A lot has happened since I last blogged! I’m sure you’re thinking “well ya, I’d surely hope so…considering it’s been about 68974298746 days!” So where to start…first off, I got a new roommate. She used to play volleyball at the U of A and she dates an ex-U of A swimmer. So not only do we have a lot of friends in common because we were both athletes here, but she also knows pretty much everyone on the swim team, which is pretty cool. She turned 22 this past week and we went out for sushi, which happened to be my first sushi experience! Being from Ohio, we don’t exactly have a lot of sushi restaurants, as I’m sure you can image. I realize there isn’t exactly much water in Tucson, Arizona either, but at least it pretty close to the ocean  I must admit that I was extremely daring that night but I think the key to trying new foods is to not ask many questions. For instance, I picked up this sushi piece and it looked like it had shaved carrots on top, which seemed to be a pretty safe option, so I dipped it in the sauce and tossed it in my mouth. I’m not going to lie, it tasted pretty good so I went back for more. Emily, my new roommate, asked me how I liked it and I told her it wasn’t too shabby and that I really liked the carrots on top. Her response was, “What carrots?” Not good, I know! The little orange crubbly bits on top that I could have sworn were carrots, happened to be some type of fish eggs! I figured I liked it before I knew exactly what it was, but I just couldn’t bring myself to have any more pieces of that stuff. The mental picture was more than I could handle. So lesson learned: if people are eating something and it looks pretty good, just eat it and don’t ask for any details!

        I’m sure you all know that the US Olympic trials are next week and I’ve been tapering for the past 3 weeks or so. I don’t know about you guys, but my taper consists of a lot of lying around, movie watching, cat-naps, and finding new ways to past the time without having to be too active. This taper season I picked up a new hobby: poker! My boyfriend, Simon Burnett, lives just down the street so we’ve been hanging out quite a lot, trying to entertain each other, and one day I got a deck of cards out and he taught me how to play. Needless to say, I’ve been obsessed ever since! So after practice for the past 2 weeks, Simon and I would play about 3 hours of poker together using random change that I found in the couches and around the house. I felt like I was getting pretty good and we decided to have a little poker tourney at my house this past Saturday. It turned out to be little old me, and 12 guys from the team. Being the competitive girl I am, I desperately wanted to kick the guys’ butts, however, I only started playing about 10 days before so I was at a slight disadvantage. Everyone put in 10 dollars to play and the winner would take home $120, second place got $20 and third place got $10. All I wanted to do was get at least 3rd and win my money back, which I thought was pretty doable. So here we are, sitting at my kitchen table playing cards, and I’m chatting, getting up and getting people drinks and food and making cookies and whatnot, and it comes my turn to bet. I threw a couple chips in and pretty soon it was time to bet again. It was pretty pricey to match everyone’s bet so I decided to fold and just sat there as the rest of the river was laid out (we were playing Texas Holdem). I think Simon might have won that hand and I turned my cards over and threw them in to be shuffled for the next hand. In all my excitement to be playing poker for actual money, I forgot to look at the cards in my hand! When I gave my cards back for the next round, I realized I would have had a straight (4,5,6,7,8) and won the hand, along with a ton of chips, but I had forgotten what my cards were and folded! In the end, I managed to get 5th place, but luckily Simon won the whole tourney and even gave me my 10 bucks back  Soooo, lesson learned: when playing poker, look at your cards and don’t forget what they are!

        Speaking of poker, I’m just itching for a game right now! Just as an FYI, trials start this coming Sunday and I’ll be swimming the 100 fly, 100 free and 200IM…I’m so excited! I’ll keep you all updated as best as I can!

