Swimming Blogs - Joshua Baseheart

Swimming with the best...

So it has been a while since my last post, but I have been busy! Two weekends ago, I went down to Austin for the American Long Course Championships, and I had a blast. I rested for about three days, and had a slow start, but finished the meet with a best time in the 100 free. Dropping two tenths was cool, but the best part about it was that I was not fully tapered for it, which hopefully means I'll swim faster this summer when I am!

Before the meet in Austin though, I had the opportunity to train with Club Wolverine (I should really say "try and keep up" with Club Wolverine) for three days, between sessions of watching my younger brother Kevin swim at Big 10's. I am a sprinter, so I should have known better than to jump into a lane between Peter Vanderkaay and Erik Vendt, but I couldn't resist. And not to my surprise, I got pounded. Even on a set of 50's easy/fast, I could not beat anybody. I think the set I did the best on was 25's fast kicking - anything longer than that and I was toast. I also held up pretty well on a dive set of 100's... well, at least on the first 25 of each. After that, I was just trying my best to keep up. I got crushed, crushed, yelled at by Jon for skipping a practice, and crushed again. Regardless of the beating, it was a great experience, to try and race Phelps on a dive set, and to be coached by Jon Urbancheck for a few days. Definitely an inspirational and motivational couple of days for me there...

The meet in Austin was a blast, and the food was delicious (if you like good barbeque, Austin is the place for you!). Like I said, I only rested three days, and was kind of worried the first day when I had just an OK 50. I was still pretty tired, and my voice hadn't fully recovered yet from cheering at Big 10's, but I wasn't doing terribly, so I tried to relax. The next day, I had the 200 free, which was fun, but hard. That race is a little long for me... I had the 100 free on the last day, and went my best prelim time ever, and then made precisely the changes I wanted to for finals, and went a best time. It was pretty exciting - though, when you are 25, working full time, and still swimming, any best time is pretty exciting! So the meet turned out well, and Adam and I had a great time staying with family of one of our friends. The picture is of Adam and I with their three kids, Quinn, Crayton, and Coby. They were a lot of fun!

After the American Long course Meet, a program called S.W.I.M. (Swimming With Inspiration and Motivation) put on the "Encore" meet. This meet was a fundraiser for S.W.I.M., a program that is helping low socio-economic kids in Austin learn to swim. I stuck around, and not only did I get to watch, but I got to be a part of it! Seeing as how everybody else in the meet were world-class swimmers, I felt pretty honored to be part of such an elite group. The goal for the meet was to set as many world and American records as possible, and to put on a great show for the crowd. Tara Kirk set two new American records - in the 50 and 100 breast (technically three, because I think she set the 50 record twice), and there were several other near-misses. There was a live band, and between each race, they played intro videos that all of the athletes had recorded beforehand. The videos were all pretty entertaining, and all of the action made it hard to want to prepare for my own races. I did the 50 and the 100 free, and I did not get last, which I was pretty happy with! I went best times, which really didn't mean much, since this is only the second short course meter meet I've done in the past 8 years!

I had a great time taking part in the Encore meet, and not only was it fun for me, it was a great thing for the kids in S.W.I.M. Some of them were down on deck and got to high-five all the swimmers as we would walk out before our races. I know that the meet raised lots of money for the program, which is great to hear - we need more programs like that! I am a part of the Milwaukee Aquatic Association, which has basically the same goals, so it was a good learning experience for me too. Hopefully at some point, we can be as strong of a program as S.W.I.M.!

All in all, my trip down to Austin was a great time, as was my trip to Michigan the week before. Each one of these trips gets me more and more excited for trials this summer, where I'll be both competing against and cheering for some new friends.