On Meets

January 9, 2009: Training Trip Day 4

The poorly-kept secret of training trips is that they are not, technically speaking, training trips. NCAA regulations state that if a team is going to travel somewhere, they have to do so because of a meet.

So today, still at Founder's Park, we had our meet.




The meet is a nice little break from the intense practices we've been having, although we still of course have to put our best effort forth because well, a meet is a meet.

Swimming against us were the Colorado College Tigers, a team just arriving for their own training trip. The Tigers were very evenly matched against us, with many good races. While both the Oberlin Men's and Women's teams won their meets, we did so mostly by the depth of our team: Colorado could only field one relay per relay event and rarely could fill their portion of the eight-lane pool.

That is, of course, not to count out our own contributions. While, of course, individual results varied, on the whole the team put forth an incredible amount of effort, especially considering that we've been getting worn down by practices for the past few days. I personally surprised myself by the amount of effort I was able to put forth, with my cold and my state of being worn down I expected to be floundering in the water like a drowning child. Instead, I put up some times that maybe would be impressive if I had any idea what good long-course meters times were.

A few of our swimmers' parents even made it down to see the meet, which was an extremely nice gesture. It's always good to have support from the sidelines, whether it's in the cold of an Oberlin Winter or the warmth of a Flordia... winter.

Another positive thing about this day is because of the meet (and Mark Fino's generosity), we only have the meet today, no evening practice. With that added relaxation and rest, and the Traditional Senior-made dinner taking place on the beach, it should be a pleasent evening.

And then we'll go back to practicing.

Final Meet Scores:

Women: Win, 122.5-103.5
Men: Win, 107-97

Total Meters: 29,920 (+meet)