Austin's Junior Varsity District Swim Meet

So I decided to take up swimming this year for those that weren't aware.  I was told by the head football coach at the beginning of the year that I was "not allowed" to play for his team because I didn't play for him my freshmen year.  Which turned out to be okay since the team sucks. Anyway I was kind of running out of options for sports that I could take up in high school, and I didn't want to be a 45 year old man looking back on his high school/childhood wishing that he had done something in his life.  NOT FOR ME.  So I began training to be on the team at the neighborhood pool on my own.  After about 2 months of going to the pool each day and through pure inspiration of Michael Phelps and trying to teach myself the right form and how to train correctly to get into "swimming shape", I got the guts to email the coach, she put me in the pool to see what I could do, and oddly enough she said she'd give me a shot at it.  That was good enough for me. Right when I began swimming on my own (2 months before emailing my coach) I was barely able to swim a lap (25 yards) and in practice not even 2 weeks ago, we were averaging 3-4 miles in the pool per day 210-280 laps over a 3 hour period depending on the workout for the day. Improvement? Not at all :)  Towards the middle of the season I was down to 145 lbs.  (pretty skinny for anyone whose 6 feet tall), and I decided it was getting too ridiculous so I put on 15 lbs. this last month.  I also lost about 4 inches in my waist (28" now), and I like the results it gives me (I've become way more cut as the season has passed on).  Anyway onto the JV Districts meet.  So last night (Friday, January 30th) was our shave down time.  Which was required just FYI.  It took 2 in a half hours to completely shave down, and I had Michael come over to talk to me so I wouldn't be bored out of my mind.  

(Yes Scott I do workout often)

Anyways continuing on... I woke up this morning at 6:15 (Yes I did get up that early on a Saturday morning for those who don't believe that's possible for me) and had 4 servings of Oatmeal with lots of brown sugar and a banana.  We arrived to the meet and in warmups everyone warmed up with a panty hose, drag suit, and I was the only one who wore a long sleeved shirt.  FYI we do this so when we jump in the water during the actual meet there is such a sensation of absolutely zero drag that it gives you a mental advantage as well as a physical one.  I swam in 4 different events this meet which includes the 200y medley (relay team, everybody swims a different stroke, I swam anchor in the freestyle for 50y), I also swam the 50y individual freestyle (complete sprint, 2 lengths of the pool), the 100y individual freestyle (4 lengths of the pool, almost a complete sprint), and the 200y freestyle relay (4 guys, each swims 50y freestyle).  

My goals for this meet and previous best times to newer best times:

50y freestyle:    old time: 30.34 sec__  goal: 29.99 sec__ actual time: 29.35 sec

100y freestyle:    old time: 1:11.5 sec___goal: 1:09.99___actual time: 1:06.99 sec

Relays: Don't really know the split times because I didn't really care to find out.

Here are some pictures/video from the events I swam in...

This speedo I swam in was a size 26... Even if you get your

own waste size it's still very tight so you could probably

imagine how tight it was...

This is my 100y free time I'm the 1:06.99

Mom apparently paid Christine $1 to take a picture of this "lion haired" woman (I don't even know if it would be socially acceptable to call her a woman).  And she probably has no idea her picture was blogged onto the internet.  

50 freestyle video (I look like I'm having a tea party from outside of the

 water, but when you're swimming it it's like a nuclear war in there).

Christine's Birthday and YW Surprise Breakfast

Here is the birthday cake that the party girls didn't eat (they bobbed for apples and ate them and ate donuts off a string and then pizza - they were full).

Christine (after blowing out her candles).

Here are Christine's Young Women leaders and friends picking her up for a surprise breakfast (they wanted to kidnap her from her bed but she got up early and was already dressed).

Young Woman, Little Girl

Christine had her birthday party over the weekend, celebrating turning twelve a week before Christmas. She invited several friends over and they had a good time playing games and hanging out for a couple of hours at the house.

Present opening was first, kind of like eating your dessert first in case there is a nuclear attack during vegetables. Then the party retired to the back lawn for several undignified games.

This first game was the old favorite musical chairs. Christine as a gracious hostess went out first. Then things got rowdy, with one girl tipping over into the winter grass. The winner (third picture below) has an older sister who was the valedictorian at Cy Fair High School as well as the most valuable girls basketball player in the Great State of Texas last year. More importantly, her mother is Christine's principal. So the correct winner was picked by Mom, who carefully controlled the on/off button on the radio and looked appropriately confused whenever anybody told her to look the other way to prevent the appearance of bias.




Next came a vigorous game of States which resulted in no further injury, though the demure debutantes did get in a few vigorous whacks:


Next was apple bobbing, with the basketball heir apparent showing Christine how it is done:



After the bobbing of the apples comes the swinging at the pinata, some cheap Mexican thing hanging from the ceiling of my newly organized garage. Before long it was in tatters, alone on the floor, all the candy collected into goody bags:



After hiding their goody bags from each other, the girls had some cake:


Then went home.


