Friday Through Tuesday
Well, I had another good weekend, and today wasn’t half bad either. We got Friday off again for our second snow day of the season. It wasn’t a very exciting day, but it was good to get another day of rest and relaxation. Four day weeks aren’t that bad, I think it’d make a school a little easier to deal with if that’s how it always was, but I don’t see anything changing there. I didn’t sleep as late as I usually do on snow days, so I wish I’d made better use of the time. Spent most of the day on the computer, the majority of the time I worked on a video of all of my pictures from Mexico, finally getting somewhere with it, I seriously just need to sit down and do it, it’s really close. Then once I’d had just about enough of that I had to go shovel. So I got rehired to do the church’s shoveling. I was doing it a couple of years ago, and then we just decided it was too much of a hassle and so I asked them to try and find someone else. Well, they never really did, and though I wasn’t getting paid anymore I ended up doing much of it anyways for the past couple of years. I didn’t really like this arrangement, since I was doing the same work, just not getting paid for it anymore, so now I’m back on the payroll and so I had to go there Friday evening. The roads were a little slick, and got a little confused with the four-wheel-drive, but all went well, got there and back safely. When I got home I helped mother finish up our shoveling, and that was that. Then I spent much of the evening talking to Stacie, so the day ended well.
Saturday morning was our second Swim Meet of the season, but luckily this one wasn’t quite as early as the previous one. I got up around 8:00 AM, which was about when mother left to go get our Christmas tree and then she had to go to the Library for a meeting. That meant I had to drive myself to the College to get there in time for warm-ups, and mother would get there in time for the start of the Meet. I didn’t expect the roads to still be slick, but I definitely misjudged the wonders of nature on that. Not too far up Bingham Hill the sun popped out from behind the trees and blinded me, and as I reached for the visor I guess I hit some slush or ice on the side of the road. This sent me into oncoming traffic so I spun the wheel, and spun out into the snow bank back on the right side of the road. That shook me up a bit, but I whipped it into reverse, backed out of the snow, and continued on my way. No damage done; the Jeep is pretty rugged, though, so no surprise there.
I got to the College in one piece with plenty of time before warm-ups, got changed and proceeded to the deck. Warm-ups started at 10:00 AM, and since we got 4 lanes, Motts had the veterans do a pretty decent warm-up, and that pretty much tired me out. Also, I couldn’t really eat anything in the morning, so that didn’t help me; kind up upsetting, because I know I need the energy, but I also don’t want to throw up. As usual the Meet started with the 200 Yard Medley Relay, which is always a fun event since we’ve got such a strong relay team right now; however, this time we did switch things up a little, so that Nick swam the Breaststroke and Mike swam the Butterfly. My lead-off leg kept us in it, but I didn’t drop any time, which was kind of upsetting; I went a 32.19, just a little slower than my time from the last meet. The others did their job, though, and we dropped another couple of seconds off of our time, good for another school record of 2:01.79, but a disappointing 5th place finish. I followed up the relay with the 200 Yard Freestyle, which is my favorite event, but I hadn’t swum it in competition for awhile, so I really had no idea where I’d be. I had hopes of qualifying for states in it, since my personal best from last spring was only a couple of seconds off of this year’s cut time. Sadly, though, I wasn’t able to pull it off. I finished with a 2:24.64, good for another disappointing place, 7th, but since it was out of 13 swimmers I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. The state qualifying cut is 2:22.89, so I’m close; in a couple of meets I should have it. Another positive thing is that two of our new swimmers swam the event with me, and were able to beat out two swimmers from Hollis-Brookline, so I’m pretty happy with their finish. Then came the lengthy break in the middle of the meet where I don’t really take a part, since I don’t usually get to do the Freestyle sprints, but that’s okay, that’s not where the team needs me. We did do one thing differently this meet, though; my relay team swam the 200 Freestyle Relay instead of the 400 Yard Freestyle. We all did fairly well, but I’m still not the greatest 50 Freestyle swimmer on the planet. We finished with a very strong 1:46.45, which was good for 3rd place, and I’m pretty sure another school record. I really do love our relay team, because we’ve done so well this year, taking all of the relay records, and continuing to drop our own times. Also, if any of you remember what we went through last year, you’ll understand how important it is to us to do well. I love those guys, we really want to do something this year, and if we keep up the way we’re going, we might just have a chance at showing the state that Monadnock has four guys who love this sport, and we aren’t the “no-shows” that we got labeled last year. This means so much to me, because we need to show everyone that we’re coming back from last year, and we’re going to fight.
