Lara’s Blog

I am getting so excited for next week!  US Swimming Nationals will be held in Irvine, California August 2-7, 2010.  And Lara is ready.  She has been focusing on her training and her workouts have been going well.  I will post the link to US Swimming on the coverage available online and on TV, at the end of this blog entry.  The results of this meet will qualify swimmers for the Pan Pacs in Irvine August 18-22, 2010 and also for the World Champs in Shenghai, China in 2011.  So you see why this is all so very exciting for Lara.
Here’s how the week will play out.  On Wednesday, August 4th, Lara will lead off the Women’s 4 x 100 free relay with Ford Aquatics.  Her goal is to have a good swim and to get one swim under her belt before the big day.  Which big day?  The next day, Thursday, August 5th is the 50 M free.  No Dara Torres this year.  She must still be recovering from her most recent knee surgery.  The top seeds on the pysch sheet are: 1. Weir 24.23, 2. Jackson 24.71, 3. Botek 24.89, 4. Hardy 24.90, 5. Magnuson 25.09, 6. Vollmer, 7. Joyce 25.14 and 8. Franklin 25.23.  You go Lara and show them what you’ve got!  On Friday Lara will rest for Saturday, August 7th for the Women’s 100 M free.  She’s a bit low on the seeding, but who knows what will happen?  If she is on her game, the ranking will be higher on the list after.
I will be busy blogging and tweeting on ElPasoMartina.  So stay tuned for the big week.  And let me have your comments so I know that you are out there!  We all need to get behind our girl and cheer her on.  She’s going to kick butt!

http://www.usaswimming.org/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?TabId=0&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&ItemId=2920&mid=9822

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Lara is making progress with her training and we are all excited that she took third in the 50 meter free at the LA Grand Prix Meet on Saturday, July 10th.  So why would we be happy with that?  I mentioned before that Lara stepped back from her training a bit to focus on her studies at the University of Arizona.  For the summer long course season, Lara is playing a little catch up with her training.  And the high tech suits are gone as well.  That may also be an adjustment.  It’s funny, but the long course season is rather short when compared to the short course (25 yards) season.  There’s not much time to get up to speed (no pun intended), during long course meters.  Lara got her feet wet (no pun intended again), with the first meet of the season at the Tucson Classic in early June.  Then one week later she was competing at the Santa Clara Grand Prix Meet.  She barely got her 100 M free down to under one minute.  And she tied for 7th in the 50 meter free with a 25.84.  I know that she may not have been happy with that because I remember her swimming the 50 in a 25.50 at Tucson.  But her text to me was, “Yea, I’m not too worried.  I had some good elements on my race today but it’s all about learning what to fix and where to go from here.”
I was curious to see what would happen in LA.  Lara was seeded fourth for finals out of prelims with a 25.77.  I nervously watched finals on the live webcast with my sister on the phone, trying not to scream too loudly into the phone.  The race went off and Lara was looking good!  She lead all the way and I thought that she would win it, but she got third with a 25.23.  Whew!  Best time so far this season.  Kara Lynn Joyce won with a 25.14 and Jessica Hardy took second with 25.16.  Lara sent me a text after I congratulated her, “I know I still need to fix some things but it was progress.  And I was only 0.09 behind first.  I was leading and when I finish I’ll be unbeatable.”   I know Lara, you will be unbeatable at Nationals in Irvine.  Can’t wait to see!

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