Happy birthday, princess.

Old Man Walking

People have been telling me to post about my marathon. Here it is with pictures this time.

After running for so long to get ready for it, the event itself was as exciting as expected but I didn’t bank on the aftermath being so anti-climactic. It’s not that I have lost interest -- to the contrary I read more about running now than before the race -- but the combination of a poor race and a month off while my body catches up has made me think too much.

Race conditions were perfect. Temperatures in the low 40s going up to mid-50s, no wind and partly cloudy.

I started getting a cold the night before and woke up with a sore throat. I went outside and walked a mile to get loosened up, felt better, ate some breakfast, then drove with Walt and Helen to the race. The rest of the family came later. I was more worried about my Achilles tendonitis than the cold; I have run with a cold before but not with a lingering injury.

At the start of the race my heel was tight but it loosened up after a couple of miles. Everything was great on the first lap and the second lap wasn’t too bad. But as I finished the second lap I told Clint that it was going to be close. It wasn’t close. I faded and crashed halfway through the third lap, reduced to a walking mass of protoplasm. I walked the rest of the way in, including a queasy stop at a park bench to watch the race go by. A prayer got me back up and then Christine met me coming down the trail. She came after me because I was pretty late getting in.

That gave me enough strength to walk back out for the last lap, then pretty soon Walt came up. We walked for a while, then he got me running again. From there on we ran and walked about half and half, including running the last mile and a half at a respectable clip. I finished in decent shape, but an hour slower than my most conservative estimate. (Warning: Not a pretty video.)

Even though this was my first marathon, I think I know enough about the race to know that I should have run faster, just not sure why I didn’t or what to do to prevent a repeat. Two weeks later I am still pretty certain that it was just a bad race, but there is lingering doubt that only a good race can fix.

On to Ogden, en sha allah.

A Canadian Christmas

This Christmas Scott was lucky enough to have two weeks off from his medical rotations, and it was his family's year so we flew to Calgary for the holidays. The entire Swendsen clan was able to make it, I think a total of 24 people, and we were thrilled to be able to see everyone. It's hard to know where to start in describing this vacation - we did a lot of different things over the two weeks we were there and it was so much fun. Here is a random assortment of pictures from our trip.

This one was taken the day before we left, after Scott opened this deluxe camping gift from my parents. He seriously was so excited that he slept all night in it.

This is Scott's brother Dan on Christmas morning in Canada. The rapid-fire Nerf gun he's holding was a huge hit with the whole clan. We awoke that morning to what sounded like a machine gun being fired in the living room - it really was alarming! Luckily we don't have any war vets with PTSD in the family.
Pjs for the grandkids - a classic Christmas Eve tradition. From left - Kate, Ava, and Reese.

On New Year's eve the Swendsen family has some fun traditions that include these paper hats, poppers with little surprises inside them, Chinese takeout, and rice pudding with one almond in the batch. The person who finds the almond in their bowl gets a special prize.

This picture makes me laugh. Kate and I feel similarly about cold weather. During our visit the temperature in Calgary fluctuated from slightly above freezing to about -30 degrees C (-22 F). I'm not sure how cold it was when this picture was taken but for Kate it was cold enough.
While in Calgary we got to go to a Flames hockey game, my first NHL game ever. The Flames won a close one against their rival team, the Edmonton Oilers. It was pretty exciting to watch.

We got the full cultural experience by taking public transportation to and from the hockey game. It was New Year's eve and the train was free for the night, so it was crowded with some pretty colorful characters. Also, I cut my hair short before the holidays but this is the only picture where you can kind of see it.

For our last day in Calgary we drove to the Banff National Park area for skiing at Sunshine resort, a dip in the hot springs (very brief for me and the fetus!), and dinner. Here's a great view of the Canadian Rockies on our way there.

You'll have to trust that this is me, although there's almost no skin showing. It was weird posing for a picture wearing a ski mask and realizing that a smile would be useless. This ski resort is gorgeous with great snow and the weather was sunny but the temperature was around -4 F so it was just a little fresh out there... Scott took this photo at great peril to his exposed hand. I was feeling proud of my Texan self for toughing out those temperatures.
Kate's grandparents watched her while we skiied and then they brought her up to meet us for what Kate called the "hot pool" - a natural hot spring in Banff that has been built around in one area for use as a shallow swimming pool/hot tub.

The day we got home, Clint came up to Salt Lake for a brief visit and Kate basked in the glow of his attention.
Excited about wearing Clint's shorts.

"Reflections of Christ"

http://deseretbook.com/video/view/5