I just finished talking with Lara on skype and asked her a few questions about her experiences on this world tour.   Whitney Myers, Lara’s traveling companion for the past 6 weeks was also in the room answering my questions.  First of all, the two agreed on how close they’ve become and have enjoyed being each other’s closest friend, colleague, and even coach.  They’ve had to rely totally on each other, push each other and also give each other advice.  That’s another new situation for Lara, being at major meets without her coach.  Besides relying on Whitney, Lara also had alot of help from South African Swimmers, Roland Schoeman and Lyndon Ferns and American swimmer, Aaron Peirsol.
Lara said that she’s learned alot and that her eyes have been opened to new ways of doing things.  First of all, should she decide to do the World Cup again, there needs to be different preparation with her training.  She needs to concentrate on more fine tuning with techniques.  Especially nailing the turns and finishes.  Lara said that on her 50 fly last night, she swam an awesome stroke, but her turn was very sloppy.  That costs valuable time, especially in the short distance sprint races where there is no room for error.
Lara sounded great.  She has some evaluating to do for her post-grad goals so she can be all set for 2012 Olympic Trials.  She is definitely glad that she had this experience on the world tour and she and Whitney would love to do it again in the future.  I say that there’s no stopping her now and man, isn’t this all just too exciting?  My baby girl up on the world stage.  I’m sure Keith is smiling from heaven.

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