some well deserved fun in the sun. We all gather up, smelling of sun screen and tanning oil, and hop into the busses to take the 5 min drive to Venice Beach. Once we get there, we all mark our territory with our beach towels and bags. Right away, Bax pulls out the frisbee and we start running around like chicken with our heads caught off diving for catches. Soon the frisbee throwing made its way to the water and it brought everyone in with it. Sneaking up behind and dunking each other, jumping on each other's backs, and making our way out to points where even Ryan Ortmann could not touch ensued. About 45 min later, we all take a break and decide to bury Chris Varner and make him have the body of his dreams on the sand. As the seagulls gathered around, we tried (Ortmann, Isaac, Varner, and I) to have a seagull grab a pretzel or a cheeze-it out of our fingers. The only sucessfull one was Varner who had a seagull nab a french fry out of his fingers. As it came time to leave, we had one last laugh when Ben Coder was, well lets just that a seagull picked his spot and aimed well. The busses came, we packed up and cleaned off all of the sand or as much as we could.
Alex- We got back just in time to, guess what...GO BACK TO THE POOL. Now we here on the team are pretty careful when throwing around the term "recovery practice" but this afternoon was pretty close. We began with a warm up snake, where we swam up and down each of the lanes, and then diagonally back (underwater) from the end of lane 5 to where we started in lane 1. Then someone decided to let Issac lead us in follow the leader. Such power should not be put be put into his hands... After following Issac aimlessly for a few minutes, we began our main sets with a focused skull/overkick set, then a fun 25's stroke/ 100's free set, followed by some much appriciated free floating time.
Pat- As we arrived back to the hotel, some of us went back out for some much needed grocery shopping. I needed some more skim milk of course and other random comfort foods, i.e E.L.Fudge cookies (made by my 2nd cousins as some like to believe). I came back to some much needed food intake in the form of bacon and pinapple pizza. I settled down for the night with a few games of instructional euchure with a couple of the freshman and made a few calls home. Now as I sit here with Alex writing this entry, a world of memories and ideas rush through my head. Remembering how we all got behind each other when we had our "get in" swim to try and beat the NCAA "A" Cuts. How this morning we were making Borat jealous with all of the high fives we were handing out to each other. How much of a team we are becoming in and out of the water. It just gives me chills on how great of a team we are becoming. This is THE deepest team I have ever been with, not only on skill and ability, but also personalities that just mesh with each other naturally. The potential we have as a team seems endless. The next couple of days and soon to be last half of the season will be one for the books. I have a feeling that when it comes to conference time, other teams will be fratically clicking refresh on the results to see if they got into Big Meet.
Alrighty everyone its time to hit the hay. We have another early morning tomorrow so it is time to get some sleep. Have a great morning, noon, and night!! Night everyone and take it easy!
Alex "Jayhawk For Life" Boyer and Patrick "Has to jump to reach Ryan Ortmann's head" Alfes