Getting ready for Day 1 at YMCA Long Course Nationals

As I was talking with Coach Kim, Kristin and Scott this morning at practice, one of the areas we were discussing was out of the 21 athletes we have at the meet this year, only two (Harry and Leah) are Seniors. This means 19 of the WSY swimmers participating this year will be at the Spring National meet as well as any new qualifiers we have. In the picture above (Turtle, Jessie, Gracie, and Anna) each of these girls will be at this meet in the next 3-5 years. It is great to see the progress of each of the WSY swimmers as they develop in our program. Many of the younger swimmers get their first experience of a "Travel" type meet with the Swim International meet in Canada each November. The next step is setting your goals on the Long Course National meet as well as the Short Course National meet and onward to US Nationals, and then USA Olympic Team Trials. We are looking forward to seeing the many great swims this week by not only the "WSY Veterans", but the "WSY First Timers"

We arrived late afternoon yesterday, and the hotel staff was very organized, had all of your keys and room assignments, which allowed the stress level to be kept down, and everyone to get into their rooms. The hotel is very nice, and we are on the 2nd floor, which makes for short elevator rides. We swam for about 90 minutes yesterday, and mad our grocery run, as well as had some quick pizza. We had our first team meeting last evening where Adri, Steph, Claire, and Eric talked about motivation and working together as a team. We had some discussion of how the week will flow, and team rules. Everyone always gets excited in a new environment, thus sometimes we are not conserving energy for the remainder of the week. Then it was off to bed for the 5:15am wake up call on Monday (7/28)

Well, the air conditioning is not working the best in Coach Scott and I's room.....you know what that means, Coach Mike is complaining a bit. I awoke and told Coach Scott "I did not sleep like a rock, rather more like a pebble". Don't worry I will have this fixed by the end of the week....hopefully today. 5:30am, was here and everyone was ready to go. As always WSY was the first to the pool, therefore got great lane space and had an awesome workout. After our workout we went to the University of Maryland Dining hall and had some good breakfast, had a few minutes to relax and then it was back over to the pool where we officially registered for the meet, always a fun time. Back to the hotel to relax until lunch. Today is probably the day where the swimmers have the most "down time", as after today we are moving by 5:15am until about 9:30pm.

In our team meeting later today, we are going to talk about some team goals. as well as hear the "Thought of the Day" from Lauren, Justin, Lauren, and Emily