PIE

This week i was supposed to have a total of three swim meets, the first against Arryo high school, then against Albony High school, and last but not least the alumni meet. On Tuesday we crushed Arryo with a ending score of ninety-four to sixty-eight, for those of you who dont know, thats a pretty big stretch in points. Unfortunately, i dint drop any time off my best, so i was a little dissapointed in myself, so hopefully i'll be able to drop atleast a little bit of time. And that meet wont be till this Saturday, because apparently Albony has a new coach and he dint get the meet memo, i've heard that excuse so many times from previous games or meets, and its pretty irritating. And for some reason this excuse is only used in the teams that are the worst in our league, i wonder why that is?



So instead of our team having a long two hour practice, we get to swim for a while and than race each other for times. I'm not nervous about anything, just as long as i can drop some time off my freestyle, WHICH IM TRYING SO HARD TO DO!, my current tim is a twenty-six point one, if my coach happends to put me in the fifty freestyle than i know i can drop it down to a twenty five by the end of this week! If i can , i can possibly do it today in practice today.I just dont want to race against someone like jarred thompson or curtis fong, because they have hella low times for their fifty free's, but then again, it might cause me to want to catch me up to them and cause me to go faster.AAAGHHHH just me thinking about it wants me to go faster so that i can start to cach up to the record time.



So now on Saturday is my last meet, its a really fun and long meet tho. We get to see all of the Alumni swimmers who hold the records on our record board, which is hanging up in the in the swim center office for everyone to see. The record for the fifty free i think is a twenty one point eight, so i have a couple of years to drop down to that time by the end of my senior year. So on saturday we get to rave against the guys of our team who use to be the best of the best, and we even get to race a couple of our coaches, and teachers and our principal. Yep, mr.rodd, and principal janivier are going to be racing this saturday against us. The meet in genreal is cool tho, we get to hanf out with the alumni, have some good food afterwards, and then go home and hang out for the rest of the weekend. After that im probally do nothing on saturday and on Sunday go to my dads girlfriends house and eat dinner over there.

MAGIC!

this weekend, im really pumped for it, because on friday we have our first meet for alameda swim league.We are swiming against de la sal high school out in concord. We are definetly going to lose, but its not going to matter because there a team whos not in our league. Even tho this is going to be a loss, i think it will give us a good measure for where a skills lye currently and what goal we should aim for, for the end of the season. Ive already made my goals, my only priority is to get my 50 freestyle down to twenty-four seconds to about twenty-three that's not the biggest leap, seeing how my freestyle currently is a twenty-six point one, POINT ONE! I dont think you guys realize what that looks like, it looks close to this ------> (26.1), so close to a twenty-five, and i also want to drop my hundred freestyle down somewhere between a fifty-nine to a fifty eight, hopefully somewhere between those to places so that i have more room to improve. Besides just those two races, im just focused im just focused on dropping time for any other even So even if i lose my race, all i care is about how much i improved or how much i haven't. Its really great for me also because i get out of class early, on a Friday! could i ask for much more? The perfect begining to a great weekend.

At the beggining of the week my mom had told me that we were supposed to go see the San Jose sharks play this weekend, so i looked up the day, and theres no game. She said to me " o yeah, its supposed to be in march." She was a whole month off. I was really looking forward to see my friends from elementary school, its cool getting to see how people have changed over the years. Ive done this trip before, what happends is that the parents have a big barbeque and then they chip in for a travel bus to come get us and take us to the game.
Im also planning on going to see Alice in Wonderland on Saturday. Im not completely sure what its about, all i caught is that the red queen is trying to take over wonderland, and the white queen is trying to nock her off a couple of pegs. The madhatter, played by Johnny Depp, is awsome, he has the perfect amount of insanity for me, enough to the point where its funny but not crossing the line into more of the Joker status. And my mom just literally told me that im going to see a play, something about a latina girl and her family, o well, sounds decent enough to go and check out. I feel kinda let down for this post, just because i had nothing else to talk about. but since sutherland told us to start putting labels i guess this one could go under swimming, weekend plans and maybe a couple other things.

