LCM Nationals at Auburn: Great Pool/ Great Organizers!

Elaine, was nice to meet you and put a face with a name...Marianne as well! Here a link to some of the pictures I took from the meet (folks I know). Next time I'll have more folks to take pictures of! s247.photobucket.com/.../ Thanks Jeff, it was great to meet you too! Congrats...I see that you won the high point in your age group. You are an awesome swimmer. I look forward to seeing you out at Red Top Mountain when Pete's group starts up. Elaine and Kristin, thanks for your kind words. I can't wait to see you both again at St. Pat's!! :D

Elaine, was nice to meet you and put a face with a name...Marianne as well! Here a link to some of the pictures I took from the meet (folks I know). Next time I'll have more folks to take pictures of! s247.photobucket.com/.../

Thanks, Jeff! You, too! Congrats. on your excellent swims!! :applaud: Nice photos, by the way. I see you have one of June Callaway; a sweet lady and an inspiration! When I grow up, I want to be just like her!:cheerleader: At 76, she's amazing- and, has a beautiful freestyle! I had the honor of swimming with her in a freestyle relay (not the fastest, of course, but we scored points...) and Bruce got it on video. I need to get it posted to my You Tube channel, so her family can see her swim! Do you have contact info. for her? She's not in the USMS directory. Please send me a PM if you know how I can reach her- thanks! I don't have her contact info, but she swims for Dynamo Masters. Maria Thrash, coach, might have it and her contact info is on the Dynamo website. Yeah, June is sweet. I counted for her in the mile. She was avg. about 2:20 or so per 100, so you can do the math. It was an honor to count for her! If I make it to 76, let alone swim the 1650, I'll be happy!:D

I love this meet! Even though I wasn't happy with most of my swims, I'm so glad I went. Thanks to several friends for talking me into staying for Sunday's events! Conner puts on an incredible meet, and takes none of the credit himself. Auburn LCM Nats are going to be AMAZING!! Judd, sorry we didn't get a chance to say hi. I saw you a couple of times, but it always seemed that it was right before one of my events. And no one in his/her right mind would want to talk to me then. :) Marianne, Elaine is right! You are so humble about your accomplishments! I can't believe you only started doing pool meets. Your times are fantastic, and as you get more meet practice, you will only get faster. And with your open water experience, I'll bet you really will thrive on long course. Can't wait to see you you progress, since you're already fast! Elaine, it was so nice to meet you! It was great having you on the relay! We 45-49 year olds can still rock 'em (as long as we succeed in keeping our goggles on :))! First you, then me, then Ali... I hope you got the point that it can happen to anyone... Don't know if you know, but Ali is a former UGA swimmer -- so she has loads of experience. And of course, Donna's leadership with relays is second to none. She is awesome, and did a great job as always!! Hey Jeff, with your starts and pullouts, you can fake a 50 *** pretty well!!

Hey Elaine, Thanks for your support as well! I'll second the organization comments... top notch! These guys are ready to put on big events. I really liked their use of swim phone (www.swimphone.com). They pushed out timely results and you didn't have to all crowd around a paper readout. Congrats on GAJA taking home another big trophy! Peter

Hey, I would like to give one more shout out to somebody I forgot (I'm sorry!) to mention in my first post: Mark Rogers. I don't know if he will ever see this, but for you GAJA Forumites who haven't met him yet, make sure to meet him at St. Pat's.! We met at the Marist week, the previous weekend, and he is the nicest, most encouraging and positive guy. He wished me good luck before all of my races and said something positive to me every time we passed each other at the pool. Thanks, Mark! :D Cheers! :chug: P.S. Good luck at St. Pat's! I'll be cheering you on in your races!! :cheerleader:

Just some other feedback on the pool that I heard (and agree with) and wanted to share. I heard ALOT of people talk about having issues with the walls, mostly at the bulkhead end of the pool. Mainly due to two factors: 1. The "wall" is see through...meaning the bulkhead is open air straight through where you touch the wall. At water level you can see through it into the warmdown area. So the warmdown area is the background you pick up swimming *** or fly. 2. The bulkhead only extends underwater 4-1/2 to 5 feet with a pool that is at least 8 feet deep or more. So coming into the wall swimming free you don't pic up the bottom of the bulkhead until the last second, unlike in a fixed wall pool. So you say use the marks on the bottom of the pool.....they didn't help either. I had some major issues on a few turns, either too far away (toe tapper) or too close (cruncher). Nothing I couldn't cure with a week of swimming in that pool, but its tough to get used to just coming in. I went through this last year. I got used to the habit of watching for the "cross" painted on the bottom of the pool and timing my turn based upon that. This didn't translate well in Auburn because there were multiple cross marks used for lining up the bulkhead AND timing the turns. So, I had to remember to flip on the first cross at the bulkhead and the last cross at the wall. The last thing I needed was something else to worry about. Over the last year, I've tried to visit other pools and swim in different depths so I would learn to adapt to sight cues that were more consistent across pools. That helped a lot for this meet but I still messed a couple turns up. Just not as bad as last year. The bulkhead still intimidates me. For some reason I think it is going to give too much.

I think it's just a matter of getting used to bulkheads in general. After 4 years of attending the Auburn meet and St Nicks and Nationals at GA Tech, I think I've finally figured it out. I don't look at the bottom of the pool so much as diagonally down towards the bottom of the bulkhead.

It was great seeing, socializing and swimming with all of you, my GA swim buds. This was just the weekend meet I needed to get myself motivated again. Thanks for giving me a second wind. Donna

Just some other feedback on the pool that I heard (and agree with) and wanted to share. I heard ALOT of people talk about having issues with the walls, mostly at the bulkhead end of the pool. Mainly due to two factors: 1. The "wall" is see through...meaning the bulkhead is open air straight through where you touch the wall. At water level you can see through it into the warmdown area. So the warmdown area is the background you pick up swimming *** or fly. 2. The bulkhead only extends underwater 4-1/2 to 5 feet with a pool that is at least 8 feet deep or more. So coming into the wall swimming free you don't pic up the bottom of the bulkhead until the last second, unlike in a fixed wall pool. So you say use the marks on the bottom of the pool.....they didn't help either. I had some major issues on a few turns, either too far away (toe tapper) or too close (cruncher). Nothing I couldn't cure with a week of swimming in that pool, but its tough to get used to just coming in. I haven't swam there LCM so not sure what the walls will look like then, but its something to think about when you get there in August.