How to build a cake

Cakes are great right? They are used to celebrate great things like birthdays and weddings but what if they symbolized something deeper? The first thing you need to do to make a cake is to get the right kitchen. Then, you need to go out and buy all of the whole and organic ingredients and keep them together. After you do that you have to actually put all the ingredients together correctly and put them in the oven, but not just any oven, it has to be large enough and heated to the right temperature for your cake. Then you take the cake out when the time is right and wait for it to cool, if you don't do this right your entire cake will fall or implode. Then you decorate it with all the right toppings and creams so that after you cool it, you can eat it right away.

Photo courtesy of Cake boss.com

Now your wondering why I am talking about cakes, and not its not cause I am hungry (I am) but its because a building cake is like swimming to a T. We need the right kind of pool to swim in with just the right coaches and staff with the right amount of choline. Then we need to train and train ( this is the baking ) and then train some more. Once a meet comes up is when you start to add your toppings. racing is the cooling of the cake and eating it is the winning part. There are analogies for everything but cake fits swimming just for its special features and because they taste good. My coach has been writing an article on just this same thing for a couple of weeks now and its really interesting. Nobody else could have thought of it that way but he is right. There are times and people when you can't find the right ingredients and your cake comes out lopsided but thats ok because you can just start again which is a skill I think people should start to learn for them selves. I don't know when he will finally post his article but you can probably find it on this page.

After Sectionals

So that was interesting... I really have no idea what happened the last five days except that I swam and slept for all of it. (not to mention eating) The first day I had the 1000 free, It wasn't great but not bad. The second day was the best though, I had the 200 back where I made it into finals and finished 24th with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds. I also made my first SCS cut which I talked about in a few posts ago. The third day was ok, I just had the 200 free, not my best event but I did get a best time. The fourth day was a little better, I had the 100 back and the 500 free (the exact order of events I swam at high school state) and I did pretty well. The very last day, today, I swam the mile. The longest even there is and definitely the hardest. The mile is not something to be taken lightly, if someone wants you to swim it protest harshly.

My team mates also did awesome too. One of my team mates, Katie Hale also made it back in one of her events, the 100 back. She was only at the meet for three days though because those were the days her events were on. My other team mate, Alandra McDowell did amazing as well. She unfortunately did not make it back but I believe that both of these girls could have really won it all.

Photo courtesy of 7hillscanvass.com

But thats not all... theres more do do in Texas than just swim. You can eat some darn good cow too. I really have never seen so many steakhouses on one street before in my entire life. There are some local restaurants that are awesome. They sell all kinds of stuff. This one place we went to (it was definitely just a one time thing) sold steaks practically floating in pounds of butter. It was pretty gross afterward but it was an experience that we all got to share. My coach the other families and some other people from Utah. All of us except for our coach agreed we would never go back there.

Like I have said before, if you want to see exactly how I did you can look it up on Meet Mobile and search my name with park city swimming with will also lead you to the ladies that went with me.

A Sickness nobody can see spreading but everyone gets it

Bad moods are like a sickness. One person gets it first then eventually everyone has it. We are so hyped up doing good then it comes, everyone hates swimming and wants to go home. Our coach has had to pull some of us out of the meet are keep us away from everybody else just so that it doesn't spread. We could lose the meet, lose swimmers or even worse make mike mad. Once he is mad there is no getting out. It effects your entire week. Once you feel like this there is no way to change it.

Picture courtesy of My Goals.com

High Expectations are the only thing that might just save you. They are the motivation that everyone needs. Think, you want to reach your goals, you want to achieve something great. Expectations, wether they are from your parents or your coaches, or even yourself, they push you to do your best no matter how your feeling. I wish I had learned about the presence of this sickness earlier. I can only imagine what I could have achieved instead of failing all the expectations around me. Only, recently has my coach started to actually do something about it. He sees how people are feeling even when they try to hide it. He explains it like this, and snakes tail can grow back again and again. Unless you cut of the head, the head being in this case, the first person to feel bad about swimming. He sends them home before the meet is even over.

Training the best team in the state

Park City High School is the best team in the state. We won for boys last year with eight boys. Our girls won by over 100 points. There were no senior boys last year, we only added on to the team and got better. We now have a swimmer in the top ten for the nation. We will be on the podium for every single event. This is all thanks to our coaches.

Mike is the greatest coach I have ever met as he is training three future olympians right now and they are all in high school. No body could deny that he is doing great at his job but his job is hard. He lives in salt lake and trains us at least five days a week. On tuesdays and thursdays we have morning practice at 5:15am. Then everyday he also stays after high school practice for the smaller kids which we also are able to stay and train with them, and just because they are small doesn't mean they are not fast cause they could beat most of the juniors and seniors.