Grade A Morning

It was a balmy 35 degrees outside the FGCU Aquatic Center.  The sun had yet to peak itself over the eastern shoreline, but the Howard Swimming and Diving team emerged from their peaceful slumber and arrived ready to go to work at 6:30AM.
We stretched and did some ab work, which will be the norm for most of our mornings at FGCU.  Despite the difficulty of the practice being elevated from yesterday afternoon, the Bison were quite eager to get into the water with the temperature on deck being about 40 degrees cooler than in the water.


As the sun begins to rise, the Bison plow forward with the glaring focus of their Midwestern namesake.

Throughout the week, we will be incorporating a grading scale for each swimmer based on their performance and commitment to achieving a higher standard of excellence.  Individually, everyone will receive a mark out of 10 points.  The top three performers will be posted on this blog site with the overall practice champion receiving a Practice Champion Popcorn Chalice (engraved in Sharpie with their name, date and accomplishment.) This durable, plastic, dishwasher safe goblet also comes with a microwave bag of premium buttered popcorn.

This morning's top three performers:

#3 - Steven Lott - great job w/free kick set, staying underwater the longest - nice effort in 4x125s to close the morning (score of 6.5)

#2 - Kelvin Goodman - got in a nice rhythm immediately after warm-up - terrific IM set including overtaking lead in lane (score of 7.)
#1 - Chelsea Andrews - very focused in pull set, gained strength throughout main IM set - took command of set in final 35 minutes of practice (score of 7.5.) CHELSEA IS OUR FIRST EVER CHALICE CHAMPION in HU HISTORY- Congratulations!

According to Al Roker, we've survived the coldest day of our trip, which most of us find to be super news.  We're back in the water at 2PM...dryland to follow...