LIVE!! From Harvard University, Blodgett Pool

OK, well not quite live. There was no wi-fi at the pool as I had anticipated so I couldn't bring you live updates. Sorry about that. At the end of day 2, we are holding strong in 19th place. Turns out that last weekend there was a day of distance events...1000 yards, 1650 yards etc....you know, super long stuff that only crazy people like triathletes are willing to race. So there are at least 6 teams that started the day on Friday with 500 points. So we don't have any chance of catching them...they're already up to 2000 points (one team has 93 swimmers) so we can't compete with that (we only have 9). So out of 58 teams, we'll settle for 19th...for now. There's a chance we could sneak up to 18th - the team ahead of us is only 49 points up - but instead of a top 10 finish, I think we'll have to settle for a top 20 finish. We need more swimmers. We spent most of dinner scheming ways to recruit more people. We've devised several plans to convert the fence sitters and I think we should come up with an incentive plan for recruiting... yeah, that could work...

Anyway, before I knew that there was no wi-fi, I had Weasel Boy film a little video for you all so here it is...I was thinking about everyone and wishing I could keep you updated....



Don't you think I should pursue sportscasting?? heh.... And how fun is my t-shirt? Got it from a GREAT gal who happens to be dating my SUPER brother. My family loves me...

Let's see - results for me so far...My first event was the 200 Breastroke which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be - which means I could've pushed harder!! Finished that in 3:34:88. A good baseline for now. I beat my PR times from the Exeter meet in the 50 Free and the 100 IM... 50 Free came in at 37:12 - but I swam the freestyle 50 in the 200 Medley Relay and posted a 36:02 so that made me happy - even faster. In the 100 IM I swam a 1:33:97, up from a 1:36:98 - 3 seconds faster is no small feat for me!! Cool. And in the 400 Freestyle relay, I swam the second leg of 100 Free in 1:22:96 up from 1:23:69.

My favorite part of the day was at the very end...I had noticed a man that for some reason looked familiar...he was kind of limping around though and I hadn't seen him swim...but the longer I looked at him, the more I became convinced I knew him from somewhere. Finally, I got up the nerve and asked, "Is your name Okolo?"

He looked at me like I was some crazy person with ESP - definitely didn't recognize me - and replied with, "Yes! How did you know that?"
"I'm Spence from the Tri Blog alliance!"
Then I think he realized who I was (or else he did a really good job of pretending and not hurting my feelings) and we had a moment. He's been swimming in Masters meets for almost a year now so hopefully he'll continue and I'll get to see him again. Turns out he's got some IT-BS going on and he's training for the Boston Marathon so he'd run 20 miles this morning and then came to the meet this afternoon!! Only a triathlete could pull it off.... Very Cool. It was great to meet him...albeit a little surreal. He's on the Andover team and they're one of the ones with lots of points coming in - he swam the 1650 free distance last weekend. It's so all about the points... even he says so! My first tri-blog meeting. It's a small small world...

Tomorrow I'll swim the 100 Free, 50 Breast, and (gasp) 200 IM. Ouch. I think it's going to hurt a lot. And also the 200 Freestyle Relay at the very end of the day. Should be interesting!!

OK, gotta go close my eyes before they close for me... it's been a long but very fun day. I'll post more videos on Monday when I'm back at work...no high speed at home and once we leave the hotel I'll be sans wi-fi. Drat. I've become quite reliant on it...

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and that the weather is behaving. Train hard!! And make sure to Go Swim at some point!!! Make them eat wake...