~Whit

     I knew random acts of kindness existed, but I’ve never really been on the receiving end of them before. It’s my roommate’s birthday today so we got up and went out to breakfast as a little treat.  If you’re ever in Tucson, you must go to the Good Egg for the most ridiculous cinnamon roll in the whole world…it totally puts Cinn-A-Bon to shame, seriously!  So we were waiting for our check and the waitress brings over this little card instead of the bill.  The card read: “You have just experienced a random act of kindness, as your meal has been paid for by an anonymous party.  Have a great day!”  How incredible is that!?!?  I couldn’t believe it!  But the weird part was that instead of feeling so great inside, I actually felt a bit guilty.  How come it’s so hard to accept nice things from other people without feeling like you owe them something?  I thought about it for a few minutes and remembered the movie Pay it Forward.  If you haven’t seen it before it’s about this little kid (the boy from The 6^th Sense) and he comes up with this great idea that if every person in the world did an act of kindness for 3 people, and then those 3 people did something nice for 3 more people, and so on and so on then the world would be a much happier place.  Anyways, so now, instead of having a feeling of guilt for not paying for my breakfast, I’ve decided that I’m going to pay it forward.  I don’t want it to be a big planned out thing, so I’m sure I’ll come across someone in need in the future and will be able to extend a helping hand to them and then hopefully they’ll do the same for someone else. 
     Another big shocker also happened this weekend…one of my old roommates/teammates, Erin Sieper, asked me to be in her wedding! SOOO FUN!  I know I’m 23, but it’s still crazy that a lot of my friends are getting engaged and getting married.  I guess it’s cause I still act like I’m 15 so I feel like growing up is still like 10 years away when in reality I should probably be starting to get my act together.  It’s okay to still be going with the flow though, right??  I’m having such a great time enjoying training and finishing up school that I don’t really feel the need to have my life all planned out right now.   Anybody have any advice for me???!!!
     K, well I’m off to wash my car and write up some lesson plans for this week.  I’m heading to a meet in Minnesota on Thursday so I’ve got to make sure I know what my students are doing while I’m outta town.  Hope everyone had a great weekend and keep training hard!

~Whit

I've been quite the little country girl lately.  I'm sure you're thinking, "Whitney's from Ohio, that's not that country" but in the past two weeks I've been to the Brooks and Dunn and Alan Jackson concert and watched a Pro Rodeo.

The concert was ridiculous! It was one of those concerts where you know every word to every song and can sing and dance along.  I took Simon Burnett, my boyfriend, who's from England and clearly doesn't know many country songs, but we were at an outside venue with lawn seats and it was a beautiful warm night and a bit romantic ;) The concert was in Phoenix so we made a little trip out of it and went up early for dinner and then spent the night at a hotel afterwards so we didn't have to drive home in the middle of the night. My favorite song was prolly Brooks and Dunn's "Rock My World Little Country Girl."  It's sorta older, but still a really great song.  If you've never been to a country concert, I definitely recommend it!  There are people there from all walks of life and the performers are quite entertaining even if you don't know all the words to sing along.

As for the rodeo, it was actually my second time going.  There's a few events to watch: bucking horses, calf roping, barrel racing and bull riding.  I think there may be another event or two, but we missed some because we were walking around buying freshly made kettle corn and new cowboy hats.  Although it's a bit hick style, there really are all types of people at the rodeo. 

True cowboys walking around in their tight wrangers and roughed up cowboy boots, college girls in their jean skirts and polo shirts, older couples with flashy jewelry and nice purses, and then there's me, a bit of a wanna be dressed up in my cowboy style jeans that are actually a part of one of my old dance costumes, a wife beater and a pair of cowboy boots i got from dillards.  I looked the part, even if i was a bit of a fake. I'm still learning the rules, but one thing that annoys me a little is that on the bull riding and bucking horses, you have to stay on the animals for 8 seconds and then you get judged on your style of riding and also how well the animal bucked.  I understand being judged on style, just like gymnastics or figure skating, but how is it fare to be judged on how well the horse or bull bucks??? There is no way for the rider to control that and as a competitive person that would really tick me off! The next time the rodeo comes to town is in February and that one is huge and lasts all week long and schools in town actually close for "rodeo week break".  So if you're looking to take a vacation in February, head on down to Tucson for some warm weather and some rodeo entertainment!  You will NOT be disappointed!

