Swimming and diving Puerto Rico daily blog

RELATED LINKS

Photo Gallery

After dreams of our weight trainer Jordan falling off the paddle board (oh wait, that happened) we awoke Wednesday morning to beautiful rays of sunshine coming through our windows. We headed down to another delectable breakfast, and then headed out for the next phase of Christmas training.

I'm in the mid-distance/distance group with Todd, so we started out on the TRX and med balls partnered with some good old fashioned jump ropes and stadiums. Sprinters began the day doing weights in the old school Rocky-style unairconditioned gym. Todd stood with his sunglasses looking all fresh with a little smirk on his face as he watched us from the highest point of the stadium.

Then we had another grueling swim practice and it was back to the hotel for our two lunch (they are giving us the equivalent of two meals now for lunch ... yum) meal overlooking the gorgeous beach.

After getting some much-needed naps, we headed out to the beach for the next survivor challenge. Purple and Red teams were over one hundred points behind going into today, but with some help from some bonus points for GPA and good performances in practice, they looked to challenge the Blue and Green teams. The challenge was a water bucket challenge, where teams had to line up and pass a bucket full of water from the ocean to the big bucket at the end of the line; the team who filled the bucket at the end of the line first won. Teams had to work together to figure out speed but also coordination to keep from spilling the water.  There were three races passing the bucket while on our knees, in between our legs, and lying on our backs.  Red and purple teams wrecked shop as they got first and second in two of the three bucket races!

We headed back to the pool for the second practice of the day, still in awe of the mountains and ocean we pass by on the way to the pool.  Some of the brush looks a little like Jurassic Park, but we haven't seen any T-Rex yet.  Some of us are convinced dinosaurs live on the island we can see in the distance from our hotel … Sean has joked about us swimming to the island on Saturday; maybe if we made the ten mile swim we could find out.

At the pool we got 'er done with an intense freestyle heart rate set. Sometimes in sets like those you don't know if you're going to make it, but when you overcome you are rewarded with a sense of accomplishment that cannot be replaced. Our successes in the pool are something no one can take away from us; we take those experiences and let them make us the strong women we are who can conquer anything-whether in the pool or out of it.

After practice we played a quick game of "go," (Todd's version of "pigeon") where he says a word that sounds like go and tries to trick you into jumping in the pool, but when he actually says go you want to jump as quickly as you can so you're not out.  Junior Nicole Menzel won the game, earning 100 points for the Wakka Flakka Flames! The Flames (my team) made a flying come back, and after finishing last place on Tuesday, they surged to second place, with the green team still in first, blue in third, and purple in fourth.

Sean also announced to the team today that our team GPA for the semester was a 3.47, showing some solid work in the classroom, too!

At the end of the day, we realize the team competitions are all for fun and the training is all for the goals we want to accomplish as a team and individually.  We are still one team with one dream, committed to going the distance, all the way to 212 degrees.

We have a meet against Chicago tomorrow and four practices left in our training trip. Finish strong, ladies!

Sponge out,
Tera Bradham (redshirt freshman)

A note from the diving core:

Today we had two practices! Both practices were very productive with everyone improving. We did 3m dives in order for us to get ready for the meet tomorrow against Chicago. After practicing we had a beach competition, where we had to get in an assembly line and pass a bucket of water to each other and then fill the water into a large bucket. Whoever filled the bucket to the top first won. The red and purple team came out on top.

Meghan Clark (junior diver)

In case you missed it:

Tuesday's Blog

Wednesday's Blog