Directly after the relay I had to prepare for the 100 Yard Backstroke. I already qualified in the event at the previous meet, but it’s my strongest event right now, and that’s where I’m going to get the team points. Also, if I can continue to drop my time, I have a chance at taking Nick’s school record in it from last season. This is a goal of mine for the season, to drop the minimum of 4 seconds that I need to take the record. I know it doesn’t mean much since Monadnock’s team is so young, but it’s something I want to do. So anyways, my swim went alright, the turns are still a little weak, and the finish was one of the worst finishes I’ve ever had, but I did drop a couple fractions of a second, with a time of 1:12.05, and a 5th place finish. I was only .45 seconds off of 3rd place, though, and I know I could have taken it if I had completed a successful finish, so that was extremely upsetting for me. I really feel like I let a lot of people, especially myself, because I’m one of the veterans now, and I’m a captain, and I just know I could have done better. So I was pretty down on myself about all of that, but whatever, it happens, and I’ll just do better next time. Everyone’s been wicked supportive, and I know nobody on the team holds it against me; half of them probably don’t have a clue what happened anyway, but it’s nice to know that I could have a wicked bad race and they wouldn’t give me a hard time at all, not that I wouldn’t give myself a hard enough time for everyone, but that’s okay. Also, it was really nice to have Stacie there, even if she did skip practice to be there... I know how much she cares, and so having that someone there who’s pulling for you, it’s just an awesome feeling. Overall it was a good meet, most of the rookies dropped a lot of time, and everyone’s coming along. I love the team and I love the sport.
After the meet, Stacie waited for me, and I drove with her back to her place to hang out. We watched the end of the Patriots game, which is always a good time, well, as long as they win, and they did win. Then we watched The Fantastic Four, which is a pretty sweet movie, I enjoyed it, and we had pizza at one point or another. We followed this up with Constantine, which was a pretty ridiculous movie. It was well done, but I didn’t really understand a lot of what was going on, so I didn’t really give all of my attention to it. It was just nice to spend the time with Stacie. Then Nick and Joe came, because they wanted to go to the school and trash Kelli’s car while she was at the Christmas show. They hung out for a while there, and then we said we’d meet them at the school. Well, they took a pretty long time getting there, so now car-trashing took place, but that’s alright. Not long after we got there Monkton and Manzi drove in, so that was pretty funny. Manzi’s new car is pretty sweet, but it’s a grandma car; it was pretty funny, though, because he set off the car alarm and just let it go for awhile in the parking lot. Then some kid drove in the parking lot and started doing donuts as we just stood there watching. It was a pretty good show, and we were all laughing pretty hard. When he left Monkton decided he’d like to try, so the four of us got in his piece of junk and we got a short ride in the parking lot. Everyone finally showed up, though, and we just hung out in the parking lot for awhile. At about 10:20 PM we left the school, because I needed to get Stacie home by 10:30 PM. We got there at 10:29 PM, so I was pretty impressed with myself. We talked for awhile there, and it was a pretty decent time. I definitely had a great time, but then I had to drive home to Gilsum, alone; that wasn’t very fun, but oh well, it was a really good day.