- Whit

Hey guys! I have been quite the busy little bee the past week or so.  I was in Colorado Springs for a day or so last week for a US Olympic sponsors get together, which was really fun getting to talk to people from Coke, Johnson and Johnson, AT&T, etc. Everyone seems to be getting really excited about the games next summer and it's fun knowing that it's just around the corner!  It gets me pumped up to go back home and hit the training pretty hard so I can give myself the best chance to accomplish my goals.

As for my weekend...it was pretty chill.  I was quite exhausted from traveling and practices and I had to take a big ole nap on Saturday to try to recover a bit.  We had our second home football game Saturday night and although Arizona isn't the best team, it's still really fun to go and tailgate with other athletes and cheer on your friends.  That's prolly been my favorite part about swimming in college, just getting to meet and hang out with other athletes from other sports is so fun! We ended up losing the game (and I have to admit that I left at half time) but I couldn't help it...all I wanted to do was go dancing! hahha! We had recruits in town this weekend so no one on the team was available so I gathered up some of my older friends and dragged them to this little country spot called the Cactus Moon. Seriously, if any of you are ever in Tucson, Ill take you there and you'll have the time of your life! Sooooooo fun!

I just got back yesterday from my last little adventure which was to Portland, Oregon.  That's where Nike's main campus is and so me and the other Nike swimmers all went out there this week, and I had a great time with Brendan Hansen, Kaitlin Sandeno, Jason Lezak, Aaron Peirsol, Cullen Jones and Maritza Correia swimming together, hanging out, talking about our lives and what not. Oregon is such a beautiful state and I can totally see myself working for Nike and living out there...but who knows if that'll ever happen.   Nike is a great company and definitely treated us like rock stars!

But now I'm back in the real world and actually went straight from the airport yesterday to the high school for parent-teacher conferences, which was definitely a new experience for me.  I'm still pretty tired from running around the last few days but I was a huge dork and went to bed at 8 last night and that helped a little.  I'll keep you all updated on any other fun things going on :)

Talk to you soon!

Whit

Week two of training completed! YEA! Practice was so fun today, well as fun as a 3 hour practice can be. Hahaha. We played this game we call Busch Ball, obviously named after Frank Busch, and its sorta like soccer and ultimate frisbee combined.  You use a volleyball and can dribble it like a soccer ball but once you pick it up, you have to stop running and pass it to a teammate.  We got to play on the practice football field today which made it a bit more fun because there was soooo much room.  The girls played against each other and the boys had their own game just cause sometimes it gets a bit rough and the boys can be a bit aggressiveIm sure you can imagine a bunch of competition college kids running around. Its definitely intense! So yeah, we played for like 45 minutes and it was a great workout because everyone got really involved and we were all really getting after it, ya know?  Then we got in and swam for 2 hours, but everyone was in such a good mood from the Busch Ball game that it seemed to go by pretty fast.  Dont you just love when the coaches make it fun to be there?!  I know I sure do! Hahaha!

So now here I am, exhausted from practice, sitting on my couch watching only the best show in the history of TV: Law and Order!! Im sure Ill pass out shortly, so I better sign off.  Im sure a lot of you are getting back to training and if youre like me, you feel like a 6 and under who can barely swim.  I start to feel better and better everyday so try to stay positive and be patient! Ill write again soon!

~ Whitney

You won't even believe what I did today...I started student-teaching!!! Scary, I know! My major is science education and so part of my requirement to graduate includes student-teaching. So here I am, teaching biology at Tucson Magnet High School. I didn't really introduce myself that well today, just basically my name, but I figured the kids will have pleanty of time to get to know me as the year goes. In my second period class a boy came up to me afterwards and asked if I swam for the University of Arizona. Can you believe that?! I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've been recognized outside of the pool and who would have thought it'd be by one of my students?? It turns out his dad swims masters and so he's been to some of our meets and stuff, but still, kind cool, huh?

Back tracking a bit to nationals, I was definitely disappointed with how I swam.

