Blog Comments

Thanks Stewart and Ellen. Not so sure about the fastest parent thing. It is a sprint meet and I'm not so good at the 100s. They do have a 200 IM and I'm excited about dong that again.

How fun! Congrats to the kids.

I bet you will be the fastest parent!

Thats so awesome. Congrats to the kids.

Terranova's is out west near me. I've never eaten there. I prefer the greasy wings sports bar in the same shopping area. If you are going w/ Italian, Olive Garden is about half the distance and probably similar in what they offer. I think the best bet would be Pane e Vino. It looks like the menu would meet all the requirements and it is a short walk from the VBC. I've never been in the actual restaurant though and I don't know how much extra space they have. However, I do know that they have rooms in the museum that can be reserved for catered events.

Thanks! I figured the odds were pretty slim but it couldn't hurt to ask. Fortunately dinner planning isn't on me for next year's convention. It looks like last time the convention was in Huntsville (2010) we went to someplace called Terranova's that I remember involved a drive (though not a terribly long one). I just hate having to drive someplace after a long day of convention-ing.

Wow! Gluten free and vegetarian. That's pretty much everything I don't eat. There are really only two restaurants close to the VBC. That would be Ruth's Cris in the Embassy suites hotel and Pane e Vino Pizzeria (http://www.paneevinopizzeria.com/ - they have gluten free pizza) in the Art Museum. If your group isn't opposed to about a 1 mile walk, there are a couple restaurants around the courthouse square like the Cotton Row Restaurant (http://cottonrowrestaurant.com/) or Papou's (http://papouhsv.com/ - not sure about gluten free). There are a couple of bar and grills around downtown also but I doubt they will be gluten free and probably not vegetarian.

Outside of that, you will probably need to hop in a car. The Olive Garden isn't too far west on University Drive. Past that is pretty much just fast food. To the south of the VBC/downtown is more fast food in the medical area. I only point this out because it has the closest and all-important Starbucks.

Its a few miles from downtown but Airport road between Memorial Parkway and Whitesburg probably has the largest selection of restaurants. You have Italian (Luciano's), Thai (Surin) and Mexican (Little Rosie's - Big Rosie's is further south and better). There's also chains like Outback, Ruby Tuesday and Logans. Not sure about the gluten at any of these but the chains are likely to have gluten free items.

This is random, but: Can you by any chance think of a restaurant with a menu appealing to a wide audience including a few vegetarians and able to provide a gluten-free meal that has a group function room that's relatively close to the Von Braun Center?

Roger calls them "scramblers". It does resemble some things I've seen on That Guys blog. Fly for the stroke was a poor choice. I couldn't do much after that.

16 x 100 - 1:40 Convert Stroke -> Kick (I did fly for stroke, br for kick)
#1 - All stroke
#2-5 - K/S/S/S, S/K/S/S, S/S/K/S, S/S/S/K
#6-11 - K/K/S/S, S/K/K/S, S/S/K/K, K/S/S/K, S/K/S/K, K/S/K/S
#12-15 - S/K/K/K, K/S/K/K, K/K/S/K, K/K/K/S
#16 - All Kick
100 Easy

Not sure why, but at first glance this made me think of one of That Guy's IM rotation sets.

It is a bit tough at times to communicate. For a small team, we have an unusual concentration of Daves. Usually at the Nat, we also swim with 2 Bobs but they haven't been there the last couple weeks.

The workout is something the Masters coach, Brook, made up as we went along. He usually blurts the set out and watches our faces as we struggle to process everything through our failing short term memories. Then we all debate about what he said to do. From that, we piece together most of the set. Then we fill in the gaps by asking Brook what he said again. It's kind of a mental workout to go with the swim workout.

I'm stealing your workout! Like this one - except I think I'll change the first 800 to 50 free/50 back! How can the Daves tell who you're talking to? Dave, Dave & Dave! Lol (my husband is Dave, too!)

Not bad at all really. Just had enough electrical activity to shut down the pool.

Did you get big storms? Ours were much lighter than advertised. I wish they could have arrived 5 minutes later than they did so I could have finished my swim, though.

Yeah, I actually like the idea of swimming those frees pretty hard to get a longer rest. My intervals would have to be 2:00-2:30 though, maybe even 3:00 after a 100 fly, at my speeds.

Originally Posted by mcnair

I really like the way that stroke set is structured; I'll have to remember that. Were you working the strokes hard and using the free almost like a recovery swims?

Part of the reason it is hard is because Dave and I turn everything into a defacto race. Pulls were about 1:10 or as fast as we dared go with 100 stroke looming ahead. Not a sprint but it's hard for me to recover much on that interval. The 100 stroke we can all knock out @ 1:20 to 1:30 so there is :30 to :40 seconds rest built in to that. I slacked off a little on some of the backstroke since I don't have much chance of beating Dave on those. It worked out well for me because he was hurting pretty bad on the breaststroke round. Coincidentally, we did a very similar set today given to us by a completely different coach.

I really like the way that stroke set is structured; I'll have to remember that. Were you working the strokes hard and using the free almost like a recovery swims?

Haha, that's too funny. Good you realized before you took your shorts all the way off and dove in the water

I also put on a brief before I leave home, and put a dragsuit in my bag. I take my shorts off on deck and put the drag suit on. I sometimes hope that I remembered to put a brief on too

Originally Posted by joel schmaltz

Nice timed 200 pull!!

Thanks! Some credit goes to my teammate Dave who did the first 100 @ about :55s (I was at about 1:00) and tried to hang on until the end. I knew he was tired and hurting at the end so I picked up the pace to see if I could reel him in. I was closing in but came up a couple seconds short . Maybe next time!

It's funny how we tend to operate on auto pilot.
I've seen people at the pool swimming in what looked like underwear to me before. Our coach is also the aquatics director at the facility and always has good stories in regards to the hottub and sauna.

Nice timed 200 pull!!