Just for Deb

Sorry folks. This is special for Deb who is out of town and wanted to see how long and gross the hair on my legs is after 2 weeks.
Only 3 more days til I shave!

Tight turns

Great video by GoSwim.


TURNS/WALLS - Far-Hands Flip Turn from Glenn Mills on Vimeo.

Jo Jackson breaks 400 free WR

England's Jo Jackson edged out fellow brit Rebecca Adlington for a new world record in the 400 meter freestyle today, besting the record set by Italy's Federica Pelligrini in Bejing, with a time of 4:00.66, just .23 faster than Adlington. Katie Hoff has her work cut out for her.
Click here for the video from the BBC. And thanks for the scoop Ted.

Preview: Harvard NE SCY Championships

The psych sheets are out. The relays have been assigned.
Yikes! Just looking at the psych sheets got my heart practically pounding out of my chest.

My seeds:
Friday
50 back - 6th
100 fly - 2nd
400 free relay A 25+ Mix

Saturday
100 free - 3rd
100 back - 7th
200 medley relay A 35+ MIx
200 free relay A 35+ MIx

Sunday
50 free - 2nd
50 fly - 1st !!
400 Medley relay 18+ W

This is going to be a tiring -- but FUN -- weekend!

On the suit front, I am kind of annoyed with Splish as they have not returned emails regarding the lobster logo. Initally they indicated they could do it but now are ignoring me! I may not buy one of their suits as a result... hmmm until at least i need something cool for Alcatraz.

Positive effect of sports and activities on children

Conventional wisdom is that too many activities are stressful for kids. Not true says recent research. In fact, more activities -- especially a balance of sport and nonsport activities -- are beneficial to kids development.

Sandra Hofferth of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland says she had "started out with a pretty solid belief that lots and lots of activities are bad for children." However the data shows otherwise. Children with higher activity levels were not more likely to experience stress, depression, anxiety or other behavioral symptoms. Its more likely that any negative effects of high activity involvement comes from critical comments and high adult expectations for children, not the activities themselves. (See link for media article).

Other research just published in the 2009 issue of Child Development shows that youths who participate in sports and other non-sports activities have the most positive outcomes, with sports-only youths with moderately positive outcomes and no activity youths the least positive outcomes (Livner, Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2009).

In another article in that same issue of CD researchers found swim coaches who praise the process -- not the outcome -- and foster autonomy are more likely to have swimmers with a higher sense of competence and satisfaction with coaching.

The authors concluded: ...the quality of coaching climate is an important predictor of the developmental benefits of sport participation and that one pathway by which the coaching climate has its effect on initiative and identity reflection is though developing youth self-perceptions. (Coatsworth & Conroy, 2009).

It's GROSS, I know

I've been sick for a month, had a lot of work, the pool was 76 degrees this week (broken pump), there have been 3 snow days in the last month and thus a slew of missed workouts, my shoulder hurts, my trunk broke and I can't open it, I got my period, my driveway is covered with ice and.....I have a hang nail on my left toenail.

You get the idea.. lots of excuses to not swim my fastest at New England.

I need a motivator.

Yes I can dig deep and go beyond all these excuses. But I need something more.

I thought long and hard about this. And then thought some more. Finally it came to me...

I will not shave until the meet! Like the old days (except there will be no taper cause I haven't worked hard enough to taper-ha ha!). Yes, it's kind of gross, I know, but it will be fun and give me that extra psychological boost when I get up on the blocks and dive in and feel smooth and faassst.

So in the interest of grossing everyone out here is the "before" picture. On March 26th I'll post a picture of my amazonian hairy legs!

More *@*#*$% snow!

Arggghhh! Another 14 inches of snow coming down. Our driveway is already coated with 2" of ice because we have reached that point in the winter when we are so flipping sick of shoveling that we just stop doing it. I'll be lucky if I can get out of the driveway after this storm. I should have cleared it when it was 45 last week...at least I cleared the walkway.

Okay so here's a fun snow day activity.... picking a new suit for the big meet.
I haven't been able to get the lobster graphic



on a suit but it will be on our snazy caps.
However, seeing how I have so much extra time today (ha!) I picked a few and designed some.
Please vote for your favorite on the right. Or send me a better idea!

Choice #1 - Maine splash


Choice #2 - Bubbles Multi


Choice #3 - Bubbles Blue


Choice #4 - Pink Shimmer