Yes, they were my fastest times this season, which is a plus, but all my swims were pretty far off my best and even farther off my goal times I set for myself. It was a really hard meet to keep my act together because it would have been pretty easy for me to just pack my bags and head home. Instead, I made a conscious decision to keep a positive attitude, give my best effort, enjoy the moment, and just keep working towards making each swim better as the meet went by.  I am extremely thankful that my parents were there to support me and I'm not sure I could have survived without them. After each session I went back to their hotel where they fixed me some home-cooked meals and just enjoyed their company without having to think about the meet. It was so nice to be able to take my mind off things, ya know?  It's also a great feeling to realize that they are there for me in success and disappointments.  Coach Busch was also great and I know he believes in me and my ability to turn things around for next summer. I could keep writing about the meet and everything I learned about myself, but I'll just give you little tid-bits as time goes by, k?

Ok, well I'm actually sitting in my classroom between my teaching periods and I better get off to go monitor the halls. yeah, I'm a huge dork! Sorry it's been so long since I've written but after nationals I went back with my parents to our house in oxford, ohio and since, I've just been enjoying a little break from  working out. Hope you all had a great summer and I'll write again soon!

~Whit

   It’s official…I got a new car!!! I’ve been driving a ’99 VW bug for the past three years and I don’t have any complaints about the way it looked but I’ve had so many problems with it: new engine, two new batteries, new brakes, new tires, two transmission problems, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.  I know some of the stuff I couldn’t avoid, like new tires and brakes, but when you’re away at school and your roommate and boyfriend don’t have a car you’re pretty much stranded if your car is in the shop.  And for me, that was about once a month.  Also, I saw a really bad accident on the 4^th of July and the first thing I thought of was the fact that my little bug would have gotten completely squished if I would have been involved and I hated that feeling.  

   So after talking with my parents, we all decided that a new car would be a good idea.  I wanted something that was a bit bigger and something that would keep me as safe as possible.  There’s a dealer in town whose name is Jim Click and he’s a big supporter of Arizona athletics and has even sponsored the club team I swim for (Tucson Ford Dealers Aquatics).  I knew he would take good car of me so the first and only placed I looked was the Ford dealership.  After spending several hours with the salesman, I’m extremely excited to say I bought a 2007 Ford Edge!  When I told my teammates that’s what I got, they were all like, “That’s awesome but I don’t know what it is.”  This car just came out for the first time in January but it’s considered a crossover and the best way to describe it is that it basically looks like the Lexis SUV…a smaller, very cute and feminine SUV.  I’m not really all about the supped-up cars, but it came with 18” chrome rims…that’s kinda hip right? Haha. See, I’m totally clueless about that stuff. The best part about this car is that it has 6 airbags and they even stay inflated if the car rolls so I feel pretty safe in it.  I’ll try to get a pic of it and put it on my profile so you all will know it’s me if you see me out on the town!

Okay, well, that’s all for now.

~Whit

We’re starting to taper and Frank likes to give us a few days of good recovery and then we really get into the sprint portion of our season.  I am definitely not complaining!
            I know I haven’t talked about swimming all that much in my blogs, but I had sort of a break through weekend and wanted to share it with you guys.  So I was at the Santa Clara meet last weekend and it was freaking fast, to say the least.  Although it’s extremely frustrating at times, I’m slowly learning to come to terms with the fact that I am not a great in-season swimmer.  No matter how hard I try or how excited I am to race, my times are still really far off my best.  I think to myself, how can all these other people go within a second or two of their best times and I’m like 7 or 8 seconds off???  I try to remind myself that I can only worry about what I’m doing and if the effort is there at all times, then the fast swims will come, but it’s soooo hard staying positive when you’re getting your but kicked! Frank Busch, who is Arizona’s head coach and is the coach of the group I swim in, wasn’t at the meet this weekend and we had our assistant coach, Rick DeMont with us instead.  I obviously don’t work with Rick on a daily basis but we have a great relationship and he is the best technician I know when it comes to swimming.  He sat me down before my 200free and we talked about my race plan.  I told him I just wanted to go out there and kill myself from the beginning, because then I would know that I gave it absolutely all I had. He just laughed at me.  Then he pulled out the heat sheet where he had written down some splits he thought would get me to a descent swim.  My best time is a 1:59 but the fastest I’ve been this season is 2:06…see, I told you I’m really far off in season!  Rick told me he thought I could go a 2:05 and that would be a great swim for me; a swim I could be proud of.  He went on to say that the girls in my heat will probably be moving pretty fast and I may be totally left in their dust, but not to give up. I needed to stay within myself and keep getting after it even though I may be behind.  I’m sure some of you have heard this before, but I really needed to hear it right then, and from someone I trusted and respected.  During the race I just kept telling myself “you can do it, keep working for it, put up a good fight.”  When I touched, I looked back at the score board and I had gone a 2:03! I couldn’t believe it!  That swim alone gave me such a confidence boost…a badly needed boost, might I add…but it also gave me a new way to approach my races.  Instead of looking around and thinking about what everyone else is doing, I need to focus on myself and keep my mind in my own lane.  Yeah, girls in my heat went 2:01’s but I was stoked about my 2:03 because it was a great swim for me and I felt like I got so much more out of it than just the time…which is what sports are all about anyways, right?  Point being: keep throwing those punches and eventually you’ll land a big one!

