Speed Meet Update #2

I had two races and two good stories about things that happened today. I'll try to keep everything brief.

200m Free - The first thing that happened was that my silicon cap broke as I was pulling it on. A good chunk of the front came away in my hands. Thinking quickly I pulled the back part way off and got the cap into a position to cover as much of my head as possible. Geoff Braid (who is on my team) was in the land beside me and had quite a good laugh. In the race I had a good dive and swam long and strong. My goal in a 200m race is not to go out too fast and die for the end. My time was 2:12 (beating Geoff's 2:16 or whatever). This is 6 seconds slower than my best time (about par for this early in the season).

50m Free - The object of this race is to go as fast as you can for as long as you can. My dive and turn were both good and my time was 26.7. My best time is 25.8 so this was a good race. When I was talking to Marc Tremblay (my coach) after the race he asked me how many times I had breathed. I took one breath on the way out and three more on the way back. He told me to drop that to two on the way back next time. Oxygen Nazi.

One good story from today was the bet I made with these two other guys. I bet them a Milk 2 Go that I would eat an entire mandarin orange (including peel) in one bite. It turns out this is easier said than done. First the orange is too large to get good biting power. Second the peel tastes horrible. After a good long time chewing I got it all down. I'll collect that Milk 2 Go on tuesday.

In finals I had to swim in a 200m medley relay (each person swims a different stroke for 50m). Mark Phillips (another coach) told us the order we were to swim (Steven, Brody, Kier, Derek). We protested that Keir was beter at Free for longcourse (they switched for finals for some reason) and that I was beter at Fly. Mark P just told us to swim it and not to worry. Meanwhile Marc T (head coach) went and switched me to Fly and Kier to Free without telling anyone. Our relay team was disqualified for swimming in the wrong order. Being all optimistic I focused on the fact that I had swam 50m Free in 26.4 seconds (3 tenths faster than the morning).