Morning meal

So during the morning what do you grab? A bowl of cereal, yogurt, monster (and yes some people do drink monsters and other crap in the morning such as rockstar or eat candy in the morning, why?), what ever you can? During the week not allot of people have the time to grab an actual meal from home. Me for sure, I don’t. I got to morning practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from five-thirty till seven-thirty. Afterwards I have and egg mcmuffin (homemade), and a cup of yogurt, every other day I just grab cereal, if I even feel like eating. But mostly I don’t eat during week days.

Now it’s the weekend, what do you have? Same thing? I sure as hell don’t. I wake up, walk around for a minute or so then make myself some good pancakes. And I don’t mean that bisquick crap (as good as they are). I’m talking about good old fashion, made from scratch pancakes. Buttered pan so that the pancakes get golden and taste better. Sometimes I’ll make myself some scrambled eggs with some Mexican cheese mix on top. Fluffy, cheesy eggs. And I’ll add a side of yogurt with some granola crushed and mixed in. sounds good doesn’t it. One morning I was making some pancakes in the morning for my brother, mother, and myself. I went over to the fridge and grabbed the jelly, went over to the cabinet and grabbed the peanut butter, put the two on each side of a pancake and made a sandwich out of it. I know it doesn’t sound all that good but it actually does. You know what they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Go ahead and actually play with your food and experiment and see what crazy good taste you can come up with, how do you think they came up with sweet and sour chicken?

Goggles and Chlorine pt2

First day of practice, nervous, happy, intimidated. I was waiting on the bleachers along with all the other kids, just waiting for the coach to come out and tell us what to do. I was always called the social butterfly of the family but for some reason i was frozen in place without being able to ask anyone anything. I then saw Patrick Wong.

Patrick and I went to preschool and summer preschool ( i guess it was called, daycare thing). I went up to him and we both had not known what to do, a guy by the name of Mchail and Jeff Engler came to us and we just started talking. Finally the coach came out and he told us to go get changed and meet back out on the deck. We got changed and the he said " get in and do a hundred"

I assumed he meant A HUNDRED LAPS!!! I felt stupid when it turned out one lap is equivillent to twenty-five yards. An hour had pass. I got out and repeated that for two months. At the end of the day, coach Bill annouced the red and blue meet. I was completely confused when i had hear this. I asked what the red and blue meet was, it is a meet where we collect our times and just have fun racing eachother.

Everyone had to swim every event. I was so nervous for my first event, what would happen if i got a bad time, what would happen if I false started or went too late? I was pacing around over and over agin till i saw some of the races before me.I was filled with excitement to see them sore through the air and into the water like a bird diving for fish. It was finally my turn for the twenty five free, i got on the blocks , everything was silent, the horn went off, i dove in, sprinting, my heart was racing, i got to the wall with a smile on my face and the timer asked my name, I said " Bobby Ingram".

Goggles and chlorine pt 1

On a hot summer day everyone likes to cool off in some way, most like to go to a pool and just hang with their friends. But once you put on that cap and pair of goggles you go through your swimmers phase. When i was seven years old, i was brought to the Hayward Plunge indoor pool. From there I learned the basics, free style, backstroke , breastroke, and butterfly. First day i was there for practice, the instuctor moved me up to an advance class, then i got moved up again by a different instructor, just trying to make my way to the top.

On one of my days there, there happened to be a scout for a local team in San Leandro . He asked my mom and dad to come out and try out for their team at San Leandro High school on a Saturday around 5:30.

They put all the people who tried out in a group then split us up, i remember going to the diving well and hopping in the pool with a bunch of giants who i had not met. I was in a lane with high schoolers doing freestyle, it felt like i was a dessert rodent running in a field with a herd o elephants, half and hour later i emerged from the water and rapped myself in a towel and headed over to my parents wondering what the hell had just happened.

Next thing i know,a man with a straw hat,thick rimmed glasses, and orange hair approached me and said that I had made the team. I was so happy that i was in shock and disbelief. So i asked the man why he had chose me out of all the bigger,stronger, older and more experienced guys. He told me that i was fast for my age, and that they were looking for a more variety of the team that they could mold over the years into the kind of swimmers that they wanted. After that he made anannoucement for the first practice. I then got changed, left the locker room, went over to the man once more and asked " whats your name?". He looked down at me and said " you can call me coach bill".