The first of the New Year was marked by something never before seen in this Wabash swimmer’s time at school…no practice!  Our travel day came and we made our way through Atlanta and on to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  We landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and made our way to our newly rented fifteen passenger van and twin pimped-out Ford Expeditions.  The vehicles were ushered out of the loading/unloading bay by an aggressive traffic cop, and I think she flipped Volunteer Asst. Coach Hugh Vandivier the bird when he tried to make polite conversation.

We checked into the Deerfield Beach Embassy Suites after a short drive and found ourselves a mere walk across the street from the beach.  Everyone checked out the new suites that will be our homes for the next ten days, and went to bed in preparation for the next day’s first outdoor practice.

Friday morning we ate a full breakfast at the hotel and piled into the vans to leave for the short-course pool (one of two that we would be training at for the trip).  This pool was a short drive from the hotel, but happened to be located in a…shady neighborhood to say the least.  The pool was perfectly nice, but we definitely saw some characters on the way there!  Also, we ended up sharing the pool with some sort of French-speaking Canadian team from Montreal, making for an interesting mix of coaching yells flying through the air.

We ran to the grocery store as a team between practices so that we could stock up on snacks, drinks, and in some cases (Brent Graham) supplies to make a week’s worth of gourmet meals with a microwave.

Practice took a toll on our bodies, morning and night.  In the evening, we practiced at our other pool location, a long course pool (slightly less shady neighborhood).  We did some long kick sets that left our legs fairly depleted, which was helped none by a dryland session the next morning.  However, we’re getting some really good training in that is going to pay off come conference time.

-Nicholas F. Rockefeller ‘10