A blog might be more useful in the future if I were to a key part of a business and the information I know could help the customers of the company or business. A company or business blog could help answer questions and keep those involved in the company up to date on what is going on the world of that business.

If I do not continue will my swimming blog, I do think that one day I might get back into blogging for personal and or business reason. Right now though being in college blogging seems to just take up time that is needed for studying.

What I have discovered though is how much we actually do. In and out of the water. What all goes into practices and how much we have to give to succeed in this sport. I know that the time requirement is high, but what has surprised me is al that goes into that four or so hours a day that I am training. In the past all I would do is go to practice do what the coaches say and not think about it very much. If practice was hard or easy it was pretty much off my mind thirty minutes after we were finished. Due to this blog though I was required to think of what we had actually just done as well as what I could say about it.

Another thing that I have discovered is there is a lot to say about how great this team actually is. There is an endless amount of talent possessed by everyone on the team. The team comes together and supports each other at every meet and this results directly in the success that we have had thus far this year. The combination of talent and spirit that the TCU Horned Frog Swimming and Diving team has will enable us to go far this year and we will continue to win meets.

One of the seniors Ben Biefnes, is especially ready to take down Wyoming. One of his most dreaded memories from his swimming career is that of having to listen to the Wyoming fight song over and over, after we had lost in Wyoming. He is set on taking down Wyoming and showing them that we will protect our house just as football did on Saturday against Utah. He knows that this is a big one for us. With a win here against Wyoming this will only further strengthen our hoped for a Mountain West Conference Title. Ben also knows that for us to win on Saturday we need to step it up outside the pool and put cheer the opposition. Therefore we will be loud and we will come out and swim hard and give it our all.

So on Saturday you will see that this little froggy can not only play football, but they can also kick some ass in the water. We will have to calm down from this past weekends emotional high and focus on our goal, but the TCU Swimming and Diving team will put up a serious fight on Saturday and we will not back down. We will show  those northern cowboys how it’s really done here in the south.

The way this style of meet was setup is that the teams are competing individually to each other but are swimming as a whole. This is called a dual meet. It is similar to two teams facing off on the football field in the sense of team A versus team B.

After the meet the swim team was allowed to go downtown San Diego for a couple of hours. The area that we walked around at was called Gaslamp. It was an interesting area with many different kinds of shops and restaurants. The night though was cut short due to the fact that we had to wake up at 5:45 a.m. to go practice with the SDSU swim team.

Training with SDSU was an interesting experience. First off it is an all female team therefore they are not accustomed to swimming with men. They thought that we were trying to drowned them with out wakes. The practice though was surprisingly harder then I had expected. The SDSU women focus more on kicking then any other team I have practiced with.

After the practice we went to support the TCU football team at Qualcom Stadium. It was a fun experience to see them play somewhere other then at the home stadium. It was also great to see them win with such a great gap in the score away from home.

The worst part of the trip was the flight back. It was not delayed or cancelled it just was the worst time to fly back. The departure time was set for 12:30 a.m. which is 2:30 a.m. here. We did not get back to campus until 6:30 a.m.

I found this image on activeluton.com. It was in a segment promoting learning to swim for a life lesson on health and fitness.

The paddles are similar to that of putting a fin on your hand. It is a large piece of plastic that has rubber tubing straps that go around your fingers and wrist. This is used to increase the strength of the pull in the water. Paddles are also a good way to feel the differences in speed of what you might want to go at the end of season.

Fins are a very common piece of equipment used for scuba-diving. They are in essence the same kind except these are designed to increase the leg strength of swimmers. They are used in kick sets most commonly but also when swimming to get the feeling of going fast.

The pull buoy is a small flotation device that goes between your legs allowing the swimmer to maintain the proper body position without kicking. This is beneficial in isolating the arms and allowing the swimmer to focus strictly on their technique of the pull.

A swimmers snorkel is much different then a normal everyday snorkel. A swimmers snorkel come over the front of the face and around the head. This allows the swimmers to maintain proper head and body position and focus more on the stroke itself.

The kickboard is a common piece of equipment. It is a flat flotation device that is held out in front of a swimmer when they are kicking. This allows the swimmer to maintain a constant kick without having to use their arms to stay above water.

The anti-paddle is the newest piece of equipment to come around. It does the exact opposite as the normal paddle. It is a rounded tubular piece of plastic that secures to the hand with rubber tubing and makes is harder to swim. This increases a swimmers feel for the water.

The competition with Air Force will be very tough. TCU has the advantage in the sprint events where as Air Force will be dominant in the distance events. In the longer distances, the altitude will play a heavy role in the outcome of the races. We as a team have trained very hard and expect the altitude to not play as much of a role. We have focused on breathing techniques and drills that work our lungs harder than normal.

Overall, TCU Horned Frogs will show up and race. If we swim the way we have been trained and not let the altitude affect us, then we will come out on top. Mentally we need to get prepared and race when the time comes.

Attached is an article that is an argument that the TCU Horned Frogs Swimming program has a good chance to win the conference. This is an evaluation argument because it states that the program has a good chance to win then goes on to state why, the talented swimmers on the team. It starts of by stating that it is returning some key members of the swim program and how they will help to increase the chances for a conference title. It then goes into each stroke and discusses the leaders in those sports and how they will help the team to a conference win. All of the previous helps to further drive home the point that the TCU Swimming and Diving program has the potential to win a conference title this year.

As the season opener draws closer, I can feel the excitement brewing among the team. The first two months or so leading up to our first meet is by far the hardest to stay focused and train at our maximum capacity. The entire team is ready to show the coaches and their fellow swimmers what they are made of. As for the freshmen of the TCU Swimming program this is their first true collegiate swim meet. There is a lot of pressure built up on them that they need to release at this meet. A relay meet is a great way to get the team fired up and feel more like a team and at the same time get the monkey off the backs of the freshmen.

So wish us luck on our upcoming adventure out to Mansfield. We have high hopes on this year and have the potential to dominate all of our competitors.