Keep working hard…but playing even harder,

- Whit

Hey strangers!!!  In case you’ve forgotten, it’s me…Whitney! Haha.  Wow, I’ve been busy to say the least.  Let’s see, the trip to DC was super fun.  I did a lot of site seeing on my own and managed to sneak into the Marriot hotel to get a few laps in.  The following weekend I headed up to Phoenix, AZ for the Phoenix Women in Sports Association dinner which I received the college-athlete of the year award.  It was an awesome night and my coach, Frank Busch and his wife and daughter joined me for the evening.  The event was held at the Biltmore Hotel, which is absolutely ridiculous, and there was also a live auction which made the night very exciting.  We also went to see the Body Worlds exhibit while we were up in PHX and I would definitely recommend it to any athlete.  It’s this exhibit with about 20 different cadavers and they’re all posed in different athletic stances and all their skin and fat and whatnot is removed so it’s just bones and lean muscles.  I know, it sounds a bit creepy, but it was really sweet.  You should get online and read more about it or even see if it’s coming to a city in your area.
                On a bit of a sadder note, my grandpa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the beginning of my and was given 3-6 months to live.  Although he was 89, it was still pretty devastating news because he’s always been so active and has been the one to take care of my grandma and now the roles were reversed.  I decided it was best to go visit them in Columbia, Missouri over memorial weekend and am so thankful that I went when I did.  The first night I got there I visited my grandpa in the hospital and he was still quite perky and cracked jokes with me and bragged to the nurses about his oldest granddaughter (me).  By the time I left, which was only 3 days later, he had slipped into a coma.  I couldn’t believe how quickly everything progressed.  I left Missouri feeling really sad for my grandma, my mom and her 7 siblings, but felt at piece with the fact that I knew my grandpa wasn’t suffering and was sleeping peacefully.  He passed away 2 days after I left.  I asked my mom if it was bad or wrong that I wasn’t as sad about the fact that he died as I was when I saw him aching and struggling to breathe with the pneumonia he caught in the hospital.  She told me she felt sorta the same way, but she figures we’ll be most sad when we want to give him a call to chat about things going on in our lives or during the holidays when we would make trips to visit each other.  I would have to agree. 
                Ok, enough of the tear jerker stuff… I was invited up to Portland, Oregon for a Nike sales meeting this past weekend (I know, I’ve done a lot of traveling lately but most of it has been on the weekend so it hasn’t really disturbed my training all that much, which is definitely a plus).  It was the first time I’ve been to the Nike campus and I couldn’t believe this place!  It was like its own little college with beautifully landscaped lawns and gardens, lakes, workout facilities, cafeterias, and of course, lots of office buildings.  I was told that the campus employs 4,500 people, so yeah, it’s a pretty big place.  I’m actually heading back up there next week for a photo shoot for their fall fitness catalog and I’m pumped!  It should be a great time as we’re shooting in the mountains.  But that isn’t until Monday, seeing as I have a meet in Mission Viejo, CA this weekend. 
                OK, that’s all I’ve got for now and I think you guys are pretty caught up with everything that’s been going on in my life.  Actually, I did forget to mention that my mom, aunt and 3 of my cousins came to visit me at school for the past 4 days and we had a great time laying out, visiting the desert museum, eating big dinner, you know, the usual family stuff.  They’re leaving in the morning so I’m going to sign off and make the most of their last few hours here.  Hope everything is going great for all of you and keep up the hard work because I guarantee it’ll pay off…even it’s when you least expect it!

