TAC SWIMMING

Last Prelims at the Austin Grand Prix. by Austin and Kelsey

2010-03-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Saturday, March 6, 2010

This morning we woke up early to go get a nice, hot sit-down breakfast. Can't forget the three cups of coffee that Dustin needs on the last day of the meet! We drove into Ihop parking lot and were teased by the thought that we would accually get to stay and eat, but we drove away and dropped half the kids of that had to swim. After the others got dropped off, Dustin took the rest of us to Jack in the Box, and we saw a lot of interesting things. At jack in the box the order person was a confused boy. While outside a drunk was talking to himself and tripping over curbs that were not there. Then we came back and watched the swimmers compete. Overall everyone swam amazing even though we are all exhausted. I don't think anyone will be awake for the flight back home.

Red Robin! Yummmmm... by Allison and Adam

2010-03-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Friday, March 5, 2010

It should have been a 10 min. drive to Red Robin but Maggie (the Magellon thingy)decided to take the long way and it took an hour and a half! Darbie and Kelsey annoyed Dustin and Mark. Austin and Allison slept, Matt took pictures of them. Adam being the dog he is, stared out the window. Barkley and Hannah listened to i-pods and texted. The food was good but they almost ran out of Lemonade because we all had many refills of strawberry lemonade. Matt and Barkly had the mile high mud pie, and it was BIG. The ride home was interesting, it was a 5 mile drive that took 30 min. To kill time Barkly was pointing out Adams girlfriends. And they were all not very attractive. After the 30 min. of nothing in our hotel rooms we went back to the pool for finals. We all did a 2,000 warm up except Austin did a 3,000 and needs to check his hearing. While we waited for Barkley to swim Dustin is lecturing Darbie about growing more. Barkley swam an amazing swim of the 400 IM. His amazing time was 4:45.27 and dropped 13 seconds! We were suprised he swam that good for all of the pie he downed. Rest of the night was pretty boring. Some went to subway and others went to bed. But it was a great day! GOOD NIGHT IDAHO!

2:02.59.... by Matt and Barkley

2010-03-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Friday, March 5, 2010

The reason why we chose 2:02.59 as our title is because of our newest Senior level swimmer - Adam Long (Dustin's favorite). This morning in the time trial, Adam's goal in the 200 free was 2:04 (previous best was a 2:08.69). He followed the plan for the first 100, taking it out in a 58.85 (goal was under 59) and try to bring it home in a 104.99 to achieve his 204.99 but nooooo - Adam decides to buckle down and bring it home in a 1:03.94 securing his awesome time of 2:02.59! Speaking of Dustin's favorite - this is all based on the fact that he can go to the front of the van and act like he has gas when Dustin locks the doors with the remote because it honks and looks like Adam left us a gift!

Then Austin (Dustin's 2nd favorite) decides to lower his 100 Breast time of 1:07.01 to achieve his first Grand Prix cut with a awesome time of 1:05.28. Hannah smacked down a 1:09.03 in her 100 breast to lower her time a lot but not enough to win a bet (must go under 1:09) so she was Barkley's servant for the evening. And to top it all off - Barkley made "C" finals in the 400IM so we don't get the evening off :(. Oh well, we are off to Red Robin for lunch!

Speed bump fun! by Kelsey and Darbie

2010-03-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Prelims are over on day one and we are starving. We went to Subway and it took forever and the workers were really slow. It was then nap time :). Once we woke up we decided to go see a movie and order our dinner in advance so it would be ready after the movie. We ordered from Pizza Hut. Then after many choices and argueing we decided to go see Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Lightning Theif. Everyone started to get a little droopy eyed so Dustin decided to wake them up with SPEED BUMPS! The entire back 2 rows were hitting the ceiling of the van! We were almost late to the movie because we were looking for more SPEED BUMPS and Allison was a bad, bad co-pilot. Movie was good, Percy was dreamy but the sour patch kids were the best and water fountains lined up three in a row made Kelsey, Allison and Darbie look like puppies at a water bowl when they all decided to race for a gulp.

Movie finished about 45 minutes late so our dinner was kept in a hot box and rather chewy. Left overs made it to Texas Swim Center for prelims on the next day! When we picked up the pizza and headed back to the hotel, Dustin once again thought everyone was getting sleepy so a quick tap on the brakes woke the entire van up with screams and whining followed by a lot of laughter. That is it for tonight - YAWN, see you in the mornin' y'all (we're in Texas).

