Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Winter?

As Virginia and much of the rest of the east coast was getting pummeled by one of the biggest winter storms in recent memory over the weekend, our team enjoyed beautiful weather in south Florida all of last week. Here's the view from the short course pool at the Deerfield Beach high school just as the sun sets:


A practice setting I could get used to.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Training Trip Day One

Day one of our trip is in the books. We're actually not down in Florida yet though. It's a two-let trip from Ashland to Deerfield Beach, and the first leg brought us to Savannah, Georgia tonight. We got into our hotel just outside of Savannah earlier than expected, and so we decided to drive into downtown Savannah to find a place to eat. This turned into quite an adventure. First, I'll say that downtown Savannah looks very charming, with a really cool restaurant/shopping district, narrow cobbled streets, and some picturesque homes within walking distance of the waterfront.

I'll also say that finding downtown parking for two 12-passenger vans on a Saturday night is an almost impossible task. On street parking wasn't going to happen for us, and the narrow cobbled streets were pretty much off limits. We did find two parking garages...with a maximum clearance of just over 7 feet. Unfortunately, our van (with a bike rack on top) clears 7 feet easily. We found this out the hard way, twice, backing up traffic as we backed out of the cavernous garages that did not want to house our oversized vehicles. We didn't make too many friends in doing this. I'm pretty sure our team is no longer welcome in downtown Savannah. In the end, we were forced to retreat to a more suburban Applebee's for a late dinner. It was quite an ordeal, but I'm glad we were able to venture into town during our brief stay here in Savannah.

Hitting the tarmac again at 7 am. Next stop: Deerfield Beach, Fl.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Meet Recap - YJ Invitational

Our swimmers competed in the 8th annual Yellow Jacket Invitational over the weekend, held right here at R-MC. Six women's teams competed, plus two men's teams. Our Yellow Jacket swimmers came out on top on the women's side, with a 94 point margin of victory over second place Mount Saint Mary's University. This meet comes at a busy time of year for our swimmers, falling on the weekend in between the last week of classes and final exam week. To say that student-athletes are under stress at this time of the semester is an understatement. Nevertheless, we did have several highlights from the weekend:
- Rebecca Stevenson claimed Co-Individual High Point Award honors by winning all 3 of her individual events. Rebecca took the 500 free and 200 free on Friday, then dominated the 1650 on Saturday.
- Tracy Spurrier had 3 solid swims in the 500 free, 200 back, 1650 free combo. The 200 back on Saturday was a lifetime best.
- Sarah Almond anchored the 200 free relay with a 24.19 split on Friday, while playing safe on the relay start. Might have been sub-24 with a quicker relay exchange.

Race videos will be posted shortly. Complete results of the meet can be found here.

I'm looking forward to getting our women some quality yardage in Florida next week. The 10-day forecast is looking good for Deerfield Beach!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Time is Flying by at the Pool

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this season is really flying by. It's almost hard to believe that our Yellow Jacket Invitational is this coming weekend, but here we are at the symbolic (and almost literal) midpoint of the season. Our swimmers are working hard as the semester comes to a close, with classes ending this week and final exams next week. Before they know it we'll be heading down to Florida, which will hopefully be sunny and warm (it was when I was down there just a few weeks ago).

For now, I'm looking forward to some good competition and fast times at the invitational. The women have put in some quality yardage this fall, and it'll be exciting to see how they can swim.