As soon as I got home I just crashed and slept until about 9:00 AM Sunday morning when mother woke me up. Then I got ready and we went to church. Nothing very exciting there, just my weekly hour to just sit there and think about stuff like that, which is pretty much what I always do. As if I don’t think enough, but oh well. We returned home about noon, and I pretty much wasted the rest of the day. I should have gotten more of my homework done, but I didn’t. We had practice Sunday night, worked hard on starts, turns, and finishes. I pretty much spent the entire time on Backstroke, since those aspects are what cost me the race on Saturday. It went pretty well, and I worked really hard, and although practice was supposed to end at 9:00 PM, I didn’t even get out of the pool until after 9:15 PM, the last one in the pool. No one can say I don’t put in the time. Another interesting aspect of practice, though, Motts announced the results of Saturday’s meet, and as it turns out, we actually did pull of some wins. The girls’ team won one against Stevens, and the guys’ team won against Stevens, Hollis-Brookline, and Kearsarge. This was pretty exciting news, and it brings our record up to 3-4 on the season, it’ll be interesting to see how we finish the season. Again, congratulations to everyone who swam on Saturday, it was a great meet, and everyone should be wicked proud of what they’ve accomplished. I returned home, talked to Stacie for awhile, finished my homework, and went to bed.
Monday, wasn’t very exciting. Mondays usually aren’t, but we did have practice, and again, we got a lot accomplished. Only problem is, we also had practice this morning, and it was quite rough getting up this morning after last night’s practice. Worked hard again this morning, and I definitely was feeling it. The backstroke’s definitely coming along; I’m really excited about how much time I’m getting to spend on it. Hopefully that’s going to be where I help the team out the most. Nothing too exciting happened today, but I did stay after and help Motts and Erik work on the line-up for tomorrow’s meet at Conant. It’s going to be a really interesting meet, because we put all of our time into making a line-up that can beat Conant. We’re really closely matched teams, and our goal is to win, so we basically set up the line-up so that our four best guy swimmers are spread out the best way we can be to take the most points. It really is going to be interesting to see what happens, because there’s a lot depending on how well the four of us can swim. I’m actually a little nervous, because what I need to do is win the 100 Yard Backstroke, but their Backstroke guy has a little better time than I do, so it’s going to take everything I’ve got to beat him. I’m definitely feeling the pressure. Also, it’s vital that our relays do well, because especially in the Medley Relay, our time is almost identical to theirs. It’s going to take an awful lot to take them, but hopefully we can pull it off. Luckily I’m a bit more confident about that one, because my 50 Yard Backstroke split is better than their Backstroker’s split in the relay. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, though. Mother picked up a little after 4:00 PM this afternoon, and we came home. I just had a big dinner, hopefully it’ll help me tomorrow, and now I have an English essay to write. I think I covered quite a bit in this entry; hopefully it covers all of the important issues that have taken place over the past few days. Thanks to all those who made it a good weekend, and who’ve made life just a bit more enjoyable.
Peace,
Justin
PS: My entry is way longer. I definitely win.
Saturday morning was our second Swim Meet of the season, but luckily this one wasn’t quite as early as the previous one. I got up around 8:00 AM, which was about when mother left to go get our Christmas tree and then she had to go to the Library for a meeting. That meant I had to drive myself to the College to get there in time for warm-ups, and mother would get there in time for the start of the Meet. I didn’t expect the roads to still be slick, but I definitely misjudged the wonders of nature on that. Not too far up Bingham Hill the sun popped out from behind the trees and blinded me, and as I reached for the visor I guess I hit some slush or ice on the side of the road. This sent me into oncoming traffic so I spun the wheel, and spun out into the snow bank back on the right side of the road. That shook me up a bit, but I whipped it into reverse, backed out of the snow, and continued on my way. No damage done; the Jeep is pretty rugged, though, so no surprise there.
