Ithaca Here We Come

It's been a busy past couple of days since I returned from my 4th of July Weekend trip to Ohio. 

Ohio was fun and the biggest thing to recap from training there was that the pool was really nice, but the ceilings at the practice pool had slanted beams, which really messed with my backstroke! But I had a very productive time training at the OSU pool and even had the pleasure to meet Samantha Cheverton, an Olympian and swimmer for the Canadian National team. She and I shared the pool one morning - she was training for Worlds and I was training for the Ithaca meet. 

Training at the OSU Pool 

As I write this blog post this morning my bags are packed and I'm just waiting for a few team mates to get off work so we can make the drive to Ithaca. I want to say I'm completely ready and comfortable walking into this meet. But reality is I have suffered a lot of injuries the past few weeks - between pulled calf muscles and cramps, add a pretty bad accident at the pool during last Tuesday night's practice. Seabiscuit strikes again! I wrote about Seabiscuit back in January click here for that post. As I mentioned before, Seabiscuit has a reputation for hitting people in the pool and his inconsiderate recklessness has really been a problem. Well, Tuesday night he decided he was going to cut me off as I was swimming backstroke, but he ran out of room and couldn't complete the pass, as my arms stroked I got tangled in his legs, got hit and pulled my shoulder. The pain was quite excruciating and I got out of the pool crying - upset that I got hit, panicked that the pain was quite excruciating and worried about the meet on Saturday. 

Since then, I've spent some time icing the shoulder, getting massages and slowly trying to rehabilitate the shoulder and hope that by tomorrow it will be fine for the meet. At last night's practice, I had the opportunity to practice my strokes and lightly swim the 4 events I am swimming in. My butterfly stroke looks really tired, and it has a lot to do with my shoulder. I'm really hoping it will be fine tomorrow. 

At this point, I just want to finish and hope that I swim as well as I possibly can. I'm very much looking forward to spending quality time with my team mates. I have made some very strong friendships and connections with people on the team and I do enjoy everyone's company very much.  So here's hoping we have a fantastic meet - GO AGUA!