The USA National journal, part I

(East Meadow, NY) - The athletes at Nationals and I have decided to do a different type of daily update from the 2007 USA Swimming Spring Nationals....so we have presented more of a travel journal so that some of you can get a good idea of what being at Nationals can be like.

Sunday, March 25 was a rather long day for the SMSC National team. First, we had a loosn up swim from 8:00-9:30 in Santa Maria. By 11:00AM, we were on the road for our road trip to LAX (airline tickets out of Santa Maria were way to expensive). By the time we got to LAX, we were already gettng antsy to be there. Most of these athletes are pros at travel at this point, hvaing been on a couple of airplane trips to meets in the past, including Texas last month.

Our 5 hour flight passes by without event. Mostly, we sleep, since we know that our flight won't touch down in New York until 12:15AM EST.

After landing and getting our baggage, the first adventure begins - trying to figure out the airline transit system so that we can get to our rental car. We finally figure it out and by 1:45AM, we are all in our rooms in East Meadow, NY.

At 7:00AM on Monday morning, we are up! We need to get onto the National schedule and into the time zone as quickly as possible. Coach Mike is in search of a Dunkin' Donuts, which we find quickly thanks to a friendly New Yorker who gives us directions. Say anything you want about the stereotype of unfriendly New Yorkers - so far they have all been accomodating and very friendly.

We get to the Long Island Aquatic Center, a humongous building in the middle of a park that is probably bigger than Santa Maria. The athletes get in and warmup, we grabd some breakfast and head for adventure #2.

This is our only real free day. The meet starts Tuesday. So we need to take advantage and see a few of the sights. Why come to all these great swim meet destinations and not see a few things that might inspire or educate? So we take the Long Island Express into Penn Station and walk up to the Empire State Building. One athlete (to remain nameless) is not very thrilled about heights and the 86th floor outdoor observation deck of the building is not getting her very excited. She suggest that she can hang out on the street and wait. We suggest that she can walk into the building or be carried over a shoulder. She elects to walk.

From the top of the Empire State Building you can everything - the spot where the World Trade Center stood, the Statue of Liberty, tourists from all over the world and the greatest number of buildings in one square mile that we have ever seen. Its both humbling and exciting.

After lunch, we take the subway down to the sight of the World Trade Center. What we thought would just be an interesting little sight-seeing trip is nothing but. The grandeur of the empty sight, currently being rebuilt, is staggering. The weight of what actually happened here can't really be understood until you stand on the edge and look down into the huge gaping whole in the Earth where the twin towers once stood, names of the fallen on a huge plaque above your head.

We head back to Long Island, get into the pool again and warmup. The kids are getting excited and feeling good. Its been a long day so we head to dinner and manage to get back into our rooms by 9:30PM. Tomorrow starts the real reason we came - competing against the best in the entire USA.