I got to the College in one piece with plenty of time before warm-ups, got changed and proceeded to the deck. Warm-ups started at 10:00 AM, and since we got 4 lanes, Motts had the veterans do a pretty decent warm-up, and that pretty much tired me out. Also, I couldn’t really eat anything in the morning, so that didn’t help me; kind up upsetting, because I know I need the energy, but I also don’t want to throw up. As usual the Meet started with the 200 Yard Medley Relay, which is always a fun event since we’ve got such a strong relay team right now; however, this time we did switch things up a little, so that Nick swam the Breaststroke and Mike swam the Butterfly. My lead-off leg kept us in it, but I didn’t drop any time, which was kind of upsetting; I went a 32.19, just a little slower than my time from the last meet. The others did their job, though, and we dropped another couple of seconds off of our time, good for another school record of 2:01.79, but a disappointing 5th place finish. I followed up the relay with the 200 Yard Freestyle, which is my favorite event, but I hadn’t swum it in competition for awhile, so I really had no idea where I’d be. I had hopes of qualifying for states in it, since my personal best from last spring was only a couple of seconds off of this year’s cut time. Sadly, though, I wasn’t able to pull it off. I finished with a 2:24.64, good for another disappointing place, 7th, but since it was out of 13 swimmers I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. The state qualifying cut is 2:22.89, so I’m close; in a couple of meets I should have it. Another positive thing is that two of our new swimmers swam the event with me, and were able to beat out two swimmers from Hollis-Brookline, so I’m pretty happy with their finish. Then came the lengthy break in the middle of the meet where I don’t really take a part, since I don’t usually get to do the Freestyle sprints, but that’s okay, that’s not where the team needs me. We did do one thing differently this meet, though; my relay team swam the 200 Freestyle Relay instead of the 400 Yard Freestyle. We all did fairly well, but I’m still not the greatest 50 Freestyle swimmer on the planet. We finished with a very strong 1:46.45, which was good for 3rd place, and I’m pretty sure another school record. I really do love our relay team, because we’ve done so well this year, taking all of the relay records, and continuing to drop our own times. Also, if any of you remember what we went through last year, you’ll understand how important it is to us to do well. I love those guys, we really want to do something this year, and if we keep up the way we’re going, we might just have a chance at showing the state that Monadnock has four guys who love this sport, and we aren’t the “no-shows” that we got labeled last year. This means so much to me, because we need to show everyone that we’re coming back from last year, and we’re going to fight.
Directly after the relay I had to prepare for the 100 Yard Backstroke. I already qualified in the event at the previous meet, but it’s my strongest event right now, and that’s where I’m going to get the team points. Also, if I can continue to drop my time, I have a chance at taking Nick’s school record in it from last season. This is a goal of mine for the season, to drop the minimum of 4 seconds that I need to take the record. I know it doesn’t mean much since Monadnock’s team is so young, but it’s something I want to do. So anyways, my swim went alright, the turns are still a little weak, and the finish was one of the worst finishes I’ve ever had, but I did drop a couple fractions of a second, with a time of 1:12.05, and a 5th place finish. I was only .45 seconds off of 3rd place, though, and I know I could have taken it if I had completed a successful finish, so that was extremely upsetting for me. I really feel like I let a lot of people, especially myself, because I’m one of the veterans now, and I’m a captain, and I just know I could have done better. So I was pretty down on myself about all of that, but whatever, it happens, and I’ll just do better next time. Everyone’s been wicked supportive, and I know nobody on the team holds it against me; half of them probably don’t have a clue what happened anyway, but it’s nice to know that I could have a wicked bad race and they wouldn’t give me a hard time at all, not that I wouldn’t give myself a hard enough time for everyone, but that’s okay. Also, it was really nice to have Stacie there, even if she did skip practice to be there... I know how much she cares, and so having that someone there who’s pulling for you, it’s just an awesome feeling. Overall it was a good meet, most of the rookies dropped a lot of time, and everyone’s coming along. I love the team and I love the sport.
