Yesterday at swim practice, and I kid you not my swim coach says, now until your big meet (Feb 9-12) you may not have any desserts. You need to be tapering here people. We are cutting down your yardage and many of you gained weight over the summer and you’ll simply get fat if you don’t eat well during taper.

Well my friends, I’m still having dessert. So there. I like to pretend I’m a rebel (without a cause…)

Today I write to you while traveling back from Burlington. We had a swim meet, actually, our last one (besides championships). My favorite part of the journey is that I get free wifi all the way to and from my meet. HOLLA. Extreme amount of blog reading? I did get a little bit of homework done on the journey as well.

But anywho-I also have a confession to make. After wearing compression socks (different pairs of course, for four days straight, I had to take them off. There were literally lines going down my calves due to how tight those babies were. Someone actually asked me what was going on with lines on my legs. But at least my calves feel amazing and I get my 20 miles of running in this week.

For breakfast we stopped at a local diner and I had silver dollar pancakes. They were certainly not my favorite pancakes of all time (or actually at all) but carbs are carbs so you can’t complain.

But this wasn’t really meant to be a food blog today, more or less meant to talk about the season of swimming.

As I have said before on my blog, I have swum since as long as I can remember. I have been staring at the bottom of pools for years and have somehow continued to love it. This season, however, was a little harder for me to love. I have added almost an entire minute to my 1000 time. For my running friends, that is similar to adding a minute to your mile time. So adding 3 to a 5k and 6 to a 0k…ECT. I went from getting first in dual meets-to third or fourth MAYBE…But you know what?

I still had my friends and still had fun. I still (barely) qualified for the championship meet that I made finals in last year.

So the culmination of my junior year of swimming comes down to one final meet (February 9-12).

Before I started cross country this season, my dad and I had a really long talk. A heart to heart if you will. He told me of the potential I had for running and the fun that I would probably have. He warned that not every workout and every race would be sunny skies, but if I was interested that I should give it a try. The last thing he said was Hollie, if may affect your swimming and you might not do as well because often with triatheletes they became very good at 3 sports, versus extremely good at one.

I, of course, listened intensely but I didn’t really believe that I would have a bad season if that makes sense. Kind of like-I’m invincible that wouldn’t happen to me, teens who don’t think they’ll catch the pregs, drunk drivers who get caught…ya know that whole mentality of it happens to others but never to me….

But he also said another thing that will probably leave a lasting impression in my life, not many people get the choice to choose between two things that they love and I should be grateful for it. Well dad (if you are reading this), I certainly am grateful for this season, for my cross country season, and for my family and life in general.

While some people may complain about a rough season, I take it as an opportunity to strive for better results next year. But for now, I’ll focus on tapering for my final championship meet and beginning some light running.

In case you wondered, I’m probably going to swim the mile, 500 and 200 butterfly. I don’t like the 200 freestyle at all and wouldn’t place well. Last year I placed top 6 in the mile but this year I’ll be lucky to honestly place top 50.

Because for me swimming is always a party...

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Day 11-A picture of you looking overly excited. I find this one to be the most excited I have ever been to swim the 200 butterfly. The sad part is-I wasn’t posing.

Question for you:
Have you ever had to choose between two things you absolutely loved?