Arrival and Day 1 Prelims (Grand Prix)

Arrival:

Ideally, when you travel to big meets, you want to arrive a day or two early to let your body recoup from the trip, but given that this meet is in the middle of an important school period we had to make a few adjustments and fly in at the last minute. Arraignments were not necessarily ideal, but sometimes you just have to make the best of it. The 4 swimmers and Coach Tim took a direct flight out of Rochester at 7 PM at night and after a quick 2 hours flight landed in Minneapolis at a little after 8 PM (Central time). Coach Phil flew in earlier in the day.  By the time we got to the hotel and checked in, it was a little after 9 PM and the kids finally got to bed at about 11 PM, which is midnight our time in NY. After a quick 6 1/2 hour sleep we were up and at the pool by 7:30 Central. A short night indeed.

The meet facility is right on the Campus of the University of Minnesota (home of the Golden Gophers), and the campus itself sits right on the edge of Downtown Minneapolis. It has a nifty "city" feel to it and there are lots of shops and food joints. It's about a 5-10 minute walk from our hotel.

Downtown Minneapolis from our Hotel

Day 1 - Prelims

Given the late night getting in, coupled with the time of season we are currently in for the boys (early), we certainly were very realistic with the performances we were looking for as coaches. This is really the first competitive meet for these for swimmers since late July or early August and just like anything, getting back into "race shape" is a process. Particularly challenging this season was that 3 of our swimmers (Jeff, Matt and Erick) have missed quite a bit of training time as they have spent much of the fall visiting colleges and various recruit trips. Those aren't meant to be excuses, but it is the reality for kids early in their senior year of High School. The purpose of this meet was never to light the world on fire time wise, but really just an opportunity to gauge where you are at this particular point in the season so that you can build on these early successes and move up from there for the end of the season.

With that said, we did expect our swimmers to perform somewhat. We gave all 4 swimmers a "mini-rest" (not a full taper) and two swimmers (Matt and Tommy) decided to add a shave on the legs to boost them up a bit. We expected a bit of a rough morning given the circumstances and knew that likely this would possibly be our worst session of the meet. We were pleasantly surprised. Here is a synopsis by swimmer.

Jeff Williamson - Jeff started the morning off with a 1:45.22 (team record) in the 200 Free, which was not a very good swim at all for him. You could see that he had not raced this distance since summer. The best part about it was that it was fast enough to earn a spot back in the D final for tonights session. A genuine do-over is just what he needs after this race. He came back about a half hour later and went 52.08 (team record) in the 100 fly, which is actually not a bad unshaved time for him. He also gets to swim this one again too and we expect even faster tonight. A mixed morning for Jeff, but Jeff has always fancied himself a "night swimmer" anyway.

Matt Tanchick - Unlike Jeff, Matt decided to put a shave on his mini-rest to really set the tone for his high school senior season. Matt's first event is arguably his best in the 100 Breaststroke. He didn't disappoint. Matt turned in a 58.69 (team record) in prelims, which is less then a second off his best time from last season. A very solid morning swim. As fate would have it, Matt ended up having to swim his next race, the 100 fly, about 12 minutes later. We knew it was a pretty tough turn-around, but Matt is a gamer and we knew he give it a good run. He did, swimming a 53.74, which is also less then a second off his lifetime best. Overall, we were very pleased with these swims and Matt will get the opportunity to swim the Breaststroke again in the C Final tonight (seeded 18th overall).

Tom Kirch - Tommy has been nursing a bit of a sore groin the last few weeks, so we limited his breaststroke swimming a bit. It was feeling better by today, but still, power breaststroke is the worst thing for a sore groin. Tommy also decided to shave on his rest as well to give him a little something extra. Tom went out and had a really good race and swam a 1:01.10, which is less then 1/2 second from his lifetime best. He narrowly missed the D Final for tonight, but it's probably just as well as he still felt his groin a bit on that swim and he has a lot more swimming left on the weekend. This was a very good swim for him and we were happy with it.

Matt Tanchick, 2 lane in - 100 Breaststroke

All in all, not too bad of a morning. 3 very good swims, 1 okay swim and 1 that we know we can improve on tonight. That's about all you can ask for at this point in the season. Judging from the rest of the swims in the pool and the times being posted, many of the men here are in a very similar place physically. There is a lot of swimming left in the season and this meet is a great starting point.

We'll be back in action later tonight at the Finals Session.

LIVE MEET RESULTS