~Whit 

     I had a crazy-packed weekend!!!  Graduation was this weekend and I though it’d be fun to throw a party for my best friend, Simon Burnett.  I’m sure some of you know Simon or have at least heard his name.  He’s a British swimmer that also swam for the U. of A. and has been known to have a pretty killer 200y freestyle.  I went all out for this party…let me tell you!  I got P.F. Changs to cater it and I fired up my chocolate fountain and had fresh pineapple, mangos, blackberries and strawberries to dip in the chocolate.  I also made this great fruit punch with sherbet and everyone loved it!  To finish things off, I had a 5 layer chocolate cake and also a white sheet cake with a mouse filling.  I know, I totally out did myself!  A bunch of kids from the team came and also all the coaches and some of the athletic department administrators were there too.  Not really your typical college party, but I felt very grown up and sophisticated and everyone seemed to have a great time. 

     So that was this past Friday and Saturday I went to my coach’s son’s graduation party, which was also very fun.  Coach Busch has 5 kids and it was cool to celebrate his youngest son’s graduation with them.  They had some awesome food and we just sat around chatting and playing corn hole and basketball.  Maybe some of you Midwesterns have heard of a little game called corn hole, but it’s still pretty rare out in ‘zona.  For those who have no clue what I’m talking about, this game has 2 wood wedge-shaped platforms and there are 2 teams of 2 people.  The platforms are positioned across from each other with one person from each team standing behind them.  Each person gets 4 bean bags and they throw it towards the platform across from them and try to get it in the hole.  After reading that description, I’m sure some of you think it sounds kinda lame, but there’s gotta be a few of you out there that can vowedge for me that it is actually a lot of fun. 
    
     So yeah, that was pretty much my weekend, plus a little party clean-up and dinner with my friend and her family.  Now I’m just chillin in the Tucson airport waiting to leave for DC.  I’ll be sure to write again on my way back home and tell you all about my week!

- Whitney

       YEA SWIMROOM!  I’m so happy to finally be apart of this awesome site!  For those of you that don’t really know me, I guess you could just read my bio, but that’s not as fun as me talking about myself. Ha!  I’m 22 years old and I’m from a small town called Oxford, Ohio.  I moved out to Tucson, Arizona about 4 years ago and am now a senior at the University of Arizona.  I know I said I’m a senior, but I took this semester off of school to focus on training for the World Championships and knew I’d also be missing a lot of class due to traveling, so I won’t actually be graduating until next May.  Sad, I know. 

                It was quite a long championship season for me having to race hard at the Pac-10 championships, then at NCAAs, then Worlds and finally the Duel in the Pool.  I had a great time, don’t get me wrong, but it was extremely exhausting physically and mentally.  I knew it was going to be a draining month or two, so after Worlds I took a week off in Australia and traveled around with my friend and teammate, Lacey Nymeyer. It was freaking awesome, to say the least!  We did the Sydney bridge climb, took a cruise around the Sydney harbor, white water rafted in Cairns, hiked through the rain forest, went to a crocodile farm, scuba dove at the Great Barrier Reef, and all sorts of fun stuff.  It was by far the best vacation I’ve ever had, and Lace and I were so proud of ourselves for doing everything without the help of our parents.  So now, I’m back in AZ and have been training for the past few weeks, trying desperately to get back in shape.  Our coach, Frank Busch, always gives the team a week to go home after school is done, so next week I’m going to visit a friend for a couple of days.  She’s all grown up and works in D.C. but it should be nice just to catch up with her and have a few days of fun.  No worries, I’ll find a pool when I get there to keep up with the training. 

                Well, I guess that’s all for now.  I’ll be sure to write again soon and tell you all about my adventures!