The Panthers are in sunny Fort Lauderdale, training at Pinecrest School, both short and long course. The team hotel is right on A1A on the beach for the third-straight season. They will be on the trip through the 16th of January before resuming the regular season schedule second semester against the University of Chicago on Jan. 23.
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The fifth blog entry comes from sophomore Brady Huemann:
So, I made it through another day of our training trip. I am not sure what day it is because time is irrelevant on the training trip. I awoke at seven and skipped gleefully to my van, excited for another day of swimming and dryland.It was finally getting warmer outside and it was a scorching 45 degrees when we hopped in the pool. I awaited for someone else to jump in before me today because the other day when it was only 36 degrees, I ran through the wretched weather in my skimpy speedo and jumped in the pool only to find out that we weren’t going to swim that day.
However, today we did have a full practice and boy, was it a good one. We were separated into free and IM'ers and we all had to fight through the pain and hold back all of our tears to survive our hard set.
After our two hours of swimming we all were yearning for more, so we had an hour of dryland. We did everything that you could possibly ask for running, burpees, sit ups, squats, and push-ups. And we did a plank contest to finish it all off. Congrats to Jeremy for holding his plank for a nearly 7 minutes.
Finally 5:30 rolled around and we were ready for some more swimming. We started off by watching our brave student athletic trainer, Kyla, swim a 100 meter freestyle. She swam so well that it motivated everyone to get back in the water and swim like men (yes, even the women). I had fun this afternoon because we got to do a circuit, which means that each lane did something different. This circuit also gave us a chance to swim with people that we normally don’t swim with.
There was a lot of people in my group because I am so cool that everyone loves to swim with me. Our circuit had its ups and downs, but overall it was a practice that we all enjoyed.
Although the weather has not been very nice and every day I wake up hurting more and more, I am having a great time in Florida with my team. I have not gone in the ocean yet because I am deathly afraid of everything that the ocean holds. My back is killing me from all the suicides we did the other day and all the girls want to give me a back massage (ugh, sometimes it is difficult being a ladies man). I have the best vanmates and an awesome driver, Kyle. Everyone is missing out on being in my van because I tell really good stories.
But at the end of the day, it is nice to go back and chill in my room and go to bed while my roommates Sky, Evan, and Dan tell me bedtime stories until I fall asleep.