Watching the hard work pay off! by Coach Perry

2010-03-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 4,2010

What a day! Waking up after a great nights sleep and enjoying a great cup of coffee (at the hotel mind you) - does it get any better than that? Why yes it does.

Day one of Prelims.. Drop boys off in middle of the street with Mark Nelson, who is officiating and also working into the wee hours of the night for his part-time job that pays the bills, so they can make the 7:30AM officials meeting and get a warm up before the 200 Free Relay. The girls and I park the van a couple of blocks away in yet another 7' clearance garage. Note to Univ. of Texas - come on, really? I only brave a couple of levels before I park at an ever so slight angle and make everyone who parked after me so angry that I could not enter the van on either side and had to crawl in through the back. Live and learn I guess.

Back to the pool.. Boy's relay dropped even with the nerves of being first heat and first male event! Great swims with Matt Beatty leading, followed by Adam Long, Austin Adams and anchored by Barks. Kelsey Nelson was next to hit the water with a great swim in the 100 Fly followed by Big Mac (Hannah) with drops in both her events of the day. Barkley also had a strong swim in the 100 fly with a time of 51.76 moving him from a ranking of 84th to 53rd but the biggest move in rank was Hannah Mac's 50 free - from 320th to 243rd and this was her bonus event!

And then on to the fun - TIME TRIALS! Who would have thought the excitement would have been so..... funny! All four athletes swam great dropping from 1 to 7 seconds in their events but that wasn't the funny part. We are hanging out on the 4th level in the spectator area while the time trials are starting up. Athletes are warmed up, in their performance suits and hanging out up top with Kelsey and I. Hanging out up top????? Austin lets Allison know how cool her name looks on the scoreboard before 9 kinds of panic sink in as we realize this is HER HEAT! Like the wind she is off running down four or five flights of stairs while our hero, Mark Nelson, stalls for us. After sliding into place behind lane 5, huffing and puffing, weezing and whining, she drops 3 full seconds in her 100 Fly - go figure - if we can get the "bike leg" down, we have a Triathlete! Sorry this blog was so long but I am very proud of each and everyone of our swimmers, I hope we have more qualified next year! GO TAC!!

Keepin' Austin Weird... by Adam and Austin

2010-03-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Thinking that warm ups was going to scare the stuffing out of us - thanks to Barkley and his over exagerations - we found out that it was just a nice pool and got to have a lane to ourselves!! Finding the pool was an adventure but parking the van was a nightmare. 6' 11" Van height and 7' Clearance in the Parking Garage. Oh what fun. As the antenna on the van scrapes the ceiling, Dustin sweats, Allison nags, Barkley bounces up and down trying to make us hit the pillars and everyone else was throughly enjoying the comedy.:) After returning to the hotel to dry out our suits and towels we decided to load a 15 passenger van with 17 people - Darbie gets the floor. Once again, navigation nightmares begin - Chuy's, not Chuey's or Chewies is hard to find if you spell it wrong. Upon arrival, Craig Adams decides the "Keep Austin Weird" T-shirt must be purchased. Everyone pigged out on great TexMex and was ready for bed after a very long day. Tomorrow morning - WE DOMINATE!

And AWAY WE GO! by Allison and Hannah

2010-03-04T14:55:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Arriving in the Salt Lake airport parking lot: Alison “Wow we have to walk three miles to the door?”. Little did she know there’s a new invention called the shuttle. We found out that airport security wasn’t so fond of our baggy warm ups. Allison and Matt had to be padded down. The plane takes off and Allison is almost peeing her pants she’s so excited! Becky Seedall’s mouth moves while she reads to herself. Hannah sleeps…zzzzzz. All goes well and we land in Phoenix. The second flight wasn’t as uneventful. Dustin decides to be Mr. Incredible and viciously rips off the arm rest. Barkley wants to keep it as a souvenir. Nasty comb over man sitting in front of Barkley and Dustin has uncontrollable gas. Again Barkley gets blamed. While Dustin goes and pick up the car: Hannah was being antisocial, Austin flicked rubber bands, and Matt and Allison were taking pictures. We all pack into the 16 passenger van and Dustin almost has a heart attack trying to drive while Mark Nelson navigates. We’re off to the pool for warm ups. Hope you all are enjoying the snow! It’s sunny and warm in Texas!! :]

Welcome!

2010-03-02T19:31:00.001-08:00

Come follow the Tiger Aquatic Club's Senior Performance Squad as they attend their first USA SWIMMING Grand Prix in Austin, Texas!