U of M invite

If you don't want to read anything about swimming, skip this post.

Here is how the U of M invite works. First of all, I must say that this school has done a fine job with their aquatic program, and the facilities are wonderful. (That's for you Parker)
The meet is actually three separate meets, each one hosted by a twin cities team. The brackets are supposedly divided by ability, but St. Cloud Tech was in a bracket up from us and we are way better than them. So not everything is according to ability. I say that because we were in the bronze division, which is below the maroon division, which is below the Gold division. hmm. I wonder which one is best.

Anyway, as a team we finished 3rd of 13 teams, losing to only Alexandria and Red Wing. We swim fergus falls on tues, and they were in the maroon division after us, so redwing, Brainerd, and Alexandria should have been in Maroon, but it is fun to win things too.

With an invitational of such size, there are several heats of every event, and I had to wait awhile before I could swim at all. The 50 free open went well, as I was seeded a slow time from several meets ago, won the heat, and beat seven of the guys in the last heat to take 2nd overall in the event with a 23.53, beating Alexandria's Brock Edwards. The 100 was after the break, and this also went well, but didn't feel as smooth as the 50. I had a better time in thursday's meet when I raced josiah, but a 52.47 isn't far off of a 52.12. I was actually hoping for a 51-high, but that will hopefully come on tuesday. The 200 free relay posted their best time this year, two and a half seconds faster than thursday. I split a 23.4, and it should have been much faster than that because with a relay start I should be able to take off .7 seconds. I am learing. The 400 also posted their best times this year, with a 334.38. Since Josiah (ahem) didn't hit the pad correctly, we didn't get splits. But between the two of us, doing funky things with the times we have, we both split 52.2's. So I finish the race, a time trips in on the timing pad, but it doesn't register as us finishing the race for another 15 seconds. They eventually corrected the error.
It was fun overall, and I was pleased with a second place finish in the 400 free relay.

If Josiah ever posts, he can say how he did, but I think he had a very good meet, and did well against Alexandria's Shmeagle.

In other big news, we swim against:
Fergus falls on tues the 10th away, (a very close meet)
true team sections next sat the 14th
Sauk Rapids thurs 19th (easy meet)
**Poss** true team state friday 20th
!!!!!ALEXANDRIA!!!!!! TUES 24TH HOME 600 PM BE THERE!!!!!!
(meet of the year)
Tech Away Thurs 26th
Thurs feb 2nd Willmar home 600 pm be there
....then conference and sections in feb