After the meet, Stacie waited for me, and I drove with her back to her place to hang out. We watched the end of the Patriots game, which is always a good time, well, as long as they win, and they did win. Then we watched The Fantastic Four, which is a pretty sweet movie, I enjoyed it, and we had pizza at one point or another. We followed this up with Constantine, which was a pretty ridiculous movie. It was well done, but I didn’t really understand a lot of what was going on, so I didn’t really give all of my attention to it. It was just nice to spend the time with Stacie. Then Nick and Joe came, because they wanted to go to the school and trash Kelli’s car while she was at the Christmas show. They hung out for a while there, and then we said we’d meet them at the school. Well, they took a pretty long time getting there, so now car-trashing took place, but that’s alright. Not long after we got there Monkton and Manzi drove in, so that was pretty funny. Manzi’s new car is pretty sweet, but it’s a grandma car; it was pretty funny, though, because he set off the car alarm and just let it go for awhile in the parking lot. Then some kid drove in the parking lot and started doing donuts as we just stood there watching. It was a pretty good show, and we were all laughing pretty hard. When he left Monkton decided he’d like to try, so the four of us got in his piece of junk and we got a short ride in the parking lot. Everyone finally showed up, though, and we just hung out in the parking lot for awhile. At about 10:20 PM we left the school, because I needed to get Stacie home by 10:30 PM. We got there at 10:29 PM, so I was pretty impressed with myself. We talked for awhile there, and it was a pretty decent time. I definitely had a great time, but then I had to drive home to Gilsum, alone; that wasn’t very fun, but oh well, it was a really good day.
As soon as I got home I just crashed and slept until about 9:00 AM Sunday morning when mother woke me up. Then I got ready and we went to church. Nothing very exciting there, just my weekly hour to just sit there and think about stuff like that, which is pretty much what I always do. As if I don’t think enough, but oh well. We returned home about noon, and I pretty much wasted the rest of the day. I should have gotten more of my homework done, but I didn’t. We had practice Sunday night, worked hard on starts, turns, and finishes. I pretty much spent the entire time on Backstroke, since those aspects are what cost me the race on Saturday. It went pretty well, and I worked really hard, and although practice was supposed to end at 9:00 PM, I didn’t even get out of the pool until after 9:15 PM, the last one in the pool. No one can say I don’t put in the time. Another interesting aspect of practice, though, Motts announced the results of Saturday’s meet, and as it turns out, we actually did pull of some wins. The girls’ team won one against Stevens, and the guys’ team won against Stevens, Hollis-Brookline, and Kearsarge. This was pretty exciting news, and it brings our record up to 3-4 on the season, it’ll be interesting to see how we finish the season. Again, congratulations to everyone who swam on Saturday, it was a great meet, and everyone should be wicked proud of what they’ve accomplished. I returned home, talked to Stacie for awhile, finished my homework, and went to bed.
Monday, wasn’t very exciting. Mondays usually aren’t, but we did have practice, and again, we got a lot accomplished. Only problem is, we also had practice this morning, and it was quite rough getting up this morning after last night’s practice. Worked hard again this morning, and I definitely was feeling it. The backstroke’s definitely coming along; I’m really excited about how much time I’m getting to spend on it. Hopefully that’s going to be where I help the team out the most. Nothing too exciting happened today, but I did stay after and help Motts and Erik work on the line-up for tomorrow’s meet at Conant. It’s going to be a really interesting meet, because we put all of our time into making a line-up that can beat Conant. We’re really closely matched teams, and our goal is to win, so we basically set up the line-up so that our four best guy swimmers are spread out the best way we can be to take the most points. It really is going to be interesting to see what happens, because there’s a lot depending on how well the four of us can swim. I’m actually a little nervous, because what I need to do is win the 100 Yard Backstroke, but their Backstroke guy has a little better time than I do, so it’s going to take everything I’ve got to beat him. I’m definitely feeling the pressure. Also, it’s vital that our relays do well, because especially in the Medley Relay, our time is almost identical to theirs. It’s going to take an awful lot to take them, but hopefully we can pull it off. Luckily I’m a bit more confident about that one, because my 50 Yard Backstroke split is better than their Backstroker’s split in the relay. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, though. Mother picked up a little after 4:00 PM this afternoon, and we came home. I just had a big dinner, hopefully it’ll help me tomorrow, and now I have an English essay to write. I think I covered quite a bit in this entry; hopefully it covers all of the important issues that have taken place over the past few days. Thanks to all those who made it a good weekend, and who’ve made life just a bit more enjoyable.
Peace,
Justin
PS: My entry is way longer. I definitely win.
posted by Jw at 6:44 PM
1 Comments:
"so the four of us got in his piece of junk and we got a short ride in the parking lot."
Piece of junk? I don't think so, it's under the hood that counts bud.
Post a Comment
<< Home