1:39.1 !

On the last swim session for the full squad scotty,cole,matt, and andrew put to the test cracking the 1:40 barrier in the 4x50 relay.

Cole lead off followed by matt, andrew and scotty. When the waves had settled the time was 1:39.1 how about them apples. oh and by the way, we'd like to think it was meters but it was yards.

Gabrielle swimming the gauntlet (it's her birthday)!!!

swim start sprints.. buoy swim.

University of Arizona Wildcats. 2008 NCAA swim champs (women)

Summary of past few days. Pic of University of Arizona pool.

It's Friday and the last day of training for the juniors from BC.   I'm sure nobody is looking forward to the cold weather back home.   We'll sure miss this place.  We've had some great training and some good fun along the way.  

My last post before departure. 

Over the past few days this is some of what we've done here in Tucson:

• two really fun Cactus League Major League Baseball games: Arizona Diamonbacks vs San Francisco Giants (D-backs won0,  D-backs vs Chicago White Sox (D-backs won again).  For the second game A - Russ organized VIP seating for Team BC and Manitoba in a tent with all the hot dogs/hamburgers etc we could put down.. hmmmm!  not bad!!
• Mt. Lemmon assault:  some of the guys went for the 12.5 mile official time trial, then cruised the rest of the ride to the top (will post results later).  Everyone rode right to the top and we enjoyed some good cherry pie at Summerhaven.  The Fireduck award goes to Christine for a fine effort.   Kudos to everyone for enduring the long and hot day. 
• A spirited 6-8 x 1km at Udall park with Team Sask, Team Manitoba and BC in attendance.  Some fast km's were run. 
• Good drafting set at U of Arizona pool swimming long course.  We really appreciated the facilities director Russ for making us feel so welcome and offering a quality swim venue. 
• Some good buoy swims at Ft. Lowell.. see pics. 

OK.. time for a coffee then on to the morning brick session. 

Pictures from a great day in desert paradise

Today was another great day here. BC,Sask, and manitoba all met up at 930 to do a long ride thru gates pass and arva valley. The ride went thru the saguaro national park, which was a highlight. On the map it says national park forest, but its not your regular forest, no it is a cactus forest.

4-5hrs of riding with your friends can't be beat. Here are some photos taken today, i'm sure there are more out there from the other groups, so perhaps more will pop up later.

The Coaches

Friday was a big day of training for everyone here in Tucson.

The day began with Mt. Lemmon, the athletes tackled the climb at various distances, but all rode for 4-5hrs with a 30min run off the bike. Stevo crushed the climb in 1hr42min. Rumour has it that the record for 12.5mile is 47mins, look out!!! A quick recovery period and then the group got in the pool for 5k of swimming. The bouys were set up and the set was 5x400m. This set was tough but finished off a great day.

The coaches were great today and need big mention. Patrick, Mark and Rossanne all were there for support on the climb, set up the bouys for the swim and kept everyone motivated when the energy levels were sinking.

As Pk said that could have been the first bouy swim